Kentucky defeats REAL ID unfunded mandate

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has vetoed state implementation of the federal REAL ID Act, which would have forced all Kentuckians to get a federal standard drivers license giving the government enhanced tracking abilities of individuals.

"Big government types insist that Kentuckians won't be able to board an airplane without a federal identification, but we called their bluff and exposed their lie," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "This is a good day for Kentuckians to have a governor who will listen to them."

America's largest individual health insurer dumps Kynect; media cheerleaders stunned into silence

United Healthcare, the nation's largest individual health insurer, made public the news they are pulling out of Kentucky ObamaCare in 2017 and the breathless media followers of all things health reform over the last six years have nothing to say about it.

"The dominoes are falling hard with the Kentucky Health Cooperative dropping out last year and now United Healthcare, the sickest Kentuckians have been treated like political pawns and now will be forced into even fewer choices and necessarily causing more skyrocketing premiums," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Silence from the media enablers in Frankfort is deafening."

Baby Beshear panics, cries partisanship too soon

It was only a matter of time before Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear would try for a return to the glory days of Greg Stumbo attacking Ernie Fletcher by accusing Gov. Matt Bevin of illegally firing state workers for political reasons.

But now?

Beshear has asked the Democrats who run the Executive Branch Ethics Commission to "investigate" Bevin for politically motivated firings. Baby Beshear would probably have preferred to wait until closer to the election so his baseless charges might still be hanging over Republican heads as people go the polls in November, but Bevin's own investigation of former Gov. Steve Beshear's pay-to-play government stands to mess up the preferred narrative.

"Beshear played his empty hand too soon in a clumsy attempt to distract from his father's misdeeds," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Little Andy's misadventures will be fun to watch."

Kentucky Republicans unite against REAL ID

Nearly six hundred Republican delegates to Kentucky's GOP state convention this weekend voted almost unanimously to tell Gov. Matt Bevin to veto an ill-considered plan to accept unfunded mandate, national identification personal tracking device called REAL ID.

"This is ObamaCare for TSA agents that goes away if the states stay strong against it," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Accepting REAL ID pleases a few federal bureaucrats, but most Democrats and nearly all Republicans who understand it oppose it."

Steve Beshear's ObamaCare develops a limp

Frankfort Republicans invited former Governor Steve Beshear to appear last week to testify in favor of his illegal and ill-considered ObamaCare actions, but he declined the opportunity.

Beshear has declined also to comment on his unwillingness to go to bat for his signature debacle.

"After four failed executive orders attempting to legally create Kynect, massive health premium increases and an explosion in unsustainable Medicaid costs, the Beshear legacy of failure and mismanagement has been solidified," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "The 2017 General Assembly should pass 'Beshear's Law,' criminalizing future violations of Kentucky's temporary reorganization executive order statute and jailing governors who violate the law in this fashion."

Lexington Herald Leader owes Bevin apology

Back on March 29, the Lexington Herald Leader went hog wild with Kentucky's latest left-wing cause celebre, blaming Gov. Matt Bevin for early glitches in state online benefits web site Benefind. In an April 11 Senate Health and Welfare Committee hearing, we learned the truth which totally refutes Frankfort Obamacrats' smear tactics, but three days later the central Kentucky newspaper hasn't mustered the first word of clarity on the issue.

"One of the biggest changes (to Benefind) made by the Bevin administration effectively excludes kynectors from helping Medicaid patients," the Herald Leader charged.

That's false. The Bevin administration hasn't changed the Beshear-created Benefind program, an online update intended to improve the application process for some federal benefit programs. Bevin delayed the rollout of Benefind to limit confusion during the ObamaCare open enrollment period, then went ahead with it on February 29 amid a written promise from federal authorities that Benefind was bug-free and ready to go as well as a clear threat that further delays could result in the state being fined more than $300 million.

The only way to know these facts is to have talked to Bevin officials or attended the April 11 committee meeting. A Herald Leader reporter was at the hearing.

Again, the evidence is in writing. From federal officials.

"If (Health and Family Services Cabinet Secretary Vickie) Glisson and her new team hadn't been so distracted by Bevin's irrational demand to dismantle Kynect, could they have done a better job managing Benefind's rollout?" the Herald Leader asked.

Oh. So that's what this is all about: leftist angst over a candidate running for governor against the ObamaCare debacle becoming Governor and keeping his promise to start limiting the damage. And no, management of the Benefind rollout was rushed by federal promises and threats. We know that now. The Herald Leader knows that.

Suck it up and apologize to Gov. Bevin, Herald Leader. And if you wish to continue pretending to have a shred of competency, please rein in the embarrassingly baseless attacks in the future.

