Politics

Come here to talk about topics that are not related to development, or even Kansas City.
aknowledgeableperson
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Re: Politics

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

State can't borrow money even if they wanted to.
States "borrow" money all the time. It's just that one has to have a balanced budget, which includes debt payments, that pays back money.
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

KCMax wrote:
FangKC wrote:I thought conservative Republicans were against government borrowing more money to cover expenses?
State can't borrow money even if they wanted to.
The state’s cash balances ebb and flow as it collects tax revenue and spends money on services. The state approved borrowing $675 million in June to help fill coffers at times when cash flow is low. It cannot do that again unless it is able to pay that money back, as required by statute.
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-gov ... rylink=cpy
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chaglang
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Re: Politics

Post by chaglang »

More good news:
Tax receipts for Kansas missed expectations by nearly $50 million in January, exacerbating the state’s already pressing budget problems.
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-gov ... 04886.html
longviewmo
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Re: Politics

Post by longviewmo »

When was the last month that they met expectations? IIRC, it was something like last July?
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chaglang
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Re: Politics

Post by chaglang »

IIRC they missed projections the last couple months of FY2013-14... so April maybe?
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

Brownback rescinds state discrimination protections for LGBT workers

http://www.kansascity.com/news/governme ... 94028.html

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-kan ... story.html

This kind of crap isn't going to help Kansas attract residents or new workers. Kansas used to be considered a progressive state; now I think it falls under the classification of regressive state.
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Re: Politics

Post by flyingember »

I agree with the assessment this is meant to be a distraction from taxes
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Re: Politics

Post by earthling »

Kansas is looking more and more backwards to most of rest of country, is hard to imagine creative people or even right leaning moderates will want to move to KC area as a whole. MO side state level politics not exactly helping either. Yet it still seems to happen to some degree. Texas and Georgia manage to hugely pull in every demographic despite hard right state level politics but they have 2 other advantages on their side, warm winters and top job growth in country.
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

Kris Kobach exposed in phony Kansas voter fraud claim

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-c ... 76305.html

Prosecutors question Kobach claims of voter fraud in Kansas

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html
aknowledgeableperson
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Re: Politics

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

I have worked as an election judge for over ten years now. One judge I have worked with has been outspoken about the possibility of fraud. Only in general, no specific case. Have had many voters express the desire that a photo ID should be required, afterall that is necessary in a few instances they deemed less important than voting. States however could do a better job of housekeeping the voters rolls.
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

Well, the incidence of actual voter fraud is so very low that it is not an issue, and certainly not worthy of passing draconian voter laws. These voter ID laws disenfranchise more legitimate voters than they prevent any number of actual fraudulent voters.

However, I would have less problem with voter ID laws if they made provisions in the law to make it easier for certain residents to get them--namely the elderly and low-income voters. For example:

The state makes free photo IDs available to those who don't have driver's licenses, and also provide free birth certificates to residents seeking a photo ID for purposes of voting. This would make it easier for low income residents to comply. There are people who live on such tight fixed incomes each month, that expenses in complying with voter ID laws represents a poll tax on them (paying to drive to the county seat to have ID made, ID fee, or paying to get a copy of their birth certificate).

That residents could have free voter ID made at local Board of Election offices, or county courthouses, with presentation of birth certificate, and proof of address.

There also has to be a provision in the voter ID law that the photo ID not need to have a updated and current address on it. That it is only required for proof of who you are. If you have a voter registration card with your current address, that should be enough to vote as long as the photo ID matches your face. Some people move a lot within the city, seniors moving to nursing homes, and having to get a new photo ID, and hunt up their birth certificate, is cumbersome to them. If you update your voter registration card, that should be enough, which one can do by mail or online.

There also has to be a provision in the voter ID law that funds local election authorities to be able to send out workers to help some voters get photo IDs made. For example, there are seniors living alone, or in nursing homes, who are still capable of making voting decisions; however, they may not have family members to help them complete the photo ID process. In these cases, the election boards should have funding to send staff out to help them meet the photo ID requirement.

