Opinion

THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon

One of my favorite stories as a child was “Stone Soup.”

I don’t know if you know it or not. It’s an old European folktale, and there are a lot of variations, but in most of them two soldiers come into a town during a war. They ask for food, and everyone tells them they have nothing to eat. So the soldiers build a fire, and they ask an old woman if they can borrow a pot because they are going to make stone soup.

L&T Publisher Earl Watt

Kamala Harris, and many on the extreme left, love to manipulate the language to advance socialist policies without them sounding so socialist.

That happened recently when Harris tried to explain the difference between equality and equity.

Strangely enough, in her definition, they both end up with all people in the same place.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Todd Stanton, Seward County, KS

The Seward County Commission estimates the 2025 budget requires an 8 to 9 mill increase in taxation. This 18.7-21.0 percent increase in taxes levied by the county doesn’t include levies for city, community college, and schools. In addition to the mill rate increase, the residential property valuations in Seward County climbed 7 percent in 2024.

The real world effect is not only could you pay a 21 percent increase in county residential property tax but the property value on which you pay the rate is also markedly higher. All renters will pay more as rents go up to meet increased taxes.

GUEST  COLUMN, Vance Ginn Kansas Policy Institute

Kansas has been simmering in economic stagnation for decades, trailing behind national averages in job growth, population increases, and economic growth. Like a poorly tended grill, high taxes and selective business subsidies have smoked out potential growth, leaving stagnation rather than sustenance.

From 1979 to 2022, Kansas’s private job growth was just 53 percent compared to the national average of 88 percent. Imagine the vibrancy of having an additional 451,000 jobs in the state — jobs that could have been fostered with more competitive tax policies.