Much barking, no biting on fringe benefit reform

If you were just reading editorial headlines Sunday, you might think Kentucky was ready to demand action from Frankfort on the $26 billion public pension disaster. The Louisville Courier Journal bellowed "Pension reform, now" and the Paducah Sun screamed, simply, "NOW." The Lexington Herald Leader said "Light a fire under legislature," but they were talking about raising taxes.

We are never going to get anywhere on fixing the mess caused by decades of overpaying our government employees at the rate we are going.

The Sun said "Beshear is less likely than his ineffective predecessor to let the legislature dictate the terms of a special session. Something tells us he’s going to finally bring about long-overdue pension reform."

Their optimism is misplaced. We need to join 12-step recovering addicts by first admitting that we have been overpaying public employees for a long time. Otherwise, cutting benefits slightly today probably just means they will go back up later. That's just kicking the can down the road.

Now that more people are starting to pay attention to this, we need to shift the discussion to consideration of phasing out pensions for legislators. Eliminating this conflict of interest might help lawmakers keep clear heads about driving us out of the benefits ditch and inspire them to stay out.

Allowing legislators to take executive branch jobs and pick up a huge pension boost should be an easy mistake to reverse. Repealing the expensive part of HB 299 from 2005 would show significant good will.

Color me skeptical.

That didn't take very long

Speaking to Bill Bryant on WKYT's Newsmakers program, U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford wasted no time in playing the class warfare game and redistributing wealth with the best of them:

What he meant to say was "yes"

In an interview on WKYT's Newsmakers program in Lexington, Bill Bryant got an earful when he asked U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford if he supports a universal health insurance scheme:

Bluegrass Institute hacked, sites down for days

If you can't beat them, hack them.

That's seems to be the philosophy of whoever hacked the Bluegrass Institute's websites Saturday and stifled much of the organization's public communications until at least Monday.

The Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky's free market think tank, has raised the ire of Frankfort politicians and bureaucrats with its non-partisan advocacy of open and honest government spending practices and public education statistics reporting.

An early Institute victory forced the legislature to post floor votes onto the internet each day the General Assembly is in session. The website that came about as a result, Kentucky Votes, managed to escape the hack which brought down The Bluegrass Institute's main site (www.bipps.org) and the group's blog, Bluegrass Policy Blog (www.bluegrassblog.org).

Current initiatives, which have rankled many, include an effort to place government expenditures on a searchable website, pushing for a serious discussion of public employee fringe benefit reform to avert bankruptcy of state and local governments, creating more meaningful oversight of the Kentucky Department of Education, and reducing corporate taxes across-the-board to bring more jobs to Kentucky.

"Clearly, more than a few people have us in their cross-hairs," said Institute founder and President Chris Derry. "But this temporary setback doesn't slow the need to operate government under correct principles. We shall return and double our efforts."

Is Don Leach the lone gunman or just a patsy?

Fayette County Detention Center Deputy Director Don Leach is currently trying to dig himself out of trouble for a contraband violation in the intake area of the Lexington jail. An internal incident report has been filed and it has been a hot topic of discussion among rank-and-file employees who are watching the jail administration implode under federal investigations and lawsuits.

Does John McCain think you are a conservative?

We've all heard a lot of debate about Sen. John McCain's conservative credentials. And while the certain prospect of a fall campaign against either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton burnishes McCain's reputation as a bona fide heir of Reagan, I couldn't help noticing McCain has taken to classifying political blogs on his campaign's website. At least one of his classifications was somewhat noteworthy.

Daily Kos is actually featured as a liberal blog and a longer list of conservative blogs hits on several of the biggies like Michelle Malkin, Power Line Blog, and Club for Growth.

But under a list of "Other" Suggested blogs, there is the following (click the image to expand it):

You can go here and check it out for yourself.

Both House and Senate full of it on pension mess

Please, someone try to convince me this latest pension dog-and-pony show is not the biggest pile of manure in a state containing many big piles of manure.

What say you, Bruce Lunsford?

The Intrade prediction market has Kentucky's U.S. Senate race tightening. Last trades at midday have Sen. Mitch McConnell at $65 and challenger Bruce Lunsford at $35.

Sen. McConnell would do well to challenge Lunsford to state his position on the mult-billion dollar Mortgage Bailout Bill.

