News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Obama speaks at University of Kansas
Following Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Obama spoke at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas today.
Reflections from Selma
Tex Sample had no intention of being part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic march from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital, Montgomery. In March of 1965, Sample was working in Boston with the Massachusetts Council of Churches, a coalition of clergy that lobbied for civil rights legislation. Although he was organizing flight reservations for…
A beef over politics
NEMAHA COUNTY, Kan. – From their small farms set in the rolling hills of northeast Kansas, two ranchers are raising a few cattle, and a lot of Cain. David Pfrang and Jim Dobbins turned themselves into activists, launched a shadow corporation, got hauled into federal court and had to hire a lawyer. All over $1….
Health groups support cigarette tax increase for Kansas
A coalition of health organizations is supporting Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s call for a big increase in the state’s cigarette tax. Brownback is proposing to raise the tax by $1.50 per pack, increasing it from 79 cents to $2.29. The governor wants to use the approximately $81 million in additional revenue to close a gaping hole in the fiscal 2016 budget.
Brownback budget includes Medicaid changes, tobacco tax increase
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration outlined a sweeping budget plan Friday that includes changes to Medicaid and increases in the state’s tobacco and alcohol taxes.
Budget Director Shawn Sullivan said closing a $650 million budget gap will require new tax revenue and slowed expenses in the state’s “three major cost drivers”: public schools, public employee pensions and Medicaid.