KY Constitution is a check on unaccountable government spending. We should not amend it. | Opinion

Maintaining safeguards

As a conservative, I urge our community to vote NO on Amendment 2. Our state constitution currently serves as a crucial check on government spending, limiting the legislature’s ability to expand expenditures without restraint. This amendment threatens to abolish one of the few remaining safeguards that keep our state’s finances in check.

I’ve always believed in fiscal responsibility and limited government intervention. I’m cynical about the legislature’s tendency to spend our hard-earned tax dollars without sufficient oversight. Amendment 2 would permit another form of government spending, effectively removing a critical barrier that protects taxpayers like us from excessive fiscal policies.

By voting NO on Amendment 2, we can preserve this constitutional limit. Let’s not grant the legislature more leeway to spend without accountability. It’s essential to maintain the checks and balances that prevent unchecked government growth and protect our conservative values.

Join me in standing against Amendment 2 to safeguard the financial integrity of our state. Together, we can ensure that our government remains fiscally responsible and that our constitution continues to uphold the principles we hold dear.

Joe Buckles, Lexington

Protecting public schools

I would urge all voters to VOTE NO on Amendment 2 to the Kentucky Constitution. I have worked with our public schools for many years as a partner in local government and a volunteer. I can say for a fact that our public school budget is stretched very tight. Allowing state money to be taken away will push more of the burden down to the local level causing our local school tax to be increased. We must remain CONSERVATIVE in this matter. Our founding fathers were right in protecting funding of our public schools in the constitution. Please tell everyone you know to VOTE NO on Amendment 2.

Henry Branham, Winchester

No choice

Please vote NO to Amendment 2.

This amendment allows the transfer of public (tax) money from public to private schools. This does not help our communities; low and middle income families and those in rural areas often do not have access to private schools. Public schools provide transportation and meals but it is not required that private schools do the same. Private schools may be exempt from curriculum standards, and may choose who can attend, further eroding true “choice.”

Much of the current school funding is based on attendance, so diverting tax dollars (and students) to private schools could deplete budgets, hurting the public education system. Studies show that charter schools can increase the funding issues in public schools. If Kentucky wants to fund private schools operated outside the public school system, they can find other revenue streams to do that.

We need to support public schools so that all students get the opportunities they need to succeed. Public schools do need to explore and apply ‘best practices’ to improve outcomes. Giving them the funding necessary to do this, and giving our teachers the raises that they deserve is critical. Amendment 2 is bad for students, teachers and our communities.

Lynda Matusek, Lexington

Fact-checking

Recently, in a letter to the editor entitled “Progressive Instincts” by Doug Reed he commented on the problems that Springfield, Ohio is experiencing due to the influx of Haitians in that town. The editors seemed to feel the need to fact check this opinion by Mr. Reed. My question is this. Why do the Herald-Leader editors never fact check progressives? How many times have progressives stated that former President Donald Trump claimed “there were good people on both sides” in Charlottesville? This has been debunked. How about when they state that Trump says he’ll be a dictator on day one? This also has been debunked. Or when they claim that Trump will ban abortion when he has stated that he has no intention of doing so.

Your bias (as usual) is showing.

Ken Baker, Lexington

Property values

The Fayette County Property Valuation Administrator’s Office had a good year. They’ve been gloating about it, with good reason. They did a random sweep through various neighborhoods assigning significantly higher valuations and sent out notices. Good luck if you didn’t notice. Your new tax bill could be 50 percent higher than last year because: It’s retroactive to the beginning of the year. Is anyone noticing?

Elizabeth Harris, Lexington

Lawless Trump

Don’t forget America, former President Donald Trump is also running for president to avoid going to jail for the many times he has broken the law. He and his followers will say whatever they have to say to “persuade” as many people as possible to vote for him in the upcoming election. His slight shift of positions on abortion, marijuana, women’s rights, minority rights, and a whole bunch of other issues is designed to get just enough votes in very tight state races to squeak out an election victory. Once elected he plans to dismiss as many legal cases against him as possible.

In America, if you commit the crime, you expect to do the time if caught. Not for Trump. As an unrestrained president he has an option that no other alleged criminal has: Leave me alone, arrest any opposition, and send them away. In Trump’s mind, stamping license plates is for losers and the poor, but not for him. Our founding fathers and mothers are turning over in their graves.

