Howard Dean, Call Your Office

Lexington businessman Dick Robinson sounded like a pretty nice guy earlier in the month when he talked about running for Secretary of State in Kentucky. He even said his foray into politics was "not a reflection on Trey Grayson" and hoped to continue some of Grayson's innovations.

Today, though, Dr. Dick went Deaniac, earning accolades from the far left when he said:

Unlike Mr. Grayson, I will not require a judge’s order to know not to attempt to certify a citizen of Indiana as the winner of a Kentucky legislative election.

Here Dr. Dick shows that he is just hopping on the D Train and hoping to ride it all the way to Frankfort. Grayson is one member on the Board of Elections and only votes in the event of a tie. The vote Dr. Dick is talking about was 6-0.

Not the best start for a statewide campaign.

Liberal Economics Is Contagious

America's left coast is famous for raising taxes. Currently, Washington state is trying again to change its constitution to implement an income tax.

While there is little surprising in a group of politicians digging around for more vote-buying money, a justification for this one almost caused me to spit hot chocolate all over my desk. From the liberal Economic Opportunity Institute:

By not having a state income tax, Washington loses its opportunity to take advantage of shifting part of the state’s tax burden to the federal government. Taxpayers that itemize deductions on their federal tax returns are allowed to deduct state and local income taxes from their federal taxable income[3]. For example, if a Washington family in the 27% federal tax bracket pays $1,000 in state income taxes they can deduct this amount from their federal taxable income for a savings of $270. By virtue of the deduction, the federal government has paid part of the family’s state tax bill.

Did you catch that? They want to create a new $1000 tax so some families -- less than one-third of taxpayers itemize deductions on federal returns -- can reduce their federal taxes by $270.

Washington is one of seven states without a state income tax. I can't imagine any of the others falling for such flimsy reasoning.

Saving Detroit One Student At A Time

School Choice is having a huge impact in Detroit. There is no reason to imagine the same thing wouldn't happen here.

Another State Goes For Socialized Medicine

This time it is Pennsylvania.

More details on the plan will be available February 6, but the idea is nothing new -- force people to buy health insurance and make large numbers of people sign up for income-based taxpayer subsidies to pay their premiums. The devil will be in the details of course, but it looks a lot like a garden variety government takeover of healthcare.

Admitting Guilt In The Newspaper Should Preclude Later Claims of Vindication

I really wanted to stay out of the "Fletcher Critic Tax Flap" story. One-car pile-ups have a way of sitting still to be examined slowly. That is what this was.

But the effort to spin this into some kind of false and malicious prosecution story angered a reader and motivated him to call me.

His point was that even though tax cases usually aren't brought to court after restitution is made, the crime occurred. Should the prosecutor drop the case -- and he probably will -- any gloating and charges of dirty tricks can't go unanswered.

Remember that.

Conceding Too Many Points To The Left

Governor Fletcher spoke about budget priorities in Richmond on Tuesday, addressing the problem of 550,000 people "without health insurance," lowering college tuition, and spending more on social services and child care.

These are all black holes that taxpayer dollars will never provide enough support to fill. Think about it. Every new program to lower tuition costs leads to more wild inflation. And when are we going to try market-based solutions to expanding health coverage instead of slathering on more mandates and answering those with higher subsidies? And we still haven't figured out that spending more on social services and child care succeeds mainly in generating higher demand for more such "free" services.

The story concludes with most in the audience suggesting additional funds should go to the state retirement plans. This is good. Public employee pensions have to be taken care of first.

The focus on the wrong-headed stuff isn't something Governor Fletcher created and no one expects him to repair such entrenched sentiment. But until we get people off government solutions that we know only make things worse, we will have massive problems with trying to move forward as a state.

Congressional Dems Next Target -- Wal-Mart?

The Maryland law that was to mandate health coverage for Wal-Mart's employees in that state was found illegal in federal court today.

According to the ruling, there is no way the states can carry out the War on Wal-Mart. It will have to be done on the federal level. Given the weakness of the Democrat agenda so far this year, it isn't unreasonable to assume they may well go in that direction.

Jody Richards Pre-Announcement Appearance

House Speaker Jody Richards had lunch today in Louisville at Harper's with John Y. Brown III.

By meeting so publicly they are trying to generate buzz for an upcoming official announcement, but they will need Bruce Lunsford there in May to even give Richards another close-but-no-cigar moment.

