When the 2014 Kentucky General Assembly enacted budget language forbidding spending on anything directly or indirectly related to ObamaCare, Gov. Beshear declined to veto the provision because, he said, sufficient federal funding would be available to run the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange in 2015-16.
That was never true.
Now the actual state budget (on page 209) shows $37.4 million state dollars being transferred to the Exchange as state restricted funds and spent in clear violation of the explicit legislative instructions in the current state budget. An active state budget is the supreme law of the land in Kentucky next to the Constitution.
I have made a request of Deputy Budget Director John Hicks for an explanation of this illegal action by the Beshear Administration.
