Tuesday, May 31, 2011

What part of "freedom" don't they understand?

Section 8 of Kentucky's Constitution reads as follows:

"Printing presses shall be free to every person who undertakes to examine the proceedings of the General Assembly or any branch of government, and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. Every person may freely and fully speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty."

Nothing there suggests any kind of authorization for the government to restrict any kind of political speech. In fact, the guarantee of freedom to speak, write and print on any subject couldn't be more clear.

So how do our politicians justify limiting our ability to criticize them?

Ask anyone who voted for SB 8 in 2008. That would probably be a lot like a Kentucky Senate version of Jay Walking.

Getting this right is pretty important. The Kentucky Constitution explicitly guarantees absolute freedom of speech and we have elected officials trying to create additional legal hurdles for citizens wishing to criticize them.

Call your state Senator and ask if he or she can explain why state government should be allowed to override our state constitution. Please forward this post to other Kentuckians so we can get this right.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Republicans win Medicare debate

The left has officially jumped the shark with their latest Mediscare attack video:


Increasing Medicare deductibles and eliminating the standardization of Medicare supplement insurance will help implement free market improvements to health care for our nation's disabled people and seniors.

With a year and a half till the 2012 elections, Republicans don't have to do much to sound like the adults in the room compared to Obama on Medicare.

The Rep. Paul Ryan plan for Medicare is a start and should help with the repeal effort on ObamaCare. As more Americans see how well they do with less government involvement in their healthcare, the closer we will get to eliminating this unconstitutional (not to mention counterproductive) activity.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Ban deficit spending in Frankfort

Kentucky has added $2.46 billion in bonded debt over the last three years, that we know about. Frankfort politicians have figured out they don't have to go through the political pain of raising taxes or cutting spending, because so few people pay attention to mounting state debt.

And this doesn't even include the debt of unfunded pension liabilities which are piling up even faster. While harder to track, they are no less attributable to political opportunism of elected representatives who have neglected for years to appropriately set money aside.

Kentucky's balanced budget requirement does not preclude politicians from borrowing or refusing to fund future liabilities. That shouldn't be hard to fix.

Please forward this post as widely as possible. If we accomplish one thing in the 2012 General Assembly, this should be it.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

With "spending cuts" like these...

Frankfort politicians claim to have cut the state budget eight times over the last three and a half years. Hope you didn't think that meant they were actually spending less money, because it didn't.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Where's Kentucky's ObamaCare waiver?

The Beshear administration is hiding its latest communication with the federal government about the disastrous health insurance regulation in the law known as ObamaCare.

Beshear quietly asked for an exemption from the law back in February. Since then, Obama asked for more information about Kentucky's request and, according to sources with information about the negotiations, Kentucky has sent additional documents.

Funny we aren't hearing anything about this as Beshear attempts to make the case for his re-election in part by touting, falsely, how transparent his administration has been.