Over 55,000 Kansans have already invested over $580M in their family’s future. State Treasurer Dennis McKinney announced today that Kansas has joined other states in declaring September “Higher Education Savings Month” to increase awareness about the importance of saving for our children’s higher education expenses. “When Kansas families save for higher education they are investing in the future of the Kansas workforce,” Said McKinney
“Our children deserve the brightest futures possible. That is why it is so important for families to start saving for higher education with a program like the Learning Quest 529 Education Savings Plan. Learning Quest offers a wide variety of investment options,” said Treasurer McKinney. “Any Kansas taxpayer can invest in Learning Quest and deduct up to $3,000 for individuals and up to $6,000 for joint filers from their 2010 state taxable income.”
Learning Quest also has tax incentives provided by the federal government. Earnings grow tax deferred and can be withdrawn tax free when used for higher education expenses. Parents, grandparents, friends, and others, can contribute to a Learning Quest account on behalf of the beneficiary.
“The Kansas Investment Developing Scholars (K.I.D.S.) Matching Grant Program provides additional incentive for working families with modest incomes by matching their contributions dollar for dollar up to $600. These savings options enable families all over Kansas to put money toward their children’s future education at any technical college, community college or traditional four-year university,” added Treasurer McKinney. “I am proud of the state of Kansas for making these investments in the future of our children because they encourage families to save instead of relying on student loans for the ever increasing cost of higher education.
Higher Education Savings Month is a time for families all over Kansas and nationwide to consider the value of higher education. It is vital for parents to realize how much higher education can impact a child’s life.
§ It is estimated that by 2018, over 60% of jobs will require education beyond high school.
§ Median family income in 2008 for those with a bachelor’s degree or more was $101,099, compared to $49,414 for those with a high school diploma. [From College Board, Trends in College Pricing, 2009]
§ About 81% of youth with some of their own savings designated for school will graduate from a four-year college, compared to 68% who had an account but no money specifically designated for future schooling and 64% of youth who did not have an account.
§ Savings over a period of years may raise a young person’s educational expectations leading to increased academic efforts and achievement.
§ Youth who have school savings are almost four times more likely to obtain higher education than youth with no account.
Treasurer McKinney added “Opportunities in the highly skilled technical fields continue to grow. That is why I urge students to consider the high tech programs offered by our community college and technical schools.”
To learn more about saving for a higher education please see call 1-800-579-2203, or visit the Treasurer’s website.
McKinney is a farmer, small business owner, and former legislator from Greensburg. Since taking office in January of 2009, McKinney has worked to cut through bureaucratic red tape, set records in consecutive years for reuniting Kansans with their unclaimed property, expanded the K.I.D.S. Matching Grant Program to help Kansans’ with modest incomes save for higher education expenses for each of their children, emphasized careful management of taxpayer’s dollars, and reformed the state’s housing loan program to promote new construction and good paying jobs for Kansas workers.
Today the organization, “Americans for Prosperity,” will hold a rally in Johnson County. This shady outside group is funded by people who have made their fortunes sending American jobs overseas to China, India, and Mexico. They are now in our backyard attempting to mislead Kansas into supporting their extreme agenda and backing fellow outsourcing supporter Kevin Yoder.
Americans for Prosperity has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars aiding Kevin Yoder with television ads, and one of the group’s main backers, Koch Industries, directly gave thousands of dollars to Yoder’s campaign. Koch Industries is the same organization whose subsidiary received an “Outsourcing Excellence Award.” These groups are coming to Yoder’s rescue because they know that in Congress he would be an ally, and would fight to ensure that businesses continue to receive special tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas.
Stephene Moore Campaign Manager Matt Sinovic said, “Kevin Yoder is in the pocket of these shady outside groups who have directly contributed to his campaign while airing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of negative attack ads. Yoder supports keeping tax loopholes for companies that ship American jobs overseas, and just last month, Yoder sided with outsourcing companies instead of our teachers. Kevin Yoder cannot be trusted to do what is right for Kansas.”
Stephene Moore is an independent voice who represents our Kansas values. She will fight to keep jobs here, and create quality, good paying jobs in the 3rd district. Stephene Moore will close loopholes for companies that ship American jobs overseas, and fight to get our economy back on track.
Dan Manning, is running for Kansas House of Representatives in Wichita. Originally from southern Georgia, Dan is a West Point graduate who served for 8 years in the US Army before being discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Dan has since made Kansas his home and directed his passion for serving our nation in to a campaign to serve in the state Legislature.
Dan’s opponent is long-time incumbent Brenda Landwehr. Landwehr, a notorious far-right conservative, has been a vocal opponent of equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgendered Kansans. Since February, she has used Dan’s sexual orientation to stir up her constituent. She has gone so far as to use language that Dan was told was “too offensive” to repeat.
