Shutting Treasurer Office: Does State FOP Agree?

After eight years of serious waste in the Treasurer's office, the race for the office this year is about shutting it down.

After the state FOP endorsed all the Democrats they could, they took a pass on the Treasurer's race. The Democrat in that race seems like a decent fellow, he just doesn't seem to get that the office is a waste of time and money. The Republican, Melinda Wheeler, says shutting down the office is the right thing to do.

That should be enough to get her elected.

Junk Lawsuits By Any Other Name...

Thirteen states' trial lawyers associations have sought to conceal their identities by changing their names.

The Kentucky Academy of Trial Attorneys, for example, now calls itself the Kentucky Justice Association.

Tom Donohue, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, points out the damage an unfair legal system can do to a state like Kentucky.

"An unfair legal system sucks the life out of a state’s economy. It affects business expansion, it affects jobs and it takes money out of consumers’ pockets," Donohue said.

Kentucky recently ranked 33rd in the nation in terms of the fairness of its state legal system.

Kentucky's Democratic Party is trying to elevate two trial attorneys -- or should we call them "justice associates" -- to the two most powerful political offices in the state. Anyone who works for or with a business should be warned.

Illegal Immigration Opponents Can't Honestly Support Democrats' S-CHIP Expansion Bill

Rep. Ben Chandler might talk a good game about managing illegal immigration, but he's blowing his rhetoric out of the water with his party's massive expansion of S-CHIP, the Clinton-era follow-up to the failure of Hillarycare.

Among many bad things the bill would do, it provides taxpayer-paid health coverage (S-CHIP and Medicaid) for illegal aliens and even spends money telling them how to get it.

We Should All Agree On This One In January

Rep. Jim DeCesare is pre-filing a bill to repeal the Limited Liability Entity Tax, the heinous gross receipts tax formerly known as the Alternative Minimum Calculation and often referred to as the Alternative Minimum Tax in the primary election.

Good.

Spend Money, Wait For Gambling Losses

The new fiscal planning for states who depend on expanded gambling revenues involves spending gamblers' projected losses first and then filling in the hole later when they actually lose their money.

A report that should be instructive to Kentucky's expanded gambling hucksters informs us that plan isn't working so well in Florida where insufficient gambling losses have blown an $80 million hole in school funding.

Time To Roast This Pig

When Sen. Gerald Neal's actions landed him in legal hot water the liberal Kentucky media mostly yawned.

Now that he has been caught sexually harassing a television reporter who questioned him about his actions, our friends in the media have a decision to make. If Neal were a Republican, they would call for his head. Will they have the courage to treat a Democrat the same way?

Legislature Goes Home Empty-Handed

Domestic partner benefits got a rally today urging repeal, but no action by the House this afternoon. The Senate previously approved SB 5.

So the issue lives on.

The House Dems obviously decided they could handle attacks that they cared less about violating the constitution than they did spending taxpayer dollars on liberal issues.

Their defense to those attacks is to point out Governor Fletcher's appointees could have killed domestic partner benefits but didn't.

Unfortunately, it's a good point. The failure of school board appointees to hire a legitimate commissioner could also present a problem in the campaign.

Also, the legislature isn't completely empty-handed until they figure out how to give their paychecks back to the state.

Jonathan Miller Is Like A Box Of Chocolates

As I think about Treasurer Jonathan Miller bragging on television Saturday how great he has done getting financial literacy taught in the schools and about how casino gambling in the state will solve $500 million or more worth of Kentucky problems each year, two things seem worth bringing up.

One, does Miller realize all the other states around us without casinos are hearing the same argument that they need casinos to keep their own gamblers at home?

And two, if we taught Kentucky kids financial literacy in school they would know the odds and we could let the other states gamble themselves silly while our young people slowly and steadily build up real money in their retirement accounts.

It's not the government's job to keep us poor and stupid.

More Smoke Betrays Raging Inferno At FCDC

The thuggish bureaucrats at the Fayette County Detention Center now have another line of malfeasance to deny.

From Beth Musgrave in Sunday's Lexington Herald Leader:

As part of an ongoing child custody dispute, David Eaton was required to be drug tested more than 100 times over the past 18 months. Some of those tests were positive.

But Eaton says he never used drugs or alcohol and is suing the Fayette County Detention Center's Community Alternative Program, alleging the program's urine drug testing is unconstitutional and inaccurate.

Sources currently employed by the FCDC report there is more than enough evidence to support Mr. Eaton's complaint and many more like it. Now just like the prisoner beatings they tried to blame on the whistleblower and the systematic intimidation of witnesses no one at city hall seems to know anything about, this is one more thing for Mayor Jim Newberry to ignore and wish away.

Interesting strategy, Mayor.

At Least We Are Consistent

Lots of recent talk about energy has broken some of us down into two camps: those who want less government involvement in energy (fewer "price gouging" lawsuits and less subsidization of "alternative fuel" projects) versus those who want more (getting tough with Big Oil and doling out cash for experimental production.)

