A Call For Debate On HB 184

I will be on the Kruser program in Lexington on 590 AM Monday at 12:30 talking about what a nightmare HB 184 would be for Kentucky. So far, supporters of the bill have been strangely silent about it. As far as I know, only Rep. Harry Moberly and Speaker Jody Richards have publicly defended this fascist scheme.

Where are the rest of you guys?

Allowing a handful of legislators to go behind closed doors in budget years to change any law, raise any tax, or spend any amount of money and then force the rest of us to swallow it all makes no sense. Putting the budget together in closed-door conference at the last minute like they do will allow them to get away with it. That is the entire purpose of HB 184.

After so much ranting and raving about congressional earmarks, are we going to let this far more dangerous practice go through without a fight? Do you really trust these folks that much?

And no, they don't face much risk in the next election for their actions. That's how they wind up in leadership. There is little reason to expect the people pushing this through to pay any political price. Sure, you can vote against your legislator if he or she votes for it, but the next one will face the same pressure to go along and you still can't get to the leaders.

HB 184 very simply repeals open government in Kentucky. Prove me wrong.

Rank-and-file legislators will have to decide to buck leadership and stand up for what is right or to go along so that when the budget conference locks everyone out they will have a chance to get anything for their districts. As a political calculation it could be a difficult choice. House members vote on HB 184 Tuesday afternoon.

Gambling Our Way To Prosperity

I hope that an economic development press conference by the Beshear campaign would mean more than casinos in the mountains, near big cities, and between farms, but color me skeptical.

Sometimes Compromise Is a Beautiful Thing

One of the biggest problems with the minimum wage hike hype is that it glosses over the damage done to the part-time entry level worker who gets priced out of the labor market when the cost of his labor is set too high by the government.

Rep. Brad Montell (R-Shelbyville) has a terrific answer in an amendment to HB 305: exempt workers who put in less than 25 hours in a week.

The slavish devotees of the left will scream bloody murder over this, but it really is a good idea.

Save entry level jobs. Exempt part-time workers.

Fascism Gets A Big Boost In Frankfort

Jody Richards is in favor of the ridiculous HB 184.

His spokeswoman said the purpose of the bill is to "codify the existing practice."

Yeah, Jody, that's what the lawsuits are for. Better call your lawyer.

Update: The House is set to vote on HB 184 Tuesday afternoon.

End of the world update: Despite wild-eyed leadership support for HB 184, moderates Stan Lee and Kathy Stein agree this is a horrible bill.

Responding To Media Surveys 101

The Pol Watchers survey of gubernatorial candidates about casino gambling was interesting. Can't imagine what the Northup campaign was thinking about when they didn't respond. Harper's video response was very good in terms of style. His answer was my favorite, though Governor Fletcher's may be the best political answer. Looks like if you want someone who talks straight about the fool's gold of casino gambling, Billy Harper is your guy. His answers need to get tighter, but he has improved light years since the disastrous Ford press conference.

Jody Richards had much less need to respond than Northup did, so his silence makes sense. Beshear gave the best answer, I think, but he is leading in the wrong direction. Miller and Lunsford would have been better off issuing a no comment. Galbraith suggests a plan to get by without any gambling money, which makes a lot of sense and stands as a stark contrast in the Dem field. Steve Henry responded too. Is he still in the race?

Pushing Parents Out of Public Schools

Rep. Reginald Meeks filed a bill Thursday to dilute parental influence on school-based decision making councils. The bill would add one non-teacher school employee and one minority non-teacher school employee (or just another non-teacher if no minority is available.)

Tom Vilsack Wants To Rule The World

Tom Vilsack is on Jay Leno saying we need to cut off funding for Iraq and bring the troops home now. Also wants to stop using foreign oil.

And this guy is from Iowa?

Jay didn't ask, but I would like to know if he plans to run as an independent if he doesn't win the Democratic nomination.

Stan Lee For Attorney General

Liberals love to hate him and now his campaign website is up. Read it and seethe.

Scorsone Goes Wild Again

Senator Ernesto Scorsone is on the Senate floor right now calling the effort to stop University employees from spending tax dollars for health coverage for their boyfriends and girlfriends "bigotry."

He also repeated the lie that the domestic partners would pay the entire cost of coverage. Look it up, Senator.

He is joined by Sen. Julian Carroll, who suggested that domestic partner benefits at public universities would be a great way to cover sick relatives of employees.

Unbelievable.

Update: SB 152 banning domestic partner benefits at public universities passed the Senate.

Congrats Lexington Herald Leader!!!

The Lexington Herald Leader has gotten on board with their own condemnation of Rep. Harry Moberly's awful HB 184.

Now where in the world is the Louisville Courier-Journal on this?

Harry Moberly owes us an apology for trying to legalize a closed door General Assembly. How embarrassing.

Update: The nascent Kentucky Club For Growth is making plans to warn legislators that a vote for HB 184 will be a "key vote" in determining Club support of candidates in the next election.

Media Fiddles While Freedom Burns

Where the heck is our vaunted watchdog mainstream media while the General Assembly moves to shut out all manner of dissent from our legislative process?

When House Bill 184 passed out of the A&R Committee without a single "no" vote yesterday afternoon, I expected to see some fiery responses from the very newspeople who will be shut out of what will no longer have to be an open form of government. If you don't live and breathe government and public policy then it's understandable if you don't know what I'm talking about and I will do my best to explain this, but for those who know and yet stand by and say nothing, I feel utter disgust and despair. If you know or should know what they are about to do to us and yet choose to sit idly by, you make me sick. If you are still wondering, please read on.

HB 184 makes it legal for the General Assembly to hide any kind of law inside the budget only to spring it on us when Leadership emerges from their closed-door conference and there is little the rank-and-file can do but go along. There will be no reason to have open committee meetings or even floor votes; everything in budget years can go into one bill and we will have no input in what that bill does. We will see it when they are ready for us to see it.