Democrats, media suck-ups fail to cast blame of Benefind mess on Bevin Administration

The real news from today's Senate Health and Welfare Comittee meeting in which Democrats and their media pets continued trying to pin the ongoing mess with former Gov. Steve Beshear's government benefits consolidation program called Benefind on Gov. Matt Bevin was that the paper trail clearly shows federal officials claimed the program was ready and the Commonwealth faced threat of significant costs if its launch were delayed further.

"Gov. Bevin did these idiots a favor by not unleashing the Benefind disaster on Kentuckians during the ObamaCare open enrollment like the Obamacrats wanted, but they are so hellbent on attacking him they missed an excellent opportunity to shut up and keep their stupidity hidden for another day," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "They will all pretend evidence against their failed tactic is not readily available because they have so little else to attack with, but this fight is over."

Frankfort Dems' suicide to be televised Monday

Kentucky's Senate Health and Welfare Committee will hear two ObamaCare bills Monday morning at 10 am in Capitol Annex Room 171 in the most momentous showdown of the 2016 General Assembly.

House Bills 5 and 6 were rushed through the lower chamber last month in a clumsy attempt by Frankfort Democrats to replay a public referendum on ObamaCare.

"The fantasy that half a million worshipful ObamaCare beneficiaries will storm the polls and elect Democrats would have already made Jack Conway Kentucky's governor if it held any water," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "House Bill 5 would keep Kynect open at Kentuckians' expense and House Bill 6 would force us to stick with the most expensive form of Medicaid expansion available. Gov. Bevin was elected on a platform of cleaning up these messes just five months ago and Democrats are determined to lose the next election in November on the same issue. We will let them."

Will Kentucky dodge REAL ID bullet?

Every year since the federal REAL ID Act passed in 2005, Americans have been bullied into believing their drivers licenses must be upgraded rather expensively with tracking devices or else residents of negligent states would soon be prohibited from boarding domestic flights.

Until this year, very few Kentuckians fell for it. That seemed to change when state Senate leaders rushed SB 245 through their chamber March 22 in an attempt to sign Kentucky up for the nonsense.

With just one day left in the 2016 General Assembly, it appears cooler heads are about to prevail.

Please contact your state Representative before April 12, the session's last day, and inform him or her that falling for the stupid, obtrusive unfunded federal mandates thinly disguised as a plausible threat in SB 245 need not happen this year or any.

Baby Beshear can't read

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear missed the mark in a failed political attack on Gov. Matt Bevin today in which Beshear attempted to redefine what a state appropriation is.

In a statement to the Louisville Courier Journal, General Beshear got smart alecky in threatening a lawsuit against Gov. Bevin for ordering current year cuts in the state's higher education budget. "In fact, the governor's position would mean the General Assembly merely suggests how the governor might spend money if he so chooses," Beshear told the Courier's Tom Loftus. "A budget passed by the General Assembly is a mandate, not a recommendation."

But Beshear is wrong.

KRS 48.010 defines "appropriation" as "an authorization by the General Assembly to expend a sum of money not in excess of the sum specified." That means spending in excess of projected revenue is prohibited. Spending less is not. He should ask his dad, former Gov. Steve Beshear, who was forced to file an unprecedented six General Fund Reduction Executive Orders and an additional five Road Fund Reduction Executive Orders for overspending available revenues, mostly on Medicaid.

Actually, Baby Beshear, a budget is indeed a recommendation unless you are an overspender.

KRS 48.605(1)(a) gives Gov. Bevin all the authorization he needs to cut spending in the current fiscal year. If his father had ever tried voluntarily restraining his urge to expand government, maybe he would understand.

What the Democrat Industrial Complex is missing in Bevin's higher education cuts move

As they so often do, the Lexington Herald Leader and Louisville Courier Journal failed in their reporting of Gov. Matt Bevin's order to cut state General Fund higher education spending by 4.5% in the current fiscal year. This poor reporting does not serve readers seeking to understand issues underpinning the move and allowed House Speaker Greg Stumbo (D-of course) to claim falsely that Gov. Bevin is violating state law.

The statute related to appropriation reductions is KRS 48.600, which would indeed prohibit Bevin from ordering midyear spending cuts in this instance. But Bevin isn't ordering spending cuts in the sense of an appropriation reduction which that statute governs. He's ordering a revision of the allotment schedule, governed by KRS 48.620, which is within his power.

The difference is an appropriation reduction is deemed necessary in statute in the case of a revenue shortfall and an allotment reduction within an appropriation, which this is, can be authorized by the state budget director pursuant to KRS 48.605(1)(a). The legislature can object to the move, but KRS 48.500 clearly gives the Governor the upper hand in such a dispute.