Billy Harper Ad: No Tax Increases

The Associated Press says Billy Harper is using humor to win votes. I think his latest ad is a solid effort to set himself apart, but I didn't think it was funny. That's not a criticism. I think the ad will draw some attention, like it did here.

How Would A Jody Richards Meltdown Change Race For Democratic Nomination?

The Rural Democrat is reporting Jody Richards' gubernatorial campaign staff appears to have left their jobs. Don't know if it is true, but with no press releases in two and a half weeks, it appears they were running low on steam anyway.

I would guess that a lot of the people who are currently Richards supporters aren't really thinking about winning the race and are instead hoping to curry favor with the Speaker of the House. So who do they jump to next?

Bruce Lunsford.

Lunsford is the front-runner and has the cash to dominate a run-off. He will then control the party, just like Chairman Jerry Lundergan wants him to. Follow the power.

10:03 Update: The Richards campaign responded by saying the campaign staff members didn't quit, but were fired.

If You Are Still Waiting For The Economy To Collapse, The Wait Just Got A Little Longer

American business just keeps roaring along. And no one tells the story quite like Larry Kudlow.

If you really want to see a recession, though, why don't you just raise taxes:

"We Are Out Of Ideas And You Won't Let Us Surrender Fast Enough"

Haven't we seen this thing before?

Boyfriend Benefit Bombshell: Attorney General Greg Stumbo Caught Between Rock, Hard Place

Attorney General candidate Stan Lee has asked AG Greg Stumbo for an official Opinion on the constitutionality of the state's public universities offering taxpayer-subsidized domestic partner benefits to their employees.

GOP Battle Goes On The Air Monday Night

The Republican gubernatorial candidates appear on KET Monday night at 8 pm to debate each other in what will be the biggest event of the race so far.

Governor Fletcher doesn't need to score a knockout punch, but he will have to talk with authority about tax modernization, the projected surplus, Medicaid, roads and private sector jobs to avoid taking any body blows himself.

Anne Northup needs very much to land a knockout punch, but she better appear not to be fighting at all and, instead, must go heavy on a positive, detailed message.

Billy Harper stands to gain the most ground in the horse race if Northup and Fletcher get tied up. I think, realistically, Harper comes out of this stronger if he demonstrates conclusively that he belongs on the same stage as his competitors. Still has a way to go to get into the mix, but could easily pick up a few points. Harper's role is to appear at-ease and on-message but not comical or dogmatic. If he pulls that off, the race for second place could get interesting.

Get Ready For Nuclear Energy

Call it New-clee-uhr or New-cyoo-luhr or whatever you want to, but now is the time to get used to the idea of getting more of our energy from nuclear power plants.

Herald Leader Points Finger At Teachers Union

The Lexington Herald Leader this morning rolls out the laundry list of problems with Kentucky schools, calls for differential pay for teachers, and smacks the KEA for playing politics with a sincere Senate effort to help.

Predictably, the Herald Leader stopped there. Saying only that something has to be done -- and throwing in a jab at the Senate initiative for mandatory ACT exams as not being the answer -- the editorial stopped short right in front of the answers.

One of them is raising standards for middle school students. If we are succeeding in primary grades and failing in high schools, the obvious place to start looking is in middle schools. Indeed, local efforts to expect more from middle school students have been effective.

Another is to implement some elements of school choice. An honest discussion about what has worked in other states would be extremely enlightening and productive.

And a third thing to do is to stop listening to the Kentucky Education Association. Their only function is to whine about salaries. Look at their own legislative action web page. They only care about protecting the jobs, salaries, and pensions of teachers and stopping any effort to pay more for better teachers. That's how you protect mediocrity. And I don't blame the KEA for this. They aren't being hypocrites. They are a labor union. They are doing what they are supposed to do and are obviously effective at it. I blame those in the media who expect them to be experts on education and look to them for leadership on education policy. When you want a photo-op with hundreds of teachers screaming about their doctor co-pays, call the KEA. But stop expecting them to fix what ails our schools. Parents need to band together to make that happen. And we don't need state help to do much of that. If we go school to school and start retaining middle schoolers who flunk more than one class each year, most of the borderline students will figure out how to stay on track.

Only then will they be sufficiently prepared for high school. And if we can accomplish that, newspapers like the Herald Leader will be less likely to look to the teachers union for education policy advice.

Time To Push Back Against Bad Health Reform

Emboldened by his $25 million of free speech -- er, corrupting cash, er ... wait a minute, I'm so confused!), Barack Obama is pushing universal healthcare hard. So are all the Democratic candidates for governor of Kentucky.

An enterprising Republican candidate would do well to propose a Health Care Common Market in which Kentucky could combine with all seven of our surrounding states -- or whoever would go with the idea -- and allow any citizen or company of any of those states to purchase an individual or group plan from an insurer in any of the other states.

How Would That Work, Mr. Speaker?

Speaker of the House Jody Richards on the Jack Pattie Show this morning is railing against school choice.

"I'm not for school choice. I think that would destroy the system, personally," Richards said.

Really? There is no evidence of school choice destroying an educational system anywhere. It might make things a little tougher for teachers union officials, though. Is that who we really want to be protecting when giving parents greater ability to move students has been successful at improving education where it has been tried?

Charge That Kentucky Misspent Fed Money Is Bunk

With all the talk from the Fletcher administration about how great the "Unbridled Spirit" is for Kentucky on one hand and charges that federal money was spent on the state's marketing campaign on the other, the truth was actually very easy to find out.

State agencies used to handle their own marketing campaigns individually. Early on, the Fletcher administration's Commerce Cabinet consolidated all marketing activities in order to create savings with economies of scale. Implementation involved projecting what costs were going to be and then ironing out overpayments and underpayments at the end of a two year marketing contract. The contract is now publicly available through the Finance and Administration Cabinet. All the money was marketing money and it has all gone where it was supposed to. It's more fun to make charges of abuse or incompetence -- and I'd love to jump in if the facts were on that side -- but the truth is the state has saved a lot of money by buying its advertising in bulk rather than farming it out piecemeal.

The Fletcher administration is in need of a story to tell and should tell this one.

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.