There Might Be A Slight Problem With Steve Beshear's White Knight Image

Insiders are buzzing about a Lexington Herald Leader story coming out Thursday discussing Steve Beshear's role in the destruction of Kentucky Central Life Insurance Company.

Beshear's campaign has tried so far to cast him as a protector of the people in the collapse of this once-great company. The facts suggest otherwise.

UPDATE: Here is the story. Nothing much here, though several sources suggest it is far from over.

Elian Gonzalez Hunting Practice

From the folks who think guns are for arming jack-booted thugs to return six year-old Cuban boys back into captivity, we have a nice Jack "Janet Reno" Conway political prop for your viewing pleasure.

Fortunately, stunts like this didn't fool the NRA, who has endorsed Rep. Stan Lee for Attorney General in Kentucky.

If The French Can Do It, Shouldn't Kentucky?

While Kentucky is Blue-Ribboning its way around the dire need to spend less on state public pensions, France is going head-first into necessary cuts even in the face of strike threats.

And the best part is that it appears to be good politics:

Opinion polls show overwhelming support for reform of retirement schemes for railway and utility workers that let them retire as early as age 50 with pensions totaling 70% of their top salaries. In a poll by the CSA survey group in June, 56% of respondents said they wanted these so-called "special regimes" reformed quickly.

The Way For The Republican Party To Win

I went down to City Hall in Lexington yesterday to show support for my friends who rallied to keep what's left of the city's blue laws.

If the local economy depended on my family going out and spending money on Sunday, it would utterly collapse. We go to church and we go home. But we are in a tiny minority. So too are those Lexingtonians who sought to make their voices heard yesterday.

And I'm not about to suggest any of these good people compromise their principles for a political agenda. But, clearly, something has to change or we will continue to see Christian ideals unceremoniously discarded.

The Republican party has become a fiscally liberal, socially conservative organization. This is a serious problem. Fiscal liberalism is a recipe for disaster for America and a pathway to an even worse socially liberal decadence than anything we see now.

The Republican party was taken over by social conservatives in the 1980's and began caving in on fiscal issues. Truth be told, Ronald Reagan did this to us more than anyone else.

We don't need another Reagan to get America back on the right track; we need to focus on fiscal conservatism first. There is plenty of room for opposing abortion-on-demand and various forms of government-sanctioned moral degeneracy in a party that focuses on getting our fiscal house in order first. In fact, look around. Feel your social issues voice slipping in influence? Doing the same things in the same way doesn't change anything else in your life, does it?

Start demanding your elected officials cut spending and watch your Christian ideals return to prominence. Reagan's social issues have to be combined with Goldwater's fiscal restraint in order for us to have either.

Time's ... Up?

Our liberal friends are going to have a field day with this one.

The Kentucky Association of Manufacturers will hold a six city tour starting at the end of this month with the unfortunate title "Time's Up for Changing Kentucky."

Actually, the tour, which involves stops in Louisville, Florence, Lexington, Bowling Green, Paducah, and London, will involve discussions of the KAM 2008 legislative agenda.

Registration is free and can be completed online at www.kamanufacturers.com.

Time To Ask The Question

If Governor Fletcher loses in November, who will lead the Republican Party/Conservative Movement in Kentucky and why?

Would Beshear Fix Kentucky If He Knew How?

Steve Beshear's answer to a gambling question veered quickly onto turf a Republican governor should be taking him apart on, namely, socialized medicine. When asked if gambling is a sin, Beshear responded:

The real sin is that in 2007 more than a half-million Kentuckians, including 81,000 children, have no health insurance.

Recent U.S. Census data clearly indicated that after a decade of pouring more and more tax dollars into buying health insurance for people, the rate of uninsured in America hasn't budged.

How many more billions will we pour into this enterprise before we get the hint that it's the wrong approach?

We have the same thing with education in Kentucky. We continue to throw more money at education bureacrats and a graph of our student achievement continues to be defined by a flat line.

Can't help thinking a Governor Beshear lacking real solutions -- and casino gambling, with no support in the House or Senate is not a real solution -- has already picked out the slogan for his re-election campaign:

Thanks, And A Request

Thanks to Senators McConnell and Bunning for voting against the mis-named College Cost Reduction Act of 2007, which will do nothing to reduce the cost of college.

Our gubernatorial candidates should explain their plan for dealing with CCRA at the state level.

We're Off To A Bad Start With Promise Grants

Well, that didn't take long.

Friday, Congress passed an anti-accountability bill for college students and by the next day Eastern Kentucky University took its place in line for the gravy train.

RICHMOND, Ky. (AP) -- Eastern Kentucky University officials have revealed a plan to boost enrollment by nearly 5,000 by the year 2020.

The board of regents discussed the "20K2020" plan on Saturday afternoon.

Given our high failure rate for students in our state colleges, it makes little sense to merely throw more money and more students at the same system. Congress is dismantling the student loan system that requires families to consider college costs and replacing it with a massive federal grant program that just needs bodies.

In Kentucky, too many of those bodies are graduating high school unprepared for college work.

It is understandable that a college like EKU would respond to this set of circumstances by making room for thousands more federally-funded students.

But before we bond the billions of dollars necessary to expand our state schools for the coming flood of remedial students, we need to consider the costs to our higher education system when they drop out.

Kentucky Must React To Promise Grants

The U.S. House and Senate passed a higher education spending bill Friday that requires an immediate response from Frankfort.

It is the largest higher education spending bill since the G.I. Bill. And it all goes to finance a trip to college for students whose main qualification is financial need.

As soon as President Bush signs this bill, Kentucky must shift all its resources from need-based aid to merit-based aid and raise the standards on merit-based aid. Doing this may help keep middle-class families from being shut out of a college education merely because they have some ability to pay for it.

