Another Nightmarish Pension Story Somehow Not Repaired By Casino Proliferation

Today there is more disastrous pension news from New Jersey that should be viewed as a cautionary tale for Kentuckians, but probably won't.

Should Government Favor Consumers Or Producers?

I would like to think that governments wouldn't interfere in transactions between businesses and consumers unless one party was committing fraud. But with the recent tariff on Chinese paper, it appears I am swimming upstream on this. Free trade policies benefit consumers by allowing them to pay lower prices for goods or services from foreign producers. Domestic producers sometimes respond by getting the government to help them get tax breaks, subsidies, or tariffs on foreign competitors.

Here is an interesting story from a Chinese perspective showing how tariffs are bad policy for the country placing the tariffs, as well as the target country. As complicated as international commerce has become, it makes no sense to try to outsmart the free market. In fact, when China subsidizes their products with domestic tax dollars or low wages, we might just thank Chinese taxpayers for the low prices and move on. Instead, we spread the pain to our consumers. Trying to create a "fair trade" situation has too many unintended consequences.

Great Opportunity For A Liberal Kid

This springtime is scholarship time at my house, but I get the feeling these folks don't want to know what my son thinks about this:

You have until April 30, 2007 to write a 500 word essay on how you feel about the United States potentially having it's very first female (Hillary Clinton) or African American (Barack Obama) president.

Some of us could have a lot of fun with that one.

Incidentally, if you are looking for money for school and don't pick your liberal presidential candidates on the basis of their gender or their skin color, you might take a look at this site:

How Long Before We Import This Idea?

Some lawmakers in New Jersey want to make their legislators full-time state employees and ban outside employment. Their reasoning goes that part-time legislators are subject to conflicts of interest with their outside employment. So, no outside job, no conflict of interest? What a shock it is that such flimsy reasoning would fly in New Jersey. Can there be any doubt Kentucky will pick up the scent quickly?

Kentucky does not need to follow on this track. This is like campaign finance reform. Any effort to get dirty money out of politics just creates more creative criminals. Especially with casino goons circling around Frankfort, we need to keep part-time legislators with their disclosure forms. One change I would propose, though, is that they be required to include their federal income tax return with their annual financial disclosure forms. Lawmakers would then be less likely to "forget" to mention business relationships on their disclosure forms. When they are caught doing that now, they file an amended disclosure form and the problem goes away. If we involve the IRS, then if we catch one of them in some kind of scheme he or she would be subject to federal prison. Another benefit to this approach would be a more intense interest in the Fair Tax, which involves essentially shutting down the IRS.

Real Story On Early '08 Fundraising Yet To Be Told

Ask me again on April 15, when we know how much everyone has on hand. Hillary and Mitt should both take a hard hit on this bottom line figure. Hillary will still show big bucks, but a lot of it isn't going to be available until after the primary.

All those $4600 checks Slick Willie picked up in Lexington and that the campaign has been pulling in all over are for twice the legal limit. Only $2300 can be spent before the primary.

Dick Morris Understands Iraq Funding Issue

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have fallen and can't get up.

Democrats in Congress are heading into a game of chicken with the Bush White House akin to the Gingrich-Clinton government shutdown battle of 1995-96. The roles are reversed this time - so the Republicans are likely to prevail.

The question is, will Bush take full advantage?

For his part, President Bush needs to stand firm as this process unfolds. The split the funding resolution will catalyze in the Democratic Party may be his party's only hope of hanging onto the White House in 2008. He should resist calls for compromise, since any halfway solution or diplomatic wording that could appeal to both sides will rescue the Democrats from the horns of their dilemma - and run most or all of the risks for the troops and the mission in Iraq as the current bills present.

Bush should demand a clean appropriations bill or guarantee a veto. If he doesn't flinch and congressional Republicans don't defect, it will be bad news for the Democrats.

Another Week, Another Adult Stem Cell Victory

While fetal stem cells have served almost entirely to elect Democratic party candidates, adult stem cells have been piling up real-world successes.

The "anti-science" rhetoric from Democrats take hit after hit here on Earth -- paging Ozone Al Gore!! -- yet too many GOP officeholders continue to run like scared dogs when people start talking about minimum wage hikes to benefit poor families and raising taxes to help the economy, fighting back school choice or letting hospitals decide if they want any competition or not.

Hillary Clinton Leads Money Race, Unpopularity Poll; Long Live Queen Hillary

Democratic smoke-filled-room types have a decision to make as Hillary Clinton raises millions of dollars but is hugely unpopular with everyone but the George Soros wing of the party. As she seeks to triangulate the party on Iraq, climate change, and free trade, Barack Obama is rumored to have raised almost as much money as she did in the first quarter. Meanwhile, he confuses Ronald Reagan's negotiations with people who value human life a little bit (Soviets) versus his refusal to negotiate with terrorists (Iranians) who don't value human life at all.

