Dear editor,
I was reading a story last week about Davos, Switzerland, where about 1,500 billionaires meet every year to plan how they can make more money the next year. They pay $20 million to get into the event; most fly in on their $40 million Gulf Stream jets.
They already own about half the planet and they want to get richer.
Did you know that 85 of the richest billionaires own more wealth than 3.5 billion people combined. Let that soak in for a little bit, as there are 8 billion people on earth.
President Obama gave a speech the other day in which he used the word inequality 17 times. I didn’t think much about the word because that doesn’t include you and me, does it. Looking at these figures, maybe it does.
Pope Francis says there is a revolution on inequality coming. He has declared war on inequality and says inequality is the root cause of all social ills.
The pope is commander in chief of the world’s largest army and includes 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, 78 million Americans, 200 cardinals, more than 5,000 bishops and 450,000 priests and deacons worldwide to carry out his mission.
The pope has a 10-point plan in his 76-page report. No. 2: Trickle-down economics of the rich is a failed ideology. No. 4: The tyranny of capitalism rejects the public good.
A recent PBS documentary told of one of the richest men in North Carolina who has bought judges, senators, state legislators and the governor for his own self-interest.
I believe the same has happened in Kansas. The Koch brothers of Wichita are among the richest in America and just gave $200 million to Americans for Prosperity, which they own. That much money can buy a lot of influence. I believe they have a direct line to Governor Brownback. He has put his own lawyer in as an appellate judge, who was rejected twice before by his peers. He lambasted the Kansas Supreme Court justices before the entire state in his annual address, more or less telling them they would be fired or overrun by his cronies if they didn’t follow his ideology. If he has no respect for the law, why should we? This is someone who wants to make up his own laws and appoint his own judges. Talk about abuse of power.
Kansas is facing a budget shortfall, mark my words, because Brownback has removed the income tax that only favors people with incomes like the Koch brothers.
Brownback says all these new industries moving into Kansas will provide new jobs and their wealth will trickle down. Meanwhile, he robs the state’s highway department fund to pay for his failed experiment. Building roads provides good-paying jobs, you know.
He also doesn’t want to fund education. Kansas teachers rank 42nd in pay out of the 50 states. We don’t have to be first, but come on governor, give these folks a little raise.
David Comstock,
Colony, Kan.