This weekend, the homophobia and name-calling took a dangerous and criminal turn.
Dan arrived home from work on Saturday to find a death threat attached to his front door. Crudely cut from newspaper headlines was a crass note that read (a copy of the note can be viewed at the bottom of the post):
“DISTRICT 91 Democrat Dan N. Manning, 29, production supervisor, manningforkansas.com”
“2010 State House Election”
“Will DIE”
“FaGIT”
“Kill”
“HOMO”
“MURDER”
“Head OFF”
The note is clearly an offensive way to use threats of deadly violence in an attempt to intimidate and silence Dan and his campaign and, by extension, our entire community and our interests in Topeka. Dan has no intentions of backing down and has seen this latest example of bigotry as proof that his campaign must go on. He and his campaign team’s resolve is now stronger than ever.
I urge every reader of this blog to join me in standing up with Dan and standing up for equality for everyone.
Money and volunteers are critical in these last two months of the race, and you can offer your support through his website, or by contacting Dan or his campaign manager, Sarah Anderson.
Dan’s email is dan@manningforkansas.com; Sarah’s is sarah@manningforkansas.com. State law limits contributions to House candidates to $500 per donor,if you can’t donate then please help spread the word about Dan’s campaign.
Yesterday Mike Pompeo, GOP Congressional candidate in the KS 04, tweeted about an interesting read from one of his campaign supporters. No big deal right?
Wrong. The link that Pompeo tweeted takes you to a page where one of Pompeo’s supporters rants about how terrible his opponent Raj Goyle is and says…
Like his comrad obama, he wouldn’t give an answer, only that he was not a Christian. This guy could be a muslim, a hindu, a buddhist etc who knows, only God, the shadow and …goyle knows! One thing’s for sure … goyle is not a Christian! Since the 2008 election of the evil muslim communist USURPER, barack hussein obama, political candidate “BIRTH CERTIFICATE & RELIGION” information is now a vital part of the vetting/nomination/election process for any and all American citizens seeking political office. Just like his evil muslim communist USURPER comrad, barack hussein obama, This goyle character is just another “turban topper” we don’t need in congress or any political office that deals with the U.S. Constitution, Christianity and the United States of America!!!
Just in case you happened to read over that part in the mass of racist vomit Pompeo’s supporter calls a blog post, I’ll point it out again.
Just like his evil muslim communist USURPER comrad, barack hussein obama, This goyle character is just another “turban topper”
Not only did Pompeo knowingly read this, he obviously agreed with it because he then sent it out over his official campaign Twitter account calling it an “interesting read”.
Mr. Pompeo not only are you a terrible candidate for Congress, you are a racist. You can say these aren’t you words but by you sending them out to your supporters you endorse the ideas in the article.
Here is screen shot of the entire article Pompeo tweeted. Just in case it disappears.
This evening I happened to be driving past the Capital Plaza hotel in Topeka when I saw a giant RV screaming Brownback for Governor all over it.
So I decided to take a closer look, and look what I found.
That’s right. Senator Sam Brownback, who wants you to elect him to be Governor, is driving all across Kansas campaigning in a RV from out of state. How can Brownback claim to even remotely care about the people of Kansas when he wont even spend his campaign funds here in state?
Sam Brownback even outlines in the first point of his platform that Economic growth is key to Kansas.
Economic Growth: Sam Brownback is running for Governor to grow Kansas. Economic growth supports everything we do as a state—it feeds families, provides opportunities for young people, makes seniors more secure in their retirement, generates revenue for government services and charities at all levels and provides the goods and services that support our quality of life. Economic growth is the engine that makes our state go. Restoring growth will be Sam Brownback’s top priority as Governor.
Will it really be your top priority Senator? It obviously isn’t one of your priorities on the campaign trail, how can we Kansans even start to believe you when the whole time you are driving around Kansas you are spending money out of state?
Think about how the money you spent on this giant eyesore of a RV could have helped out an in state business, think about how the licensing fees could have gone to our state instead of Alabama. You claim you want to put Kansas first but then you support the constituents you are asking to vote for you. What about your donors? Do the donors from Kansas want you spending their money in Alabama? Or was this RV paid for with out of state and special interest money trying to sway a Kansas election?
One thing is for sure Senator, you are not Kansas. You prove that with every town you pull into.
Don’t believe my photo? No worries I took a second lap around the RV and took video for you as well.
One of the brewing political dramas of the last several months has been the Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus (also known as the mouthful GKCWPC) and their new endorsement policy – they’ve decided it’s just fine to discriminate against men.
To be fair, the original idea was not from GKCWPC – the National Women’s Political Caucus, under which the KC chapter is chartered, decided last summer that they no longer wanted to endorse men. This put the KC chapter in the sticky situation of continue to endorse men – or lose their charter (and financial resources) altogether. Votes were close – but in end, when you look at their endorsed candidates – there’s not a man to be found.
