Really Dumb Bill Passes Unanimously

Everyone talks about lowering high school dropout rates as a way to spread opportunity and cut poverty. The trick is how to get it done.

HB 32, which passed both House and Senate unanimously, attempts to cut dropout rates by putting bars on school windows and doors.

What the bill does is require school districts and the Transportation Cabinet to revoke the drivers license of sixteen and seventeen-year-old students who are failing, truant, or have dropped out of high school.

The first problem is the state is punishing young people for doing something that is legal in Kentucky. But, of course, the claim that this is for their own good is supposed to trump concerns like this. And we are also not supposed to ask for any evidence that such a carrot-and-stick approach to academic achievement might have the desired effect.

Given the rebellious nature of even the most level-headed teenagers, it makes no sense to assume a threat such as this would magically motivate at-risk kids to change established behaviors. And there is proof that this won't work. The bill allows appeals of revocations to district court. Just as happened last time, this will clog up the courts and the dropouts in large numbers will have their driving privileges restored. As happened last time this foolishness was the law, the law is simply ignored by the teenager, who then requests a hardship exemption in court.

Other than as a real-time lesson in how to game the legal system, HB 32 is a spectacular waste of time.

Bruce Lunsford Caught On Tape

Loose lips sink ships.

Conventional Wisdom On Its Head

Researching the public pension issue has lead me to a few conclusions I am working on. Very few people are paying attention to what is going on and how dire the situation is.

A major casuality in an informed discussion of pension reform is the conventional wisdom on immigration. As the state plans run out of money we are going to need a lot more immigrants, not fewer. We will find ourselves increasingly desperate for the tax revenue they can generate. Kentucky needs to incentivize educated professional immigrants from anywhere to come to our state and stay. And as we age and find basic menial service providers more expensive, we will need more of the under-educated people as well.

House GOP Forcing Vote On "AMT" Repeal

A discharge petition has been filed in the House to attempt to yank HB 88 out of Rep. Harry Moberly's tight little fist.

This could get interesting if we talk it up. Really, failure to sign the discharge petition is an endorsement of the tax increase.

Update: the petition failed and Jody Richards killed off his own gubernatorial campaign at the same time.

From Pol Watchers:

Just as the lawmakers were about to vote, Richards spoke up from the speaker's podium

"And by the way, it ain't my tax," he said, chuckling. "It's somebody else on another floor," he added, referring to Fletcher, a Republican.

"Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind you: you voted for it," Hoover piped up from the floor.

"After you made me do it," Richards said back, laughing. "You told me it was good."

Pension Reform Weenies Strike Again

I've talked a lot about the $600 billion we lose each year by not reforming Social Security. While the $260 million Kentucky will lose this year by not reforming its public pension plans seems like a pittance in comparison, we have much more to lose by inaction in Frankfort. By 2022, the state pension fund will run dry and we will have to start paying out $2 Billion each year to retirees.

It would take one heck of a tax increase to fill that hole.

Raising full-retirement eligibility from 27 to 32 years is also a good thing and not too much to ask from folks who are far better paid than their union reps want you to know.

Can't imagine the unions letting the House go along with the hybrid retirement plan for new retirees, but they must go along with bonding the $538 million shortfall.

We have to move fast on this because the real problem is in the public employee health plans. And reform weenies beware: we are just getting started on this.

KEA Political Battle At High Noon

Gubernatorial candidate Jody Richards can't let the Senate education initiatives SB 1 and SB 2 get through or the KEA won't endorse him.

But Budget Chairman Harry Moberly isn't running for governor. His A&R committee will hear the bills today at noon.

Brother Can You Spare Some Corn?

Spenders of federal tax dollars are going hog-wild on corn trying to make ethanol. This is all wrong and Kentucky would do well to stay out of this -- as far as our tax dollars are concerned.

Corn has nearly doubled in price in the last year. Farmland prices are escalating as more people scramble to join the parade. This mania will doubtless lead to a cornflation we don't need. Meanwhile, the science behind the panic to run our economy on ethanol makes man-made global warming look like a round earth, gravity happens dead certainty.

Seriously, follow the smart money. If we were really going to replace oil with ethanol, Exxon would have already bought South America and turned the entire continent into sugar cane.

Is Anne Northup For School Choice?

Gubernatorial candidate Anne Northup appears to be supporting school choice in her campaign's education policy statement:

When another school, either public or private, is available with a specific curriculum or educational program which would benefit a special needs student, some or all of the state and federal money that’s allocated for that student should be allowed to follow him or her to a school where those needs can be met. We should not view such schools as a threat to our public schools but as assets that can provide interventions with a proven record of success.

Sounds like an endorsement of Rep. Stan Lee's special needs scholarship bill.

House Tax Increase Hits Senate Wall

The minimum wage tax increase was set for a vote in the Kentucky Senate today, but got passed over instead.

If raising the minimum wage was really going to help lessen poverty, it would be hard to justify the screaming this move will bring.

It won't. It isn't. Next.

It's About Time; General Assembly Takes Up Public Pension Reform

Senate Republican leadership is going to speak to the A&R committee this morning about overhauling the public pension system.

