To the editor:

In his State of the State address, our esteemed governor promised to reach out to those among us who are the most vulnerable — in other words, the “poor.” Now his legislative cohorts have come up with yet another brilliant way to demean those residents of our state even further. Our leaders think it would be most wise and prudent to instruct anyone receiving financial assistance from the state just what they can and cannot do with those funds.

Isn’t that brilliant? Let’s do all that we can to remove any possible thread of dignity from “these people,” as they are called by one of our Republican leaders from Palco. After all, we most certainly do not want “these people” or their children to receive a single pleasure from life; they’re poor, after all, and it’s our job to remind them of that at all times! The money they get from us is to be spent only on “essentials,” and they’re too dumb to figure our what essentials are so we will do it for them!

The rich benefit immensely from government largesse, as do I, but we are not told how to spend our money on “essentials.” It seems that not a single day goes by without ludicrous news and legislation coming out of the office of our governor and from our statehouse! It is a sad time for Kansas.