Following is a response by Wayne Flaherty to the KC Star article concerning the Taxpayers Bill of Rights.

Ms. Shelly:

Below are my thoughts about your Robin Hood column.

Wayne Flaherty

In your Robin Hood editorial, you left out some very significant information.

TABOR does not deny funds to any tax spending group. Spenders only have to justify their need to the citizens who will have to pay the bill.

You never mentioned how much money the citizens of Colorado have had returned to them under TABOR. I say returned because it is their money. They stand to get $3200 per family over the next five years.
TABOR is the only voice the people have concerning legislative spending. At the last Kansas legislative session there were thirty (30) lobbyists from education facilities. The schools spend the citizen’s tax money to lobby for more tax money. And if that isn’t enough, they file lawsuits to get even more.

I’m 73 years old, was born and raised here. I was reading the Star before you were born and can’t ever remember a tax increase the Star didn’t actively promote. Sometimes I feel that Star writers know little or nothing about history. In ancient Rome, they built lavish (and marvelously engineered) public works projects. When there wasn’t enough money in Rome, they sent their armies out to conquer ever more distant countries and cities. They ravaged those territories to pay for Rome’s profligate ways. In effect, they taxed the defeated people to finance Roman government spending. How is that different from modern Kansas, where government jobs increase every year while private jobs are lost every year, where spending has no relation to income? Governments have now reached the point where desire has replaced necessity as the only measure of a project’s worth. The average working person can’t lobby the legislature. Believe me, I’ve tried. I can’t drive to Topeka every day in the hopes that I can get 10 minutes with a legislator. What chance do I have against paid lobbyists who live there? What chance do citizens who work 40 hours a week have?

If you had even the slightest idea what a tax increase means to some people, you would be actively promoting TABOR. Of course, you would have to do it at another paper, because the Star would never allow it. Let me tell you two true stories of people with no champion.

During Bi-State II, a guest on a call-in talk show used the phrase “only twenty dollars.” Immediately, the switchboard lit up and a little old lady jumped on the guest with, “Maybe twenty dollars don’t mean anything to you, but it makes the difference to me as to whether I buy food or medicine.” The guest apologized.

A friend of mine, who owned an electrical contracting firm, received a call to come to a dog food canning plant. When he arrived, the owner took him through the plant to the problem location. When they arrived, my friend said, “I can’t believe it. This place is immaculate. I bet you could eat off the floors. Its only dog food, so why the cleanliness?” The owner replied, “While analyzing sales figures, we realized that, in times of serious economic downturns, our sales went up dramatically. We knew that there weren’t more dogs. The only conclusion was, people were eating dog food to survive. That’s when we instituted our cleanliness policy.”

I realize that Star editorial writers don’t have the freedom necessary to champion a cause, no matter how desperate or just it may be. That’s why people like me exist. We don’t fight against taxes and for laws like TABOR because we hope to gain fame or fortune. We are not bored. We aren’t looking for a cushy government job. We just want what’s right, and its right that governments spend our money wisely, and its right to shackle them with the chains of the constitution if we have to. The only people TABOR hurts are the politicians and the special interest friends who are bellied up to the tax trough. The success of TABOR can be measured by the loudness of the screams of those being forced away from the trough and the politicians who can no longer throw money around as if there were no tomorrow. As a child, if I said, “I want …” to my mother, she often replied, “Spit in one hand and want in the other and see which one gets full first.”

No, Barbara Shelly, TABOR is not evil. It is good. It is right. I am so convinced of it, that I am going with the AFP on their 4 day bus tour. The class struggle is between those who spend the taxes and those who pay them. If governments are not restrained, the logical end can only be economic disaster. TABOR can prevent that. Its time that governments learned what every working family knows, “If you don’t have it, you better not spend it.”

Wayne Flaherty
6410 Floyd, O.P., KS 66202