Biggest Tactical Blunder On The Net

Consumers of political information on the internet have grown used to checking out surveyusa.com for free polling data for which others have paid.

You can't do that anymore.

The site is now a pay-only 2008 presidential what-if game.

I hope they are making some money on this, but basically I think they are just destroying their franchise.

Be$hear Auditions For Casino Contributions

Steve Be$hear upped the ante for the pot of casino gambling contributions yesterday, saying casinos would bring $500 million into state coffers.

Outbid was scandal-plagued Senator Ed Worley who made his pitch to be the gambling candidate by promising only $450 million.

Will Jonathan Miller go for $550 million?

Casino interests and the politicians who support them like to tell people there are no public costs associated with operating casinos and that all the revenue will be available for them to spend.

Billy Harper's "Job Killer" Radio Ad

Gubernatorial hopeful Billy Harper has a radio ad coming out tomorrow that stays on the theme of repealing the the Alternative Minimum Calculation:

"This job killer has taken more than $100 million from taxpayers and given it to politicians."

The snorting pig in the middle of the commercial might have been too much in a state where we like to use dogs in our political commercials, but in this one it works.

Winner Of 2002 Powerball Blew It All

Wasting $113 million in four years is pretty sick, don't you think?

It is interesting that so many of Jack Whittaker's problems seemed to occur in and around casinos. And we want to set our under-educated, over-entertained population loose in gambling houses as a way to finance bigger government in Kentucky.

Annie, Get Some More Guns

Cities and towns would do well to get serious about fighting crime by promoting gun ownership.

Stan Lee Gets CJ Love

How about this?

The rumors about Rep. Lee running for Attorney General will get a little push from this write-up.

Greg Stumbo, You Have The Right To Remain Silent

Attorney General Greg Stumbo should consider himself lucky Kentucky doesn't still have a statute on the books that deems adultery a felony.

Michigan's Attorney General, another prosecutor who is a known adulterer, isn't so lucky.

Still Eating Our Social Security Seed Corn

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) says the Bush administration needs to get off the idea of Social Security solvency as the top priority of reform and focus on creating a better deal for young people. He suggests this could be an issue in 2008.

Republicans surrendered the high ground when they didn't end the practice of spending the current payroll tax surplus each year. Personal accounts need to happen and will happen eventually, but the argument has likely been too damaged for that to happen very soon.

Of course Pence is right that raising payroll taxes would be a horrible idea. The tragedy is that this even has to been stated.

Scary Truth About California's Health Plan

If you have read a little about California's proposal to provide universal coverage, you have probably been misinformed. The plan would not hit the state for much; it is mostly federal money that will finance this monster.

Can Kentucky be very far behind in trying to implement this very dangerous idea?

A Glimpse Into Our Future: New Jersey For Sale

The next time someone tells you how casinos will solve Kentucky's budget woes, tell them about this.

And of course the MSM hasn't told you anything about the massive higher education budget cuts in Blue State New Jersey, home of a dozen casinos.

Jody Richards' Proliferation Of Nonsense

I waited all week for someone else to say something dumber than House Speaker Jody Richards' whopper on Monday in defense of Certificate of Need laws.

It didn't happen.

Bear in mind that every single analysis of CON has determined that by artificially limiting supply of health care services, CON laws cause prices for medical services to go higher than they would with repeal of these laws.


From the Kentucky Tonight television program on Monday night, here is Speaker Richards' comment:

"Since so much of hospital costs are paid by Medicaid and Medicare, I think if you allowed a proliferation of this very expensive technology I think you are going to see in the long run rates go up and I think it is going to be counterproductive. I'm very much in favor of keeping the current Certificate of Need laws."

Proliferation of technology?! What on Earth is he talking about? In what alternate universe does limiting supply lower costs?

With everyone else trying to find ways to lower healthcare costs, it would seem logic might trump partisanship and we could repeal Kentucky's CON laws. Richards is expected to announce a run for Governor soon. Is this the kind of rhetoric we can expect from him between now and May?

UK: Unmarried Bennies To Cost You $633K/Year

The University of Kentucky's effort to become a Top Twenty Research University is obviously on the ropes if their best idea for moving forward is spending tax dollars for their employees to sign up "domestic partners" to their benefit plans.

What a pathetic waste.