Not everyone has a driver's license, or a car. I just read a statistic recently that in Detroit, the Motor City, 26 percent of the residents don't have a car. Of course some of them are kids, and some seniors who no longer drive. But even if you remove those from the statistic, that might mean 10 percent of working age adults don't' have a car. Statistically though, just the seniors who no longer drive, and the working adults without cars (or driver's licenses) is statistically high enough to swing elections if barriers are erected with voter ID laws.

My view is that if the state is going to make this requirement, then it falls upon the state to help ALL residents meet the requirement. If the state legislature refuses to fund this outreach, or help residents comply, then it has no business making voter ID law requirements just to eliminate suspected voter fraud that is miniscule, or non-existent, to begin with. If voters end up having to pay out of their own pockets to comply with voter ID laws, then that might constitute a poll tax, which might not pass a court challenge under voter discrimination laws.

One should not be punishing all the legitimate voters who might be disenfranchised with voter ID laws.

There are already other barriers going up in other ways. In rural counties, many towns no longer have polling places there. The counties don't have the money to install polling places where they once were, so rural residents have to drive to another town to vote, or are having to drive further and further away to do so. Elderly people who no longer drive have to rely on someone else to drive them to the next town to vote. Yes, there are mail-in ballots, but many people forget to request them, and a mail-in ballot can get lost in the mail or not arrive in time.

I requested mail-in ballots for my mother in the nursing home, and she never got them.

My feeling about voter ID laws is that they are less about preventing voter fraud than they are about making it harder for seniors, low-income residents, and minorities to vote.
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

Kansas among top 10 states imposing more tax burden on average and lower-income citizens.
9. Kansas
> ITEP index score: -6.9%
> Effective tax rate lowest 20%: 11.1% (13th highest)
> Effective tax rate top 1%: 3.6% (11th lowest)
> 2013 Gini coefficient (pre-tax): 0.46 (20th lowest)

While Kansas has a graduated income tax structure — widely regarded as a progressive feature in a tax code — the state has no corporate income tax. This means that the vast majority of businesses in the state are exempt from paying state taxes. Since business owners tend to have relatively high incomes, wealthier Kansas residents have likely benefited from this arrangement. As a share of income, the poorest families in Kansas paid 310% what the wealthiest 1% of families paid in state and local taxes, the ninth highest such ratio nationwide. As in many states, incomes among the wealthiest Kansas residents grew between 2009 and 2013, while incomes among poorer residents shrank. The tax code in Kansas will likely remain relatively unfair to poorer residents. The state’s aggressive income tax cuts of 2012 and 2013 resulted in a budget shortfall. To address the shortfall, Governor Sam Brownback proposed earlier this year to raise several excise taxes.
http://247wallst.com/special-report/201 ... merican/2/
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Re: Politics

Post by phxcat »

aknowledgeableperson wrote:I have worked as an election judge for over ten years now. One judge I have worked with has been outspoken about the possibility of fraud. Only in general, no specific case. Have had many voters express the desire that a photo ID should be required, afterall that is necessary in a few instances they deemed less important than voting. States however could do a better job of housekeeping the voters rolls.
This is really a bogus argument. If people can get by without a drivers license (and it is quite evident that they do) then people seem to be able to get by without a drivers license. As for things that they deem less important than voting, 1. these things do not require up to date addresses, while most voting laws do. 2. By "less important than voting" what they should mean to say is the barrier to achieving those things should be greater because it is more important in a functioning democracy for people to be able to vote than for them to be able to, for example, buy liquor.
aknowledgeableperson
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Re: Politics

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

I would assume there are some who get by without a driver's license, or a state issued photo ID, but I don't know of any. Usually the people who make the comment show us both a driver's license and their voter ID card. We typically only use the voter ID card since a photo ID is not necessary. Even the voter ID card isn't required.
Now, you can make any snide comment you choose to make but these people take voting seriously, even when the election is only about a few local issues.

BTW, a valid driver's license without the current address is acceptable. An utility bill with current address is acceptable. Even an old birth certificate with a matching name is acceptable. A social security card is acceptable.
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AllThingsKC
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Re: Politics

Post by AllThingsKC »

It would seem that the chances of someone living without any kind of photo ID and without the means to get any kind of photo ID would be about the same as voter fraud happening.

