Has the World turned upside down and inside out? 

Charlotte O'Hara

How can Kansas with a Republican Governor and Republican control of both the House and Senate pass budgets that have a 6.7% increase in the State General Fund?  How can an amendment to the appropriations bill in the House enacting a spending freeze at 2011 levels only garner 8 votes out 125?  Why wasn't the one-cent increase in Kansas' state sales tax repealed, a repeal on which many freshmen Republicans ran?

How can east coast governors, in the land of liberals, Republican Governor Christie and Democrat Governor Cuomo cut spending to begin to bring their budgets under control while Kansas, in the land of conservatives, increase spending by 6.7% over 2011 levels and an astounding 15% increase over 2010?

The world indeed seems to have turned upside down and inside out!

Well, here's my perspective for what it is worth.  Governor Brownback came home to Kansas after 12 years in Washington with a wonderful opportunity to lead our state out of this spending addiction cycle of more resources going to the public sector, which requires ever increasing our taxes, which drives more and more businesses out of Kansas, which requires even more increases in taxes. 

Governor Brownback choose to go the less bold road of holding the status quo (opposed the repeal of the one cent sales tax and raided KDOT for $200 million) with promises that as soon as the Legislature is out of session and the administration sees our tail lights leaving, that is when the changes will be made!

OK, nice story, but I thought it was the Legislature's job to pass a conservative appropriations bill that would have at least capped spending at 2011 level and made the necessary cuts to truly balance our books. Yes, education would have taken an additional $257 million in cuts (approximately 8% total cut), but the state's reserves would have increased by $200 million. 

Meanwhile the schools have $750 million of unencumbered cash in their reserve funds while the state reserves estimated in the House version of the appropriations bill is $78 million (which is now reduced an additional $10.1 million due to ANOTHER increase in estimates of Human Resources caseloads).  Schools are setting on more that 10 times the amount of estimated reserves for the entire Kansas State Budget!

So my friends, it's up to you, because you cannot trust the overwhelming Republican House and Senate to abide by the Republican platform of less government, lower taxes or opposing illegal immigration (interesting how Republicans went flying from the immigration issue, but at least now I know who I don't want in a foxhole to watch my back).

No Topeka's "kick the can on down the road" mantra is alive and well with the attitude of "there's always next year when we politicians will really be brave and will get the job done".  Do you know how long that excuse has been used?  It seems this annual game plan has been used extensively in both the Senate (well, at least they have the reputation of being liberal) and the House (that really surprised me, because I really believed House Leadership was fiscally conservative).

With the budgets that the House and Senate passed we simply have set ourselves up with an impossible task for the 2013 budget year that will require even deeper cuts (which we won't make) and the sunset of the .6 cent sales tax will be kissed goodbye.

Peasants with pitchforks are needed to get the attention of the Topeka elite. They don't think that you, the voters, are paying attention.  The Topeka elite believes that they can operate in the Capitol bubble and not have to bear the consequences at the ballot box in 2012.  I hope they are wrong, because we need another dramatic defeat of incumbents who annually pass appropriation bills with spending increases intact.  Then and only then will the message come through loud and clear, the good people of Kansas will not stand by and watch silently as their state is brought to the brink of bankruptcy.

Charlotte O'Hara
Representative, 27th District

When will Obama crack in public?
  April 19, 2011

Mychal Massie

At a time when many Americans can barely afford Burger King and a movie, Obama boasts of spending a billion dollars on his re-election campaign. Questioned at a recent appearance about the spiraling fuel costs, Obama said, "Get used to it" - and with an insouciant grin and chortle, he told another person at the event, who complained about the effect high fuel prices were having on his family, to "get a more fuel-efficient car." 

The Obamas behave as if they were sharecroppers living in a trailer and hit the Powerball, but instead of getting new tires for their trailer and a new pickup truck, they moved to Washington. And instead of making possum pie, with goats and chickens in the front yard, they're spending and living large at taxpayer expense - opulent vacations, gala balls, resplendent dinners and exclusive command performances at the White House, grand date nights, golf, basketball, more golf, exclusive resorts and still more golf. 