What's worse, this merely makes legal what they have done by stealth in the last three budgets. First time, they slipped in a couple of illegal items on the budget bill. Two years ago, they put in sixteen. Last year, it was nearly thirty. Leadership knew it was illegal then; that's why Rep. Harry Moberly is pushing HB 184 now. He wants to make fascism legal in Kentucky.

It is past time we had some serious discussion about this. It won't wait till the next election. What are you going to do, vote out your legislator? Even if you can do that, it won't matter if he isn't in leadership and gets to go into the budget conference.

Seriously, outrages like this are what we have the 2nd ammendment for.

Update: Here is one story.

Don't Be Dissin' Mookie!

What an ego!

We tell everybody the head terrorist in Iraq didn't have the guts to be a suicide bomber, instead escaping to Iran. To show his manhood -- and his face, we hope! -- Mookie just had to announce that he didn't leave town.

Jody Richards Beats School Funding Rap

The failure of KERA II is so funny in so many ways, I almost can't stand it.

The best part is the judge used the KDA's own bogus "improving" test scores to prove that they didn't need more funding.

I know our liberal friends really don't want to understand how school choice would make our public schools perform better, but that is what we need the most now. As the global economy gets more ferocious, we have to move past the idea that our school systems were created to give jobs to education majors. The need to advance faster demands that we stop the begging for more money and get on with educating our children for the 21st century.

National Attention To A Kentucky Problem

The National Taxpayers Union is concerned about Rep. Harry Moberly's outrageous "I will make it legal" bill.

Grover Norquist Responds To Herald Leader Attack

The Lexington Herald Leader attacked Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform on today's editorial page and said gubernatorial candidate Billy Harper made a mistake by signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Norquist sent me this response:

The Lexington Herald Leader’s editorial “Harper’s bad pledge,” incorrectly likens Mr. Harper’s signing of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge to surrendering accountability to an out-of-state group. However, the Taxpayer Protection Pledge is a commitment made to the taxpayers of a state, not to Americans for Tax Reform. This should be clear from the wording of the Pledge Mr. Harper signed: “I, ____________, pledge to the taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and all the people of this Commonwealth, that I will oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes.” The Taxpayer Protection Pledge is a statement of principle that one believes the government should not place higher burdens on hardworking families and businesses in order to fund ever-increasing spending.

Kentuckians should applaud Mr. Harper for putting taxpayers over big-spending interests and encourage all candidates running for office to make this important commitment.

Battle For Kentucky Constitution In Frankfort Today

Power-crazed politicians can sometimes be funny to watch when the curtain is pulled back and their naked desires are exposed.

But Budget Chairman Harry Moberly's illegal groping is no laughing matter.

Moberly's House Bill 184, which is set to come up for a vote this afternoon in A&R, turns the Constitution of Kentucky on its head. We already endure budgets these days crafted behind closed doors and rammed down the throats of legislators with no prior scrutiny. That's plenty bad enough. But Moberly's favorite trick is to sneak permanent laws into budget bills, a practice the Constitution prohibits. Nearly two dozen such provisions were placed in the last spending plan.

HB 184 makes it legal to continue stuffing the budget full of measures that could not pass on their own merits, like earmarks in Congress. Emboldening Moberly by legalizing his tactics can not be tolerated any longer. There is not much chance Moberly's own committee will stand up to him this afternoon, but the people of Kentucky should band together to shine the light on such corrupt practices.

If we don't stop this kind of abuse now, we deserve what we will get.


Afternoon update: The House Budget Committee passed HB 184 with Moberly saying it has the support of the Governor. (Attempts to reach Governor Fletcher's office for comment were unsuccessful.) Moberly was defiant in support of his overreaching bill, saying "The budget bill is no different than any other bill." The Constitution of Kentucky disagrees with him. The budget bill is for appropriations. He also said he thought the leaders of General Assembly could put all of their legislation in one bill if they wanted to. Since the budget bill is now negotiated in private by a handful of legislators, this runs completely against our form of government. Chairman Moberly has clearly gotten too big for his britches.

The Revolution Will Not Be Meaningful

This is not what they had in mind for internet video.

The much-hyped First 100 hours of Democrat rule of Congress has turned out to be such a waste of time they are trying to make a big deal out of video of the floor votes, for Heaven's sake. It would be funny if it weren't so pitiful.

Cracking Down On Business Activity In Kentucky

If you have never made your living in sales, you may not have been the least bit offended by the rush to stop all sales calls to people's homes a few years ago. While I'm not exactly pining for the days of abusive, incompetent telemarketers, a bill sponsored by Rep. Mitchel Denham (D-Maysville) goes way too far as an attack against business people.

House Bill 433 literally makes it illegal to do business by calling someone's cell phone. Banning and punishing deceptive sales practices is a proper and welcome function of government. But criminalizing sales calls that happen to be received by a cell phone or blackberry is ridiculous.

Bluegrass Bureaucrats To Defend Abuse Of Special Needs Students On Television Tonight

Kentucky Education Association President Frances Steenburgen and Jefferson County Teachers Association vice president Royce Whitman will go on the Kentucky Tonight program at 8 pm to explain their support for the poor treatment of special needs students in Kentucky schools.

Jim Waters from the Bluegrass Institute and LG Steve Pence will be on the program to question the status quo and to describe how HB 30 will help the children.

Jimmy Carter Won A Grammy Last Night

... which helps put into perspective the Dixie Twits' awards. The MSM will portray the awards show as another "turning point" in the war, but feel free not to fall for it.

They even had Al Gore make an appearance. Don't show him this or he will start that shrieking stuff again.