This is a very good thing and something that should have been done a long time ago, but I'll take it now.

UPDATE: I've seen the Senate plan and, while it is better than the House plan, it doesn't really fix much. We have a lot of work to do.

"Hey, What About My Liberal Values?"

Pretty funny quote in a Courier Journal article about Jonathan Miller:

"I was in the hollers with substandard housing and outdoor plumbing," recalled Miller, 39. "I wanted to talk to them about affordable health care, about jobs, about improving the educational system. Invariably when I got to that door, the first question I was asked … was, 'What's your position on gay marriage?' "

If by affordable health care, jobs, and education you mean socialized medicine, minimum wage hikes, and funneling billions of more taxpayer dollars to unaccountable bureaucrats, I'd say talking about gay marriage would be pretty productive by comparison.

Bipartisanship In Frankfort

As the General Assembly draws toward a close, only one symbolic bill has passed both the House and Senate. Whether anything else happens may depend on three others -- the Minimum Wage Tax Increase in the House and Senate leadership's education initiatives (here and here).

It's looking like the tax increase will pass and the education bills will get killed by Speaker Jody Richards.

Carry Your Baggage, Sir?

Al Cross has a very good column today covering the Dem candidates for governor.

"I made a mistake with Ernie Fletcher and I'm sorry I did that," Lunsford told the Democrats, who applauded. "I supported one Republican governor in my life. I will never support another one."

Lunsford said zip about the money he continued to give Northup and other Republicans, but the money on the mind of many Democrats is the virtually unlimited cash that Lunsford can put into his campaign. After losing a host of elections to better-financed Republicans, Kentucky Democrats are preoccupied with money, and Lunsford appealed to that fear, saying, "We can spend the money to be in the race with them."

Henry spoke last and did worst, taking credit for accomplishments of the Paul Patton administration for which he had little or no responsibility, such as higher-education reform and appointment of women to judgeships, boards and commissions, even going so far as to say, "We appointed more women. …" He did not. Outrageous.

But in a multi-opponent primary, what candidate will hold Henry to the truth? Otis Hensley? Gatewood Galbraith? Party chairman Jerry Lundergan said all candidates have signed a pledge "not to negatively campaign personally." That appears to help the slates with the most baggage, and to whom he is closest -- Henry's and Lunsford's.

Now This Is A Real Threat To The Commonwealth

We get some pretty meaningless bills from the General Assembly each year, but I just can't imagine anyone thinking we really need to prohibit primary losers from filing as write-in candidates in general elections.

Does Rep. Brent Yonts want to show just how much he hates Sen. Joe Lieberman or what?

Minimum Wage Tax Gets A Boost

Looks like the Kentucky Senate wants to go along with the minimum wage bill.

What a waste.

How Cool Is That?

Billy Harper shreds the prevailing wage law, in a sharp suit, ON THE BUS.

Smile Billy! You are stylin'!

The Political Star No One Knows

A great political story that needs to be told is that of celebrity candidate turned accomplished Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer.

More on this next week...

Hello Mary Lou, Goodbye Truth

Watched a little KET coverage of the General Assembly and was shocked and dismayed to see Rep. Mary Lou Marzian claim that the University of Louisville said that its domestic partner scheme wouldn't cost taxpayers any money.

Well, that kind of depends on who you are talking to at U of L. The people who run the agenda say there will be no cost. The people who run the numbers say $600,000 a year and up.

Did They Run Out Of Bridges To Rename?

Why in the world are we wasting time fixing wages for anyone, much less waiters?

HB 206 comes up for a vote tomorrow.

Another Myth-Busting Study Of The Political Middle

The Washington Post has a column about how divided we are on the issues and debunks the idea that what we all want to is just get along now that Democrats are back in control of Congress.

The CCES survey asked about 14 national issues: the war in Iraq (the invasion and the troops), abortion (and partial birth abortion), stem cell research, global warming, health insurance, immigration, the minimum wage, liberalism and conservatism, same-sex marriage, privatizing Social Security, affirmative action, and capital gains taxes. Not surprisingly, some of the largest differences between Democrats and Republicans were over the Iraq war. Fully 85 percent of those who voted for Democratic House candidates felt that it had been a mistake to invade Iraq, compared with only 18 percent of voters who cast ballots for Republicans.

But the divisions between the parties weren't limited to Iraq. They extended to every issue in the survey. For example, 69 percent of Democratic voters chose the most strongly pro-choice position on the issue of abortion, compared with 20 percent of Republican voters; only 16 percent of Democratic voters supported a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, while 80 percent of Republican voters did; and 91 percent of Democratic voters favored governmental action to reduce global warming, compared with 27 percent of Republican voters.

The study found a similar split on single-payer health care. So if Bruce Lunsford and Greg Stumbo -- who have already alienated most of the primary-voting Democrats in the state -- really want to push socialized medicine, I hope they really have a good time doing it.

Also noticed they are advocating universal pre-kindergarten. After watching two of the top education bureaucrats in the state go on Kentucky Tonight and state clearly their belief that teachers know what's best for children better than parents do, I can't see this idea getting them very far either.