Update From The Campaign Trail

Usually outraged candidate Jonathan Miller says it is a "moral outrage" Kentucky hasn't totally destroyed its health insurance market and that we should finish the job as soon as humanly possible.

Don't Give Me Facts, Katie Couric Says We're Screwed

The latest on the economy...

Senior Judge Program Dead As A Doornail

Kentucky is about to save some money keeping retired judges retired.

Return Of HillaryCare

Other states are getting all weak-in-the-knees about schemes to spread health coverage to all corners with public-private partnerships.

But in Kentucky, even our liberals remember what happens when you force insurers to cover everyone regardless of health history.

Just Veto These Bad Bills

When the Berlin Wall was going up in 1961, it was called by the East Berliners in authority at the time the "Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart," as if its sole purpose was to keep us out of East Germany. Considering that the soldiers were on the inside of the wall with guns pointed at their own citizens, this was bold marketing indeed.

One of the legislative bills advancing to the Governor’s desk to be signed into law benefited from a little bold marketing as well. While nothing so threatening as machine guns or barbed wire was employed in its passage, this would-be law represents a loss of freedom and a waste of time and money worthy of a veto.

House Bill 32, passed unanimously by the House and Senate, seeks to lower the high school dropout rate by requiring the revocation of drivers licenses of sixteen and seventeen year-olds who drop out or fail to pass at least four classes.

We have been down this road before. A substantially similar law was found unconstitutional in 2003. No pass, no drive – as it was called – also was particularly ineffective at keeping teenagers in school. Past revokees under no pass, no drive found ignoring the penalty and, if caught driving, claiming hardship in court to be a successful strategy.

Under HB 32, the same will happen. In the best case, this bill threatens and then doesn’t follow through. At worst, it clogs classrooms with students who are there for the wrong reasons and clogs courtrooms with young defendants taking a free shot at gaming the system. Are these lessons we really want to be teaching our young people?

House Bill 305, the minimum wage increase bill, aims likewise to move people on to greater heights. It serves mainly, however, as a payroll tax raising device for local governments and as a disincentive to both employers and employees to expand beyond minimal productivity. In today’s competitive marketplace, motivated employees should be able to advance beyond $7.25 per hour by July 1, 2009 just by being more productive. With the new law, they won’t have to.

Senate Bill 10 creates a brand-new state bureaucracy for HVAC oversight. This is far better – and cheaper – if handled at the local level.

House Bill 50 makes all local school board members eligible for the state employee health plan. It passed both the House and Senate unanimously. In a time when more policymakers should be realizing that state employee health coverage is the biggest drain by far of our public benefit programs, we should know better than to be adding to the problem. Furthermore, creating career school board members – as the benefits are likely to do – does little to foster dynamic school boards at a time when we should be bringing out new ideas.

Senate Bill 23 is another that passed both chambers of the legislature without a single vote in opposition. This bill would subject a veterinarian to a fine of up to $1000 and a jail sentence of up to 30 days for refusing to treat an assistance dog without prior payment. Do we really want to subject our vets to jail time for this? As with most other unfair mandates, the best solution is to merely spread the cost among the good paying customers.

The Senators were afraid to oppose this bad bill and look like they were against sick dogs. Same thing in the House. Too bad none of them had the same fear of appearing to be in favor of jailing veterinarians for trying to run a business as they see fit. The Governor really should stand up to this one before it gets out of hand.

House Bill 509 would allow anyone with a commercial drivers license from Canada or Mexico to operate a commercial vehicle in Kentucky. One lone Senator voted against this. Terrorism concerns, anyone?

And House Bill 108 makes an appropriation to dole out tax credits for repairing rock fences. This bill passed unanimously through both chambers. Is it unreasonable to expect anyone to stack their own rocks without being paid government money to do it?

The bitter deadlock this year in Frankfort can be credited for us not having a great deal more bad legislation to grumble about. But all too often when the House and Senate find something they can agree on, it costs us money or risks our freedoms. While our lawmakers are huddled up figuring out their next move on last year’s vetoed projects and the current pension crisis, Governor Fletcher should be wielding his veto pen.

New Jersey's Pension Shortfall Triples

New accounting rules may bring similar troubles to Kentucky. Meanwhile, we are arguing about whether we have a problem or not. What a mess.