I don't have any stats to back that up or disprove that, however.
phuqueue
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Re: Politics

Post by phuqueue »

I know this is the internet and all and "check your privilege" is becoming the new Godwin's law, but when you're tempted to make assumptions about what other people should or shouldn't be able to do, it's probably a good idea first to consider your own circumstances that make it so easy for you to do those things. State-issued IDs aren't free (lest you be tempted to argue that the $10-20 it costs to get a drivers license or non-driver ID in MO isn't very much money, that's also the approximate inflation-adjusted value of the Jim Crow poll taxes), and the DMV isn't open 24/7. It's great that you can afford a license and that you can take time off work to go get it, but not everybody is so fortunate (and the GOP is fighting hard to make even more people even less fortunate!)

One investigation of voter fraud found 31 credible incidents out of approximately a billion votes cast between 2000 and 2014 -- if we take ATKC's admittedly unfounded assertion that voter fraud occurs about as frequently as people are unable to get a state-issued ID, then that would mean approximately ten people in the whole of the country can't get an ID. A separate investigation by Bush's own DOJ between 2002 and 2007 found 86 convictions, but even these included many people committing honest mistakes, like convicted felons who didn't realize they were ineligible to vote. (Compared to the other study, this has the advantage of creating a bright line rule -- was the voter convicted or not? -- but the disadvantage of capturing all those who had no nefarious intent and wouldn't have tried to vote if they'd known they couldn't. While it's true that a voter ID law could stop ineligible voters from making that mistake, there are other ways of accomplishing that without disenfranchising eligible voters who lack IDs, so it'd be somewhat disingenuous to point to incidents of mistake as equivalent to deliberate fraud, even where they do produce convictions.)

Anyway, even supposing ATKC's assertion above is remotely accurate, so what? If we accept that everybody has or can get an ID and nobody commits voter fraud, then what do voter ID laws even accomplish? It seems strange to me that the small government crowd is so eager to have the government legislate on problems that don't actually exist.
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KCMax
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Re: Politics

Post by KCMax »

aknowledgeableperson wrote:I would assume there are some who get by without a driver's license, or a state issued photo ID, but I don't know of any. Usually the people who make the comment show us both a driver's license and their voter ID card. We typically only use the voter ID card since a photo ID is not necessary. Even the voter ID card isn't required.
Now, you can make any snide comment you choose to make but these people take voting seriously, even when the election is only about a few local issues.

BTW, a valid driver's license without the current address is acceptable. An utility bill with current address is acceptable. Even an old birth certificate with a matching name is acceptable. A social security card is acceptable.
A utility bill, SS Card or birth certificate is not acceptable in Kansas. It must be a photo ID.

http://www.gotvoterid.com/valid-photo-ids.html#idlist

You must also prove your citizenship, which is a huge pain in the ass. My wife has voted for years, but was asked to prove her citizenship before the last election. She was born abroad, so no birth certificate. Her passport was expired. Her naturalization papers were at her parents house. Drivers license and SS Card aren't acceptable.
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KCMax
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Re: Politics

Post by KCMax »

Sec of State Jason Kander will challenge Roy Blunt for US Senate in MO

http://www.kshb.com/news/political/mo-s ... te-in-2016
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Re: Politics

Post by shaffe »

KCMax wrote:Sec of State Jason Kander will challenge Roy Blunt for US Senate in MO

http://www.kshb.com/news/political/mo-s ... te-in-2016
He's got my vote, but then again I'm straight anti-incumbent right now.
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Re: Politics

Post by flyingember »

shaffe wrote:
KCMax wrote:Sec of State Jason Kander will challenge Roy Blunt for US Senate in MO

http://www.kshb.com/news/political/mo-s ... te-in-2016
He's got my vote, but then again I'm straight anti-incumbent right now.
Kander at least hasn't done anything stupid, unlike his counterpart in KS.

It's almost job where if you make the news you're doing things wrong.
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