It’s often said that money runs politics – and in this case it’s true. By threatening the loss of financial resources to the GKCWPC, the national organization got them to comply with their discriminatory policies. While the national chapter in California may have had plenty of awesome female candidates to choose from, in the midwest it’s often hard to find a good, pro-woman candidate on the ballot. The pro-women candidates often look at the political situation and decide there’s just not the support there in order to run. Not only will male politicians no longer be receiving donations from GKCWPC – they won’t have the exposure to members and their possible donations that make races possible. Narrowing this base of support will only mean more anti-woman policies in two states.
The courageous choice to tell the national organization that discrimination will hurt more than just male politicians. Arguably one of the most anti-woman incumbents in the Kansas legislature is Lance Kinzer – known best for his anti-Planned Parenthood stances and wearing the vest of Phill Kline. This year Kinzer has a very viable opponent in Elliot Lahn, who manged to out-fundraise Kinzer in the first half of this year. Lahn commented that “Every movement has to take advantage of all of it’s supporters – the civil rights movement had to take advantage of caucasian politicians.” But Lahn isn’t getting any support from GKCWPC.
The mission statement of the NWPC says that it’s purpose is ”creating a political power base designed to achieve equality for all women”. While we might all agree that more women should run and should be involved in government – is sitting to the side and letting Palins (or Mary Pilcher-Cooks) run all over pro-women male politicians really the best way to achieve this?
In a July 30th Wichita Eagle letter to the editor, Kansas House Majority Leader Ray Merrick defended DUI Phil Hermanson and attacked the Wichita Eagle for unfair coverage. “As I read yet another reference to state Rep. Phil Hermanson, R-Wichita, having driven under the influence of prescription drugs, it struck me that the situation had been mentioned no fewer than five times in The Eagle,” said Merrick. Merrick then attempts to flip the coverage by attacking Democrats that have received DUIs.
Under Merrick’s chain of thought it is okay to send two women to the hospital while on a drug-induced munchies run because years ago a Democrat plead no contest to DUI charges. I loved the comment from Maggotpunk, “I suppose that means I can sleep with Hermanson’s wife because Hermanson does. What absurd reasoning.”
Let us not forget that DUI Phil hid his arrest from his constituents for more than six months. He used his position in the Legislature to have his trial rescheduled. He sent two Kansas women to the hospital, one of which has not fully recovered. And, he told reporters that the reason for him being arrested for refusing to take a breathalyzer test was that he was unaware of Kansas laws (Wichita Eagle-May 23, 2010: Kansas state Rep. Phil Hermanson’s DUI trial set to begin). I’m still not sure why Hermanson refused a breathalyzer if he was only under the influence of prescription medications.
If Republican’s really cared about Family Values and being tough on crime, they would not make excuses for DUI Phil.
By the way, Merrick’s letter makes no fewer than six mentions of DUI Phil in The Eagle. To be exact, a search of DUI Phil Hermanson on Kansas.com reveals nine plus Merrick’s letter.
Former Kansas GOP darling Phill Kline shouldn’t be getting into too much trouble nowadays. He always made headlines as a career politician, seeking various offices and then using them to advance his neo-conservative agenda, regardless of said position’s actual responsibilities. Ever since 2006, when he was thoroughly trounced in his bid for reelection as Kansas Attorney General, it’s been clear that Kline’s political career has been on the wane. Republican leaders tossed him into the Johnson County DA’s office after that, ironically to replace Paul Morrison, the man who beat him as AG, and in that time he was reprimanded by the state Supreme Court for hording medical records from an abortion clinic in Wichita, then quietly and soundly beaten when he actually tried to get elected again as DA.
Just when we were getting bored, he has popped up in the news again. It seems that the DA’s office under Mr. Kline was none too kind to the lady folk. Former Johnson County prosecutor Jacqie Spradling has taken Kline and several of his old cronies to court over alleged sexual discrimination while she worked on that office. Ms Spradling, a specialist in domestic violence cases, says that over a few months she saw her unit depleted of staff, had homicide cases handed over to a less-experienced male prosecutor whom Kline favored, and was personally told by the then-District Attorney that for complaining about this, she was “just a bitchy woman”. Also, her office was apparently wire-tapped.
That Phill Kline may be a raging sexist is not shocking, after he spent four years in the state AG’s office flaunting the belief that only he, and not actual women, knew what they should or should not do with their own bodies.
For much of the 2000s, Phill Kline was everyone’s favorite local, far-right supervillain. He twirled his mustache menacingly, and tied the integrity of whatever office he either held, or wanted to hold, onto railroad tracks, laughing as he told the voters of Kansas that they’d never save it in time. It’s almost generous of him to provide a little fodder for our amusement again, now that he is basically incapable of attaining public office.
Loading ...