H. Edward Flentje: Rural Kansas will pay price

[Scuba]

http://www.kansas.com/2013/05/05/2788411/h-edward-flentje-rural-kansas.html?fb_action_ids=10151390672316931&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B602228723122079%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

Republican radicalism thrives here in Kansas, the reddest of red states, and within our state, in the reddest counties. But our brand of red-state radicalism does not bode especially well for the future of rural Kansas.

The antics of U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, who represents many of the state’s rural residents, threaten the federal spending on which these Kansans heavily rely. And Gov. Sam Brownback’s perilous experiment in eliminating the state income tax has placed state services in jeopardy and will eventually push more school funding onto property taxes, driving the high property-tax burdens of rural residents even higher.

Curiously, voters in the reddest counties of Kansas cheer the loudest for both Huelskamp and Brownback.

...

The Star found that the fiercest critics of federal spending were also big-time “takers” of federal spending. The Star focused on Sumner County, part of the Wichita metropolitan area, and reported that in 2010 “the U.S. government spent roughly $189 million in Sumner County, almost $7,900 for every man, woman, and child who lives here. That’s an estimated 40 to 50 percent more, on average, than each county resident paid in federal taxes.”

[geek tragedy]

1. Let rural Kansans reap what they sow at the ballot box,

They want extreme Teahadism to replace good governance. Fine. Then us depraved coastal elites don't have to hand over massive welfare checks to them. Let them Go Galt.

[Scuba]

2. Yeah, those little kids in Kansas shouldn't have voted Republican!

[geek tragedy]

3. Can't have it both ways. Can't vote to screw over urban people and

those on the East Coast (thanks for the support after Sandy, Kansas!) and then expect us to bail them out for their poor policy decisions.

If Kansans want to fuck over their own children and their own future, that's their call. Those kids are always free to emigrate to more enlightened areas.

They should have to live with the policies they want to inflict on the rest of us.

Kids in Baltimore and L.A. and Newark have needs to. But, their parents expect to pay for those needs instead of looking to people from Kansas to subsidize them.

[Scuba]

4. And all those who voted Democrat should also be punished because ...

... they couldn't convince enough of their neighbors to do so?

Your compassion gene is unimpressive.

[geek tragedy]

5. It's about fundamental fairness. The people of Kansas, through their wingnut

Representatives, told the people of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut to drop dead after Sandy hit us.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/sandy-relief-aid_n_2412385.html

So, no, I don't want to give those people a giant welfare check after they voted to screw us out of disaster relief.

They don't get to try to screw us and then mooch off us.

[Scuba]

6. You're confusing a committed Democrat in Kansas with a Tea Bagger in Washington.

[geek tragedy]

8. From a policy perspective, there is zero reason for the federal government to subsidize

rural Kansas at the expense of Baltimore or Philadelphia or Newark or Los Angeles or Chicago or Detroit.

The voters there collectively SHOULD experience the government they overwhelmingly vote for.

They want to slash federal spending. Fine. That includes their cut.

There is no reason for my liberal NY tax dollars to subsidize a way of life that produces psychotic anti-government ideology.

The way of life in rural Kansas needs to adapt or perish.

[MuseRider]

9. I knew there was a reason

I should not have decided against my decision to stay away from this place.

Kick us out of the country then. Do you understand anything about where this has all come from? I know the answer to that, it is no you do not. You have no compassion, no understanding but a whole lot of privilege and no understanding of how this is all supposed to work.

It is hell here right now and it is going to get much worse. All of us, even those of us who work our asses off to try to change this will suffer a lot. The more this kind of sentiment is put out there the harder it is for us to change this. Quite frankly it is beyond helping now that the Koch brothers are firmly in control. People change but not because of elitists screaming at them that they are stupid. Again, read that last sentence and you might have a tiny bit more understanding where this kind of thing comes from.

I will not be replying so don't bother with educating me about something you frankly know nothing about and have not enough compassion to try to understand but certainly enough hubris to sound like and suggest solutions that sound much like those you despise. I mean really, you want to do the same thing in retaliation. I do not call that being any better than what the Kansas Reps did to you.

*one last thing, I believe what the Kansas reps and other states reps did when they voted against aid is disgusting. Believe me, they are not treating the folks in their own states with any more compassion than they did you. This is not the way our country is supposed to work, by doing the same shit back to people is never going to help. Many of us have written over the years about what is going on here and there are rarely if ever any replies. You want this to be different, listen to us and help us work through this. Actually it is probably too late now. Those of us on the ground are doing our best to keep it from dropping into Taliban territory and losing. You go ahead and make it harder for us.