Billy Harper Nails Certificate of Need

You really don't have to say any more than Billy does here:

Drop NCLB And Focus On School Choice

It is getting to be too late to shift gears and still catch up with those who are eating our lunches in the classroom. Cal Thomas has a good column on this.

Spellings cited one major reason for underperformance I had not considered. When I was in school, she noted, I was taught mostly by bright and accomplished women. As opportunities for women in other professions opened up, many of the best and brightest teachers - and potential teachers - left or chose other professions because they paid more. "The teachers' unions," she said, "always negotiate the same pay raises for everybody and the superstars say 'forget this, I'm going where I will be recognized as a superstar.'"

Education in the United States continues to lag behind that of other nations. "When you go to China or India," Spellings said, "they don't sit around arguing about class size. They're starving to death and are motivated for education. We take all the advantages we have for granted." And while America focuses too much on nonacademic subjects - sex education, driver's education and the environment - and not enough on what employers are looking for, some other nations are graduating young people with real knowledge and skills of the kind we once produced.

Congressional Dems' Bright New Idea

Would you believe $2.1 Trillion in tax increases?

HillaryCare Without The Rats, Mold, Bureaucracy

From Scrappleface.

So This Is What We've Been Waiting For...

Governor Jody Richards finally has his campaign website up!

Check out those issue positions.

Billy Harper And The "V" Word

As public education has become an enormous bureaucratic entanglement, the battle for tax dollars today often trumps questions about what is best for individual children.

Allowing parents and their students to choose a better school -- and to direct the money to follow that child -- would make perfect sense if we were focused still on customer service rather than on perpetuating "The System."

That such a simple principle doesn't make sense to a lot of people speaks to the massive success of the Education Establishment at taking over the issue of school vouchers.

Given that environment, it is all the more admirable to see Billy Harper in today's Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer (paid subscription required) voice support for vouchers.

"I do advocate vouchers, I advocate school choice," Harper told members of the Republican Women's Club. "You should have the choice to move your child where you want."

I hope his campaign gathers enough momentum for his words to anger a lot of people.

"We don't need more money (for education), we need to refocus what we're spending," Harper said. Increasing education levels will promote economic development and will affect the state's health care system, he said.

"If you want to raise your standard of living, the only way to do that is through education," Harper said. People with higher educational attainment generally have lower health care costs than less educated people over the course of their lifetimes, Harper said.

Imagine That: Higher Standards, Better Results

Eminence, KY schools are going to start flunking kids who don't make B's.

This will work like gangbusters. Most students are quite capable of keeping up. Pushing the majority to take responsibility for themselves will free up resources to work with the minority who need extra help.

Repeal Corporate Taxes, See Renewed Growth

Is Canada about to figure out something we should already know here?

Hunting Down Bad Bills In Frankfort

SB 10, SB 23, HB 32, HB 50, HB 108, HB 305, HB 509, HB 536.

These bills passed both House and Senate. They each deserve a veto.

Shootout At Sunset On Pension Reform

The Senate has gone into recess until 6pm and when they come back they are supposed to get back to HB 418, the pension bill.

I want to be hopeful, but the most likely outcome is taxpayers get caught in the crossfire.

J.R. Gray Melts Down On Floor

I've never seen a legislator do such a poor job explaining a bill as Rep. J.R. Gray is doing right now on the House floor trying to sell SB 10.

Has he even read the bill?

Nuclear Energy: The Wave Of The Future

This is really exciting stuff. Much more promising than windmills and subsidizing our corn market into oblivion.

Anyone But Ernie Club Needs Help

No doubt they have a few more cards to play, but the GOP'ers hoping to oust Governor Fletcher are losing steam.

With the Dems in disarray, could Fletcher be headed for a cakewalk to four more years?

Opponents Sidetrack Pension Debacle

Kentucky policymakers have dawdled for decades as the state's public pensions have gone deeper and deeper into the tank.

So what does the Lexington Herald-Leader want you to focus on? Political style points, of course.

This dysfunctional duo represents both ends of the political power spectrum. Fletcher can't seem to stick to or push his own ideas, and Williams is addicted to raw demonstrations of power. Does either man remember that people voted for them, presumably to represent their interests, not just play power games in Frankfort?

Reform opponents would do well to set aside their hurt feelings start considering real proposals for helping us dig our way out of the mess. In a second term, Governor Fletcher would be emboldened to champion the politically unpopular but necessary changes. But there is no reason lawmakers can't get their heads together at least on bonding the actuarial shortfall.