Sunday editorial: What is wrong with my state?
Commentary by Andy Speagle, Vice Chairman, Sumner County Democratic Party — What is wrong with my state?
Like many of you, I’m a born, raised and educated citizen of Kansas. I grew up in a small town and was always amazed at the beauty of this state and the friendliness and caring that I saw from my fellow Kansans. I served for nearly a decade in the U.S. Army, and upon my departure from that institution I looked forward to returning home to my native land. Sadly, as the years have drawn on, I’ve become somewhat less enamored with my home state.
Andy Speagle
The current failed government experiment, led by Governor Brownback and his cronies in Topeka, threatens to destroy our state. As we stare down the barrel of another almost $300 million revenue shortfall, we are left looking forward to another raiding of our highway funds, primary, secondary and higher education budgets, retirement funds and other key social programs. The government’s continued refusal to expand Medicaid via the Affordable Care Act leaves many of our seniors paying much higher medical care costs than necessary. Why? How could this happen to the state I call home? How did we allow this to happen?
It’s clear that our governor and state legislators have forgotten that their jobs are to serve the people; not themselves, not special interests and not their big business buddies. What’s ultimately sadder is that we seem to be continuing to allow this. When did we forget that the folks in Topeka don’t rule us, aren’t our lords and masters and are elected merely to represent and serve our best interests? Does anyone truly believe it’s in our best interests for our schools to go unfunded, for our highways to fall into disrepair, for our citizens to be denied access to affordable health care options?
This keeps happening because we, the people of this state, continue to surrender our sovereignty by electing and reelecting these so-called “representatives of the people†into office. We blindly vote along party lines, not really understanding what harm those actions will bring to ourselves and our neighbors. We seem to be so locked into these old ways of thinking that we can’t see the cliff coming until we’re already falling.
How many more years of these disastrous state fiscal policies must we endure before we come to our senses and remember that this is OUR democracy? How much more damage to our state will we allow before we grab the wheel back from these elected officials and avoid going over the cliff? How many of you aren’t registered to vote, or are, but don’t vote and yet see what’s going on in the state and feel powerless to fix it?
You’re not powerless. Your vote is your power. If you’re not registered to vote, fix it, get registered. If you don’t vote, fix it, show up to vote in the upcoming primaries on August 2 and the general election on November 8. If you don’t vote, you’re surrendering your power, your sovereignty to the elected officials in Topeka who clearly don’t care about you. You’re telling them to do whatever they want with Kansas, because you just don’t care anymore.
I hope, as a fellow Kansan who cares for his or her state, you’ll stand with me this year to cast your vote for a different state legislature. The Sumner County Democratic Party meets the first Thursday of each month at the Wellington Library at 7 p.m. Please come join us to learn more about how you can become involved with helping to take back Kansas from the abuses of the current legislature that continues to serve the disastrous Brownback policies.
Please use the following contact information to get in touch with the Sumner County Democratic Party for more information:
Danette Harris, Chair – danette.harris@yahoo.com
Andy Speagle, Vice-Chair – andy.speagle@gmail.com
Cristel Heffron, Treasurer – sunchild327@gmail.com