"We have to understand what Ronald Reagan understood, which was that we'll talk even to folks who are your enemies," the Illinois senator told an audience of more than 2,000 at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs.

Fletcher Administration Should Answer This

Dr. Kevin T. Kavanagh goes after Fletcher health care policy:

In a recent campaign advertisement the Fletcher campaign advocated that they have "increased competition and lowered healthcare costs for Kentuckians." Well, at least he didn't claim to invent the internet.

When questioned by the Lexington Herald Leader Fletcher's campaign manager stated that it is easier for hospitals to expand, which will drive down health care costs. "Hospital construction will lead to lower health costs and more competition in the future."

However, new regulations enacted by the Fletcher Administration have made it virtually impossible for new acute care hospitals to enter into a market.

Apparently the Fletcher administration has adopted a health care policy which states that expansion of existing hospitals along with the prevention of others from entering the market will promote competition and in the future lower prices.

Granting virtual monopolies does not promote competition, this is Economics 101. And without a Public Service Commission to oversee hospital charges or even a Certificate of Need Citizen's Board to oversee the CON and healthcare expansion, there is little hope that these monopolies will lead to lower prices. After all, someone will have to pay for these new facilities and it will ultimately end up being the consumer.

The change in wording from "lowered health care costs" to "will lead to lower health costs" is an important one. It the difference between receiving a large check for you to deposit and being told the check is in the mail.

Allowing the massive expansion of existing facilities today may well have the effect of locking out future competitors for years to come, even if another Administration reverses these misguided regulations. What is done today can have the unattended effect of causing higher health care prices experienced by our children in the future.

If the Fletcher Administration is not careful, his legacy will be the turning over our health care to a few large corporations without the checks and balances of competition. Several urban and rural counties in Kentucky need an acute care hospital. Some do not have one and need access; others need competition for lower prices and to help promote quality.

We need to adopt a health care policy of "No County Left Behind" and take the Certificate of Need out of the hands of politicians.

"Let The People Decide"

The Associated Press asked the gubernatorial candidates about casino gambling and got good answers from Billy Harper, Anne Northup, and Otis Hensley.

"Let the people decide" just means let the casino industry spend tens of millions of dollars convincing voters to bet the farm on the worst public policy since, well, never mind. This is a very bad public policy idea that leads to politicians spending illusory gains and then raising taxes and fees to fill the hole up again.

Does Jonathan Miller Want To Unionize Toyota?

I was reading this story about Kentucky Jobs With Justice offering to support the UAW infiltration of Toyota, and couldn't help noticing the myspace video the KJWJ folks have on that site looks like it was produced by the same people who did Miller's commercial.

What other critically important companies with lots of highly-paid employees does Miller want to unionize?

Please, Democratic Friends, Nominate This Guy

"Miller has Kentucky's pre-paid college plan, health care for our veterans, protecting our pensions." Say what?

These Ten Bills Could Have Made It Worse

You have heard that watching people make laws can be like watching people make sausage. This year in Kentucky, it has been uglier than that. Reading the entrails of the General Assembly session, though, unveils one sad truth: it could have been worse.

The clock ran out on the spending spree when the House and Senate adjourned Tuesday night. They left town without agreeing to restore the 2006 vetoed projects or any number of goodies they might have agreed on if they had been more agreeable more quickly. It might have been better if they had found common ground, as the special session that is sure to follow will cost taxpayers another $60,000 a day in addition to the new spending lawmakers will approve. It is ironic that the same legislators we will be paying extra to come back to work later this year were promising us in 2000 that if we just gave them annual sessions, these special ones would be unnecessary. This next one will be their fourth in seven years.

Nevertheless, there are at least ten good reasons to rejoice in the form of ten bills that didn’t make their way into the law books this year.

Senate Bill 12 would have extended the terms of Senators from four to six years and of Representatives from two to four years.

House Bill 5, an environmental extremist’s dream, would have doled out subsidies for retooling private buildings and equipment and questionable tactics in building, buying, and managing state properties in hopes that by doing so we might use less fossil fuel. While it might not actually succeed at saving energy, there can be no doubt this bill would cost lots of money.

House Bill 411 would have raised income taxes and estate taxes by several hundred million dollars a year and tacked new taxes onto a laundry list of services to the tune of nearly $100 million a year. Some of the services targeted for taxation included greens fees and country club dues, chartered air flight services, landscaping services, security and armored car services, and limousine services. Should we call this one the class warfare bill?