Got a minute for a little internet activism?

I'm on my way to Frankfort to see the shiny new Senate offices we are buying.

If you have a minute, please join the Facebook group "Where in the world is Kentucky's checkbook?" (It seems you have to join Facebook first, but that's not a bad idea. Great way to keep in touch with people.)

Skippy is hiring

Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary Jonathan Miller is looking for a Chief Information Officer. Lots of huge benefits for the right girl.

Bruce Lunsford doubles up on Mitch McConnell

The prediction market Intrade prices a Bruce Lunsford victory over Mitch McConnell at $38, one week after trading at $17.

A McConnell victory remains priced at $80.

Shock: new Kentucky ed numbers don't add up

Kentucky's education bureaucracy has an amazing ability to make schoolchildren disappear and then magically reappear when they are needed to calculate funding.

Take, for example, the following press release that was printed without question by the Lexington Herald Leader.

In the news story, we see a Kentucky graduation rate of 83%, a drop out rate of 3%, and a retention rate of 3%. Add that up and think about it just a little.

And, by all means, don't take my word for it. Ask Crit Luallen.

Now is a great time to talk about this

Sen. John McCain should promise to run for just one term as President.

Of course, doing so really puts the spotlight on who he picks for Veep.

Please, don't let it be Mike Huckabee.


Is getting someone who is conservative on both fiscal and social issues too much to ask?

Vote for me to elect the other guy?

Interesting post on Peach Pundit from the Libertarian Party convention provides an unusual approach to getting a presidential nomination:

Gravel has a hit piece on Barr up around the convention this morning. It reads, “Do you really think we will win the White House? If we run Bob Barr, he will take votes away from McCain, then Obama or Clinton will be president for 8 years with a Democratic Congress. If we run Mike Gravel, he will take votes away from the Democrat and McCain will be president for 4 years with a Democrat Congress. Mike Gravel is our only smart choice!”

If the candidates' best line this year is going to be "waste your vote on me," enthusiasm for the Libertarian Party must be pretty low. Perhaps not as bad as the Greenies, but probably pretty low.

Locking and loading for President Obama

I think it is pretty funny to see Hillary Clinton get creamed for not suggesting someone shoot Barack Obama so she can get the Democratic presidential nomination.

That said, it's interesting that, with Obama leading in national polls, a Missouri car dealership is offering gas coupons or handgun coupons to people who buy a car.

Most people are choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights, by accepting the guns rather than the gas. Barack can't be happy about that.

Too bad car dealers can't offer properly regulated health insurance as an incentive. If Barry wins in November, people in the flyover states may be looking for some of that.

Conservative Edge coming back to life

If you have gotten out of the habit of checking out The Conservative Edge, now is a good time to go back.

And while you are at it, head over to Real Clear Politics and vote for Leland Conway's "I am not a racist" essay.

Who likes buying cars and gas for bureaucrats?

Glad to see Kentucky Education Commissioner Jon Draud catch a little grief for his fancy taxpayer-provided car. It's pretty hard to see how pimping his ride is going to help educate any children out of poverty here.

Of course, rewarding government employees for less than stellar results in Kentucky is hardly unprecedented. Take, for instance, the administrators at the Fayette County Detention Center who are zipping around at taxpayer expense.

I think we just found some missing state money

Jessamine County Sheriff Kevin Corman appears to have serious problems with the Kentucky State Police related to financial irregularities in his office.

Picking a bad decade to expand Medicaid

Remember when Kentucky figured out we overspent on Medicaid and needed more money to fill in the gap?

Ohio is now finding the same thing.

"State Budget Director J. Pari Sabety told legislators yesterday that the budget needs another $344 million ($122 million in state funds) to cover increased Medicaid costs because 66,000 more people than expected are using the state-federal health-insurance program for the poor and elderly."

And some folks want to sign everyone up for government health insurance. Sheesh...

Kentucky, circa 2020?

French bureaucrats are having a meltdown over public employee pension reform, a subject Kentucky politicians are striving mightily to ignore here.

A government employee revolt has to be considered inevitable in Kentucky, given what we are seeing in France and our limited ability to tax ourselves out of a Bluegrass version of the same mess here.

What are you waiting for, Monsieur Beshear?