To the editor;

I am writing about the Jan. 30 article announcing Sandy Praeger joining the bipartisan group named “Reroute the Roadmap.” In the article, Praeger said, “We looked at the roadmap that the governor outlined when he took office, and when you look at where we’re going today, we’re going in the wrong direction.”

Of equal interest to me was the attempt to minimalize this group by the director of the Kansas Republican Party, Clayton Barker. He was quoted as saying, “Commissioner Praeger and the other five are big fans of Obamacare, and advocates of Obamacare know Paul Davis is their candidate. We’re confident a strong majority of Kansans believe differently.” Barker tried to deflect the facts and place fear into prospective voters’ minds by playing the Obamacare card. The roadmap of Gov. Brownback that has many of us concerned includes the reduction of revenues and regressive taxes during his first term. Also of concern is the rejection of Medicaid expansion and its privatization, the state’s sluggish economy, the lack of job growth, the deficits projected by non-partisan groups; and cuts to K-12 as well as higher education funding. 

Nowhere in the Governor’s roadmap is there any mention of the Affordable Care Act, which is presently the law of the land, not a state law. If Barker or anyone else is simple-minded enough to think that Obamacare is what is driving this bipartisan group, they are part of the problem. For many of us, this is a problem of a governor who is heading the state and its resident toward a financial and educational disaster.