If you are persuadable at all, reading this will help.

YouTuber Alert: Jonathan Miller On Television

I hope the folks at RPK are taping Jonathan Miller on WVLK's Newsmakers program.

Just one little goody as Miller tries to justify having a Treasurer's office:

"If you took away our budget and took away our staff, the business of government couldn't get done."

I'd like to see him back that up with a fact.

Spending More Of Your Money For You

A joint committee meeting of A&R members get together Monday afternoon in Frankfort to begin discussions on the 2008-2010 state budget.

Some of the folks in town for the earlier domestic partners rally should stick around to push for responsibility in the budget.

Meanwhile, Senator Tom McClintock in California is advocating $2.9 billion in cuts to his state's budget. With some of the problems we have on the horizon (think pensions and debt), we need a McClintock.

Barack Obama's Revenge

This thirteen minute video is worth watching all the way through.

Jonathan Miller's Day Off

State Treasurer Jonathan Miller delivered another taxpayer-funded contribution to his Democratic Party today. He met with WKYT's Bill Bryant to tape an episode of Bryant's "Newsmakers" program to air tomorrow.

In the interview, Miller claimed gubernatorial challenger Steve Beshear isn't just a one issue candidate.

I'm still waiting for a certain brave legislator to file the bill to abolish the state treasurer's office. Jonathan Miller is the poster boy for this important action.

Did We Learn Anything From Barbara Erwin Mess?

Does anyone expect the Kentucky Board of Education to do the right thing for Kentucky's children at their meeting tomorrow?

Governor Fletcher is inexplicably missing the opportunity to publicly weigh in on this most important function of state government.

The yellow dogs at KEA aren't going to support his re-election under any circumstances. Might as well encourage the Board to pick a no-nonsense commissioner.

Following Hillary Off The Wrong Cliff

A lot of otherwise right-thinking Americans are starting to talk about how America has no choice but to go for some form of HillaryCare.

Meanwhile, a Canadian doctor says we are moving down the road to socialist healthcare while other nations are coming our way:

Canadian doctors, long silent on the health care system's problems, are starting to speak up. Last August, they voted Brian Day president of their national association. Day has become perhaps the most vocal critic of Canadian public health care, having opened his own private surgery center and challenging the government to shut him down.

And now even Canadian governments are looking to the private sector to shrink the waiting lists. In British Columbia, private clinics perform roughly 80% of government-funded diagnostic testing.

This privatizing trend is reaching Europe, too. Britain's Labour Party — which originally created the National Health Service — now openly favors privatization. Sweden's government, after the completion of the latest round of privatizations, will be contracting out some 80% of Stockholm's primary care and 40% of its total health services.

Since the fall of communism, Slovakia has looked to liberalize its state-run system, introducing co-payments and privatizations. And modest market reforms have begun in Germany.

Yet even as Stockholm and Saskatoon are percolating with the ideas of Adam Smith, a growing number of prominent Americans are arguing that socialized health care still provides better results for less money.

Treasury Secretary Pushing Tax Reform

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is talking today about reducing corporate taxes across the board:

In an opinion piece published last week, Paulson did not make any specific recommendations for ways the tax code should be changed. But he said areas that should be examined include taxes that discourage capital formation, the current tax depreciation system which does not treat investments uniformly, and targeted tax provisions that add to the complexity of the tax code and contribute to the estimated $40 billion that businesses spend annually on compliance.

This is a terrific development. Come on guys, you can do it...

Over-The-Top Alert: Union Thugs Try To Tie KY Governor To 9/11 Deaths In New York

Stopping "Domestic Partner" Benefits

The Family Foundation is leading the way on getting the legislature to drop Greg Stumbo's "Boyfriend Benefits Plus" program.

Supporters of fiscal sanity on this issue will meet Monday at 2pm in the Capitol Rotunda.

The Senate has already passed SB 5 and the House Democrats are sitting on it.

Courier Journal Hides Truth In Plain View

Okay, let's say you see a headline in a newspaper that -- oh, I don't know -- carries the water for Kentucky's liberals day in and day out. The headline looks pretty innocuous. In fact, it reads "U.S. seeks $1.4 mil. over Broadway Cinemas."

Snore, right?

Unless you really care about something called Broadway Cinemas, you could be forgiven for not even reading the story.

But let's say you do anyway. Here it is:

The U.S. Attorney's office in Louisville is suing Raymond M. Burse, Gerald A. Neal, and Walter P. Porter of Louisville, seeking nearly $1.4 million for the Small Business Administration.

The government claims the three guaranteed an SBA loan to the company that attempted to develop a former Winn-Dixie grocery at 13th and Broadway into Broadway Cinemas.

Burse, Neal and Porter have not made payments to the SBA since 2001, the government claims. In addition to $1.39 million, the government seeks daily interest of $189.57 since May 31.

Of those who managed to get past the bland headline, how many people realized "Gerald A. Neal" is a liberal state Senator from Louisville?

Neal should have to declare this as an in-kind contribution to his re-election campaign.