It has been two days since Governor Steve Beshear introduced his stillborn casino plan. If the House Democrats had the votes to pass it, it would be worthy of serious discussion. But they don't.
The real story in all this mess is the ideological split in House leadership. The House Democratic caucus has ceased to function and is ripe for a serious shake-up.
While they sort that out, though, the rest of the state has serious needs that are being ignored.
Busting Kentucky out of its welfare mentality can get started by getting serious about illegal immigration and drug-abusing welfare recipients. We need to cut back on the political feeding trough mentality, too, on the way to reforming public employee pension plans before they break the state. Governor Beshear said he will introduce a pension reform plan next week. He really needs to reverse his growing string of policy missteps by getting this one right.
The term "public employee" should suggest those who earn their living through the government work for us, but as their benefits gets more out of hand, we wind up working harder for them. This trend needs to be reversed a whole lot more than we need to sit around watching debate on a revenue scheme that stands no chance of passage.
We can't improve the state by putting up with the same nonsense.