Register and vote for what America really represents: equal justice for all. We don’t have to stomach privileged lawlessness for another term. Register now. Lady Liberty needs your help.

Gene Lockhart, Lexington

Immigration numbers

During the Vice Presidential debate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) tried to scare us all with allegations that 25 million undocumented immigrants were to blame for lack of affordable housing, crime, and most other problems we struggle with today. Where did that number come from?

The folks who are the experts in estimating demographic characteristics don’t agree with Vance. The Pew Research Center says the number is 11 million for 2022. The Center for Migration Studies says it was 11.7 million in July 2023. The Office of Homeland Security Statistics says 11 million in 2022. It was 12.2 million in 2007.

What kind of invasion is that? Especially since almost 80 percent of them entered before 2010. And between one-third and one-half entered legally and overstayed.

Do the math. The U.S. population was 343,477,475 in 2023. An estimated 3 percent of that population are thought to be undocumented immigrants. Three out of a hundred. Those three are men, women and children.

Granted, all we can do is estimate. We cannot literally count the undocumented. But we can insist on accepted methodologies to make those estimates. And we can use those numbers to accurately reflect reality.

Marilyn S. Daniel, Nonesuch

Rural voters

Vice Presidential candidate U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) says outrageous things as we heard many times. Democrats like me generally assume all of this is demagoguery, but I’m afraid we’re missing something about the impact of his words. It seems likely to me that his words are not reckless, but carefully calculated to inflame rural and ex-urban resentments.

When he attacks Biden and Harris for “censorship,” for example, I suspect he reviving deep resentments about “political correctness” and intellectual hubris going all the way back to George Wallace’s campaigns.

When he attacks Minnesota’s new abortion law, he seems to be reminding rural and ex-urban voters that the abortion issue is really about gestational limits for them. We forget, to our detriment, that even these voters believe in medical autonomy although defined in relation to such limits.

When Vance attacks “childless cat ladies,” I suspect he’s reminding rural and ex-urban red state voters that parents and moms are more narrowly divided between Harris and Trump according to many public opinion polls.

My point for Democrats like me is that we need to listen more carefully to rural and ex-urban voters.

Tom Louderback, Louisville

Republican hysteria

Former President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. JD Vance exploit the primitive political factors of fear, ignorance and hate. It’s been done before and, sadly, it’s happening again here in Kentucky, pushed by the Kentucky Republican Party. Such strategies have consequences seen historically. Don’t fool yourself into believing it can’t happen here. There are willing individuals in this nation who could and would commit atrocities.

Demonization of immigrants, legal and illegal, by Trump and Republicans is advancing quickly to a critical stage. They’re pushing lies to a gullible audience, like, “they’re eating your cats and dogs,” “pedophile ring at Comet Pizza,” “they’re for killing babies after they’re born” and “Trump won 2020.”

It’s happened before. Anticipate screenings at any time of new movies, “The Eternal Immigrant” or “Immigrant Raus!” Listen to the extremists propose extreme solutions, i.e. mass deportation, barbed wire in the Rio Grande, shooting immigrants, etc.

It’s a hysteria fueled by hate, ignorance and fear. It’s gasoline on a fire - a fire created by Trump. Need an example? Look at Kentucky’s own Republicans pushing Amendment 1 as if there were an epidemic of illegal immigrant voting. There isn’t, but that doesn’t stop them from pushing that lie.

Bill Adkins, Williamstown

Driving Miss Gorton

Fix The __________ Roads

I would like to offer myself up for public service. Like the chauffeur in the movie “Driving Miss Daisy,” I offer to pick up Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton and drive her through some of the streets in Lexington. For example, I’ll drive her down MLK from 5th Street to Main Street so she can experience what our citizens experience most days – the potholes, the ruts, the dips and other problems with the city’s streets. I am stunned that she has done nothing to fix the problems in our streets. We seem to have sewer construction everywhere, but nobody can fix the roads. I quote the motto of a successful candidate in another state “fix the __________ roads,” please.

The Mayor needs to do something now – we cannot wait until next spring to address this problem.

Richard A. Getty, Lexington

Edited by Liz Carey