There are several party line-type criticisms I could make about this bill as there are some serious unintended consequences in it that liberals often seem to fall for. But there is no time for that. President Bush has said he will sign the bill.

A massive shift in state financial aid may be critical to the survival of our state colleges.

Cato/Goldwater Saturday

NewsFlash: Socialized Medicine Not A Panacea

It seems RomneyCare isn't meeting everyone's expectations.

"That is discrimination," said Evelyn Hartrey, a 60-year-old who found that the least-expensive plan would cost her $352 a month, while a 27-year-old would pay $176 for the same coverage.

Apparently some people thought the new law would somehow repeal all forms of reality. Of course, we can expect it to work differently in Kentucky.

What's Six Million Dollars Between Friends?

Looks like we are about to pay EDS $33.2 million over the next five years to set up an automated income tax payment system. If the state government chooses not to pick up the last two option years of the contract, the cost would be $23.4 million over three years.

The primary benefit of this deal seems to be that taxpayers could file state taxes online.

11:38 UPDATE: The Finance and Administration Cabinet is now disputing the amount of the five year contract EDS is giving out. According to spokesperson Jill Midkiff, it is $27 million instead of $33.2 million.

11:53 UPDATE: EDS spokesman Brad Bass said the Commonwealth of Kentucky approved the press release with the $33.2 million figure, but that he will double-check it.

5:24 UPDATE: Mr. Bass from EDS says it appears the company may have erred in its press release, but that he would call back when he had details.

The Finance and Administration Cabinet released the following statement: "The Comprehensive Tax System (CTS) will provide much more than electronic filing for taxpayers. The long-term goal of CTS is to replace all of our existing systems with a system that uses new technology that is easier to maintain, more cost effective, user and taxpayer friendly, and will better prepare the Department of Revenue for technological advances in the future. The purpose of CTS is to provide the Finance and Administration Cabinet the means to enhance the administration and collection of revenues using optimal processes and technology to benefit the citizens of the Commonwealth."

5:38 UPDATE: Mr. Bass from EDS called back to confirm the company was indeed wrong to claim the contract was worth $33.2 million over five years and would actually only be worth that much if the service agreement were to run for nine years. Otherwise, the state was right to claim that the five year contract is for $27 million. Which gets me back to my original question: "Is it worth the money?" For that, they will get back to me on Monday. Stay tuned.

A Very Bad Traffic Day

Next Tuesday afternoon on Main Street in Lexington around 4 pm won't be a very good time or place to be driving. That is because hundreds of people will be standing outside City Hall in support of maintaining local blue laws.

The Lexington city council is expected to vote next week to remove the remaining prohibitions of Sunday alcohol sales.

Two Buses For Fred Update

The unofficial effort to send two busloads of Kentuckians down to Tennessee to see Fred Thompson on Septempber 15 now officially has two buses, rented this morning.

On Saturday the 15th, one bus will leave from Lexington and one will leave from Louisville. Both buses will return late Saturday evening.

If you can definitely make the trip, let me know at kyprogress(at)yahoo.com.

Fletcher Campaign Calls Stumbo's Bluff

Good move.

Will AG Stumbo really sue to force a couple of political appointees to change their party registration from Republican to Democrat?

Don't you have more important things to do with the end of your political career, Greg? I thought you were busy running for U.S. Senate to give Hillary Clinton one more vote for partial birth abortion, giving our country away one taxpayer-provided doctor visit at a time, and teaching Mexicans how to live like welfare queens.

Protest Like A Pervert

Leave it to Che Guevara wannabe Daily Kos to suggest if only Senate Democrats were more like Sen. Larry Craig, they could surrender the war faster.

Gee, much of the public favors a withdrawal from Iraq. Who knew? Apparently not "some Democrats" in the Senate. I guess it takes a Republican like Larry Craig to see and know how to exploit the weakness in the GOP caucus. He's putting the Dems to shame.

I guess that means the Iraq ball is now in Speaker Pelosi's court.

Beshear Is Re-Inventing His KY Central Role

The Courier-Journal reports on a minor dust-up between the Fletcher and Beshear camps about court records in the case of the defunct Kentucky Central Life Insurance Company.

Fletcher's campaign has criticized Beshear for fees of about $20 million paid to Beshear's former law firm, Stites & Harbison, for representing the state Department of Insurance in the complex litigation to recover money for policyholders, creditors and shareholders in the wake of the financial collapse of Kentucky Central in the 1990s.

Beshear and the firm say the state was charged rates far below what the firm charges private sector clients and that the firm did an excellent job in recovering money for policyholders and others from those whose actions contributed to the company's collapse.

The litigation wasn't nearly as "complex" as it was unnecessary. The company had already been raped and pillaged by insiders, but was still quite salvageable and would very likely still be operating today if Stites & Harbison hadn't taken the money and run. Beshear and some of his pals in the media have worked diligently to spin this sad tale as one of lawyers riding in on white horses to save the day. In truth, they were more like vultures who swooped in on their prey and, finding it still alive, they killed it.

The Fletcher folks are on to something here. I can only hope they will make something of it.

Economic Development Idea: Big Bread

Now that Kentucky taxpayers are going to be funding all these carbon capture-ready facilities, maybe we should start building bread factories as well.

California is running off a major bread manufacturer because baking bread gives off carbon dioxide.

Destroying Federal Property One Beer At A Time

If you are looking for one reason why socialized medicine won't work in America, look here.

Some British pols want to reward good health habits with extra benefits and strip National Health Service access from those with bad health habits:

But heavy smokers, the obese and binge drinkers who were a drain on the NHS could be denied some routine treatments such as hip replacements until they cleaned up their act.

Those who abused the system - by calling an ambulance when a trip to the GP would be sufficient, or telephoning out of hours with needless queries - could also be penalised.