To the editor:

Let’s review our governor’s methods for creating prosperity in Kansas:

Approve funding cuts that weaken our public education system. Wound and demoralize two state agencies (Department of Labor, Social and Rehabilitation Services) by ordering mass firings of staff and life-disrupting “personnel re-assignments.” Menace our most at-risk disabled citizens by threatening the Kansas Neurological Institute with a total cutoff of state funding.

Employ arbitrary and capricious regulation changes to close medical clinics that safely perform legal abortions for Kansas citizens. Torpedo the Kansas Arts Commission. Support the Department of Health and Environment in issuing a permit authorizing construction of an electric generating plant — this after the applicant company literally scripted the state’s permit review process.

Hire nonresidents to high posts in state government; cite their moves here as evidence of broadly based enthusiasm for his political agenda. Frequently order, recommend or approve dramatic policy shifts certain to put Kansas in the national news, helping establish his voter identity as Christian Soldier for President (once “the Call” comes).

If they’ve been observing from afar his prosperity-creating moves in Kansas, federal departments and state agencies around the country might contemplate their own fate should their public service functions someday be subject to our governor’s autocratic executive style. To be sure, many Kansans will now undergo involuntary mortifications imposed by state government — mortifications that for those affected may cast doubt on the existence of whatever helpful moral values they assumed their representatives and governor possessed and would use as a political compass.