Expensive, ill-fitting and ill-chosen wigs and fashions hardly befit the first lady of the United States. The Obamas have behaved in every way but presidential - which is why it's so offensive when we hear Obama say, in order "to restore fiscal responsibility, we all need to share in the sacrifice - but we don't have to sacrifice the America we believe in." 

The American people have been sacrificing; it is he and his family who are behaving as if they've never had two nickels to rub together - and now, having hit the mother lode, they're going to spend away their feelings of inadequacy at the taxpayers' expense. 

Obama continues to exhibit behavior that, at best, can be described as mobocratic and, at worst, reveals a deeply damaged individual. In a February 2010 column, I asked, "Is Obama unraveling?" I wrote that it was beginning to appear the growing mistrust of him and contempt for his policies was beginning to have a destabilizing effect on him. 

At that time, I wrote that not having things go one's way can be a bitter pill, but reasonable people don't behave as he was behaving. He had insulted Republicans at their luncheon, where he had been an invited guest. I had speculated that was, in part, what had led him to falsely accuse Supreme Court justices before Congress, the nation and the world, during the 2010 State of the Union address. 

It appeared, at that time, as if he were "fraying around the emotional edges." That behavior has not abated - it has become more pronounced. While addressing the nation, after being forced to explain the validity of his unilateral aggression with Libya, America witnessed a petulant individual scowling and scolding the public for daring to insist he explain his actions. 

But during an afternoon speech to address the budget/debt, he took his scornful, unstable despotic behavior to depths that should give the nation cause for concern. Displaying a dark psychopathy more representative of an episode of "The Tudors" television series, he invited Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to sit in the front row during his speech and then proceeded to berate both Ryan and Ryan's budget-cutting plan. Even liberal Democrats were put off by the act. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough questioned the sanity of Obama's actions. 

Today, criticism is coming from all sides. A senior Democrat lawmaker said, "I have been very disappointed in [Obama], to the point where I'm embarrassed that I endorsed him. It's so bad that some of us are thinking, is there some way we can replace him? How do you get rid of this guy?" ("Democrats' Disgust with Obama," The Daily Beast, April 15, 2011) 

Steve McCann wrote: Obama's speech "was chock full of lies, deceit and crass fear-mongering. It must be said that [he] is the most dishonest, deceitful and mendacious person in a position of power I have ever witnessed" ("The Mendacity of Barack Obama,"AmericanThinker.com, April 15, 2011). 

McCann continued: "[His] performance was the culmination of four years of outright lies and narcissism that have been largely ignored by the media, including some in the conservative press and political class who are loath to call [him] what he is in the bluntest of terms: a liar and a fraud. That he relies on his skin color to intimidate, either outright or by insinuation [against] those who oppose his radical agenda only add to his audacity. It is apparent that he has gotten away with his character flaws his entire life, aided and abetted by sycophants around him. ..."

With these being among the kinder rebukes being directed at Obama, and with people becoming less intimidated by his willingness to use race as a bludgeon, with falling poll numbers in every meaningful category and an increasingly aggressive tea-party opposition - how much longer before he cracks completely? 

The coming months of political life are not going to be pleasant for Obama. Possessed by a self-perceived palatine mindset, that in his mind places him above criticism, how long before he cracks in public? Can America risk a man with a documented track record of lying and misrepresenting truth as a basic way of life, who is becoming increasingly more contumelious?

 Mychal Massie is chairman of the National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives-Project 21 - a conservative black think tank located in Washington, D.C. He was recognized as the 2008 Conservative Man of the Year by the Conservative Party of Suffolk County, N.Y. He is a nationally recognized political activist, pundit and columnist. He has appeared on Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NBC, Comcast Cable and talk radio programming nationwide. A former self-employed business owner of more than 30 years, Massie can be followed at mychal-massie.com.

 Classes forming now for 2012