EDIT: I had to edit because I forgot to add this. I would like to know where the fucking Democratic party is? How the fuck to you expect the 30% of us living in the populated areas of this state to change this without support from the party? We have no money, we have no candidates. Brownback will either run unopposed even though many of his own party hate him now or the dems will run someone nobody ever hear of, never will hear of and call it good when the people go to the booth and wonder who this fucker is running against Brownback.

Again, let this slide. I had to get it off my chest. I am going away again. I find I am more comfortable in places where compassion and understanding still rule. Oddly I find them more often around home than I do when dealing with people from the "good states" in the country.

[Scuba]

13. No, don't stay away. Your sound reasoning skills are needed, but even more so ...

... your unwillingness to acquiesce to an absentee State Party is welcome. I have the same problem here in Wisconsin.

[MuseRider]

14. I suppose I should have said

that I am no longer going to listen to, take seriously or even tolerate the "good states" unqualified, uneducated, totally without understanding and without compassion diatribes. They sound like a bunch of screaming toddlers sometimes and completely without the skills needed to make things change. Give me a living arrangement with all kinds of ideas from hateful to loving and I can function. Give me a living arrangement where someone tells me I am no good, not needed, stupid, need to believe the same way or I am gone and I will show you a place I would never, ever tolerate. Kansas is becoming the latter but even before, when it was more the former, people here from "the good states" were screaming this crap about it. Talk about making the job harder for this of us working toward a better state. Anyway, they can screw off.

You, on the other hand, and many others who are now from states in big trouble with our little dictators I need to talk to. Perhaps we might even think about making a group where we can talk about these things without disruption from the "good staters"?

We can talk. We can problem solve. We can try to figure out a way to get the party (I am not a Democrat so I say this inclusively because I AM a big ole liberal) to help us. On our own we are never going to crawl out of this hole here. There is nobody here that can outspend the Koch brothers who house their main businesses in Kansas. There really is no Democratic party, they signed off on the unconstitutional gun law fer christ sakes. You guys are dealing with a real creep. Your legislature? I don't know but if we were all more in tune with what the others are dealing with it would be really helpful and most of the time here when you try to do that it just becomes a screaming fest of people who think you should just simply move away to where it is oh so much better, their place of course! So simple. I don't know much, I have been slowly trying to crawl away from all of this but I can't. I have just found better, more understanding and helpful places than DU. Been here far too long to totally give it up but since I find little help or ideas here, well you know.

I am out for a while but I will come back and talk to you and others who are in this situation. The "good staters" can have their little fun at our expense. I need to be able to talk about this stuff without their "help" because it is getting bad here, really bad here and it looks to get much worse because there is no one to stop Brownback, it is in his total Talibornagain control. Many pieces of legislation passed here this year are most likely all or partly unconstitutional. His budget will break the economy of this state in one year and bankrupt us for many years to come and yet even though he knows this he signed off on these things and the fight to defend this crap will be paid for with our tax money.

I don't need to get into this, you all know how it is and understand because you are in the same kinds of holes. Think about it, a group perhaps? Don't know what we could call it but it would certainly make DU usable for those of us who actually work on things in our states. When the people on "your side" sound just like the people on the other side then DU becomes no place to try to figure things out.

[Dawson Leery]

7. About time. Areas such as these steal money

from Jersey/New York/Cali/MA/CT/WA/IL, complain about the "evil" government, yet the government is alright when it serves their purposes.

It is about time these people (in rural Kansas) lived by their beliefs.

The next bill that needs to be eliminated is the farm bill.

[Kolesar]

10. I wonder how much fat comes into Wichita through Boeing

I suppose they still make military products in that factory.

[byeya]

11. After the god-fearing farmers of KS pump the Oglalla aquifer dry, they can flake off and blow away

as far as I am concerned. These rural-run states usually are welfare states in that they take more from the federal gov't than they pay in. The next dust bowl will not be a natural disaster and will not be deserving of federal aid.

[MattBaggins]

12. Are you kidding me?

When they run that well dry, they will turn their greedy little heads North to the Great Lakes and demand a pipeline. It will be handed to the Coca-Cola company to manage and those of us on the great lakes will not see a single penny. Most likely we will pay taxes to subsidize the god damn piplelines maintenance.