Another bill would cost taxpayers millions each year by warehousing thousands of unwilling students in our public high schools. HB 221 would have increased the compulsory school attendance age from sixteen to eighteen. Forcing students who want to drop out to come to school is meant to help some of them graduate. The far more likely result of this would be to unleash serious discipline problems on the rest of the student population.

Seeking to imprison students within school walls must only be half as fun as actually arresting them. Twin measures Senate Bill 183 and House Bill 309 would have allowed police to take into custody anyone found off school property during school hours who is suspected of being less than eighteen years old. What we really need is more freedom and greater opportunities for achievement for our students and instead we are literally handcuffing them.

One of the hottest issues in every election is how to lower college tuition costs. House Bill 544 pushes that idea in the wrong direction. The bill would have appropriated $19.7 million to dole out $2000 bonuses to every staff employee at the University of Kentucky for no particular reason at all

The debate about pension reform in state government deals partially with double-dipping. Allowing retiring employees to start drawing a pension and then return to work for another salary has caused problems with the state’s underfunded pensions. The focus of HB 465 was to enable double-dipping judges. The bill would have extended the life of the senior status judge program, set to expire this year.

Gender discrimination in the workplace is already against the law. House Bill 219 which would have prohibited paying women less than men when both perform jobs of “comparable worth,” succeeded mainly at confusing the issue. And that usually means lawsuits. For example, what does comparable worth mean? For the purposes of dealing with HB 219 as a law, it would have meant “call your lawyer.”

In the tradition of saving the best for last we have House Bill 184. This one would have allowed the General Assembly to rewrite any law behind closed doors. As such, any of the worst of these bills might find its way into law and only a handful of lawmakers would know anything about it until it was too late.

We must be vigilant as these bills might well reappear later. Looking on the bright side again, though, we need not fear that while the legislature is out of session.

What Billy Harper Should Do Next

With the news that his campaign manager quit, Billy Harper has to see the handwriting on the wall. He has a great opportunity to take a very active role in the Fletcher administration and campaign. Both sides should work together to make this happen soon.

Retirement Party For Julian Carroll

With his support for Bruce Lunsford and Greg Stumbo, Sen. Julian Carroll has apparently earned himself a primary opponent (or two) in 2008.

The most likely candidate would have to be Joe Graviss, who lost to Carroll in the 2004 primary. Expect a more liberal candidate to jump in as well.

Update: Looks like Bluegrass Report was having the same thought about Graviss. Will Rep. Ben Chandler weigh in too?

Don't Just Sit There, Write New Laws!!!

The overblown subprime lender controversy has some folks hyperventilating. It is unfortunately likely to result in a wave of new government regulation. We would do far better to just let the market take care of itself, as most any fix to this non-problem will be worse than doing nothing.

If you aren't happy with your mortgage, don't call Congress or state lawmakers. Seriously -- and no, I don't feel guilty about the advertiser plug at all -- check out the wild variety in market solutions:

A Simple Idea To Improve Frankfort Performance

We have talked about this before, but now would be a great time to really start pushing for moving the candidate filing deadline from the end of January to the end of the General Assembly session. This action would address two problems: first, it would end the practice of legislators cynically sitting on their hands waiting for the current deadline to pass, and it would give citizens greater ability to respond in the voting booth to bad actions by a lawmaker.

Politicians who oppose moving the filing deadline should have to explain why it is a bad idea and not a commonsense liberty-enhancing action we should promote immediately.

Driving The Anti-War Left Absolutely Batty, For Fun And Possibly A Whole Lot More

Could this be how Mitch McConnell becomes Senate Majority Leader?

Jody Richards Shoots Own Foot Again

In the aftermath of the General Assembly session, Speaker Jody Richards does his gubernatorial campaign no favors:

Richards noted that House Democrats and Republicans have teamed up in similar fashion before and scoffed at the new-found bipartisanship in the upper chamber.

"In the Senate, I don't know what it is," he said. "I think the Senate Democrats are just afraid of Sen. Williams."

Who is he talking about, Sen. Ernesto Scorsone of Lexington, or perhaps Sen. Gerald Neal of Louisville? As twisted up as some Republicans are about the divisive primary they face, they really need to consider how close the Dems are to nominating Steve Henry.

One Teeny Tiny Little Question For Lawmakers

In 2000, Frankfort politicians somehow sold us on the idea that if we just gave them annual sessions we wouldn't have to deal with bringing everyone back in for so many special sessions.

When Governor Fletcher calls them back later this year, it will the fourth special session in seven years.

So why are we paying you guys to meet in annual sessions?