Kokomo — Re-elect Cristi Brewer-Allen

On Nov. 6, I hope that everyone will go to the polls and vote. This is not only a right, but a privilege for all of us in our great and wonderful country. We will not only be electing officials at the national and state level, but also at the local.

This year we will be electing local school board members during the fall election instead of during the spring primary. This is occurring as a result of legislation from the state of Indiana.

I have had the privilege of serving as a member of the Kokomo-Center Township Consolidated School Board for the last four years. Cristi Brewer-Allen has served on this board with me since 2008. Ms. Brewer-Allen is dedicated to making sure that our schools are safe and that our curriculum is rigorous and will meet the needs of our students in a global economy.

She has previously worked directly with students in our schools as a Title I small group instructor and parent involvement coordinator.

Over the past four years Cristi has grown into an outstanding board member. Her primary emphasis as a board member has been helping children with special needs and those who are socio-economically disadvantaged. She has been a staunch supporter of our new International Baccalaureate program and the integrated arts program at Wallace, which will raise the standard of learning and curriculum for the students of Kokomo-Center.

In addition, she has been a supporter of the alternative education program at McKinley, as well as, the twilight program at Kokomo High School, which brings the opportunity for students, including adults who may have dropped out of school, to earn a high school diploma.

She truly has a passion for the children of our school corporation and will speak out without reservation for their cause or to improve their needs. She spends a great deal of time visiting schools to look at programs and to give her support in any way possible.

As a fellow board member, she always is willing to work with other board members in a harmonious fashion to find resolution to educational issues and concerns. She understands the realities of establishing priorities in order to use, in a prudent way, the limited resources that are appropriated for our students and staff. She is always willing to take the time to listen to the concerns of a child or a parent.

Cristi Brewer-Allen is an advocate for public education and keeps up to date with the laws pertaining to education. I believe with her experience and knowledge gained over the past four years, it would be in the best interest of our children to re-elect Christi Brewer-Allen to the Kokomo-Center Schools Board of Education.

Harold Canady, Kokomo

There’s an ill wind a-blowing!

HR3590 provides lots of particular benefits, long awaited and needed, such as eliminating insurance constraints of pre-existing conditions, extending dependent age eligibility to 26 years, and making insurance portable. However, mixed into the bill’s 2,407 pages, is an expensive cocktail of 20 new taxes.

Some were rather immediate, such as the tanning tax and HSA/FSA limitations. The 2013 tax on supplier sales of medical devices could increase the price of some medical treatment needs to the point that cost is denied.

America will only begin to feel most of the new taxations beginning next year, as will the wealthier among us, experiencing investment tax impacts. By mid-2014, a 15 member Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) makes its first recommendations to Congress for Medicare changes.

IPAB board members are to be appointed by either the president or secretary of Health and Human Services. The powers granted to IPAB will exceed congressional authority, such that all board recommendations will become national law, unless majority votes had in both houses of Congress, with presidential signature, for any revisions!

New laws, without congressional action, congressional approval, meaningful congressional oversight, or being subject to a presidential veto! Even U.S. citizens will have no authority to challenge the board’s pronouncements in court, for the health care bill specifically states implementation of IPAB’s proposals is not to be judicially reviewable.

IPAB will be permitted to impose price controls, taxes and ration anything it considers health related, for all Americans, as law, no matter if government pays the medical bills or not! The original Medicare expense control function stipulated won’t be a practical deterrent to keep the board from expanding its national impact and dictates.

IPAB recommendations will become a severe distortion, away from constitutional functions, and balance of powers the founders intended. It would be even worse than the recent congressional “super committee”, which only represented 11 states, that failed to achieve debt resolution, and left extreme financial penalties that promise to decimate our military defense.

Free health care won’t be free or freedom, if Congress’ legislative authority is abbreviated and bypassed!

If on Election Day we aren’t voting for values, freedom and liberty, we are voting for something far more restrictive that could likely threaten the very retention of our republic as we have known and loved it for decades.

Not voting in protest or apathy is simply not asking for the best national leadership and policies, but rather accepting whatever is final, by default! This 2012 election is not about loyalties, or perfection, but about what’s best to retain a free and prosperous society, and just maybe our own right to longer life.

Glen Martin, Kokomo