As Frankfort politicians often do, they have been throwing budget deficit/shortfall/overspending figures around enough to make our heads spin. Of course, that's the idea. When they are finished and before the next election, we are just supposed to remember how nice and smart they look on television.
The truth is that you only need to know one number to understand Kentucky's overspending problem. It's $1,508,494,000. That's the one-point-five billion dollars in new bonded debt our representatives authorized for themselves in the current budget bill.
Too much government costs us too much money. It's going to be very difficult to "reform" much of anything until we come to grips with that simple fact.
