Shameless Self-Promotion

I just got my first post up on The Bluegrass Policy Blog, which will be a regular, full-time gig.

Please check it out if you will and leave a comment if you want. Links will be greatly appreciated.

Market Solution Saves Kentucky Health Dollars

Walmart's wildly successful $4 prescription drug program has been great for Kentucky consumers, who have saved more per capita than consumers in all but four states.

We are waiting around for Hillary Clinton to come to our rescue when we should really be getting government out of the way.

State Politicians Mugging Marathon Oil

Attorney General Greg Stumbo will be making a big deal out of a federal court ruling that his unconstitutional "price gouging" lawsuit can proceed in state court in Frankfort, which is right where he wants it.

Marathon Oil knew their only chance for a fair hearing would have been in federal court.

The old price gouging law Stumbo sued under is unconstitutional and everyone knows it. That is why it was repealed in the 2007 General Assembly.

I would suggest that our gubernatorial candidates should weigh in on this disgrace, but unfortunately they will both side with Stumbo.

My New Responsibilities

At some point Thursday morning I will take over publishing the Bluegrass Institute's blog. The purpose of that blog is discussion of state public policy.

It is listed as one of my links to the right and you can go here to check it out.

I will keep this site updated with unique posts; same as always.

Here Is A Real Issue For Candidates

Haven't heard anything from the gubernatorial candidates about the president's veto of the SCHIP expansion/tax increase bill this morning.

Might be interesting to see where they come down on this one.

Herald-Leader's Proof-Free Higher Ed Editorial

This morning's editorial about higher education started off badly:

Kentucky's low-income families must now devote almost a quarter of their incomes to pay for a community or technical college education, even with financial aid.

This is patently absurd and I would love to see them try to attach any legitimate numbers to this.

Of course, they are extolling the wisdom of freezing tuition costs and -- worse -- the proliferation of need-based financial aid.

To Kentucky's credit, the state has also been increasing need-based financial aid at a higher rate than the region or nation.

But even with the increased financial aid figured in, the sticker shock will price many Kentuckians out of an education.

The average Pell Grant is $2500 and the maximum is $4310. Full-time annual tuition at KCTCS is $2760. A student who graduates high school with a 3.0 GPA and gets a 21 on the ACT will receive $1250 a year in KEES money.

State and institutional grants and private scholarships combine to easily -- easily!! -- cover the total cost of education for needy families.

It's all this focus on need-based aid (and the lack of price sensitivity that goes along with it) that makes it tough for middle-class families to cover the cost of college.

Even a minor shift toward more merit-based financial aid would lower costs and improve educational outcomes for Kentuckians by requiring kids to get serious about school sooner and crowding people out based on lack of preparation rather than lack of ability to demonstrate financial need.

Legal Defense Fund Bill Pre-Filed

Rep. Darryl Owens pre-filed a bill today that, if it had been in place at the beginning of this year, would have required Governor Ernie Fletcher to report all relevant details of his legal defense fund eight times before the November election.

Huckabee Coming To Kentucky

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is coming to Centre College on October 10. The biggest criticism of Huckabee comes from his tax-and-spending days as governor of Arkansas.

RGA Supports Half-Priced Socialism

Hello?

Are there any Republican organizations out there still supporting conservative fiscal policies? I'm just curious.

The Republican Governors Association touts a newspaper editorial cheering on Indiana for expanding state-run socialized medicine. And the part they are most excited about is the Republican governor of that state got it done with a federal matching grant:

The plan will close at least part of Indiana's growing insurance gap. There are about 560,000 adult residents of the state with no health care coverage. Many of these are the working poor. They are people with jobs but not jobs that include health insurance as a benefit. And their income isn't sufficient to allow them to afford insurance on their own.

In his January State of the State Address, Daniels asked the Indiana General Assembly to approve a cigarette tax increase of at least 25 cents a pack. The tax increase grew to 44 cents by the end of the legislative session. That is $206 million a year in revenue.

Pineville Knows Bruce Hendrickson

Before former Pineville Mayor Bruce Hendrickson got demolished in his race for re-election last year, his greatest contribution to his city was either rigging the bid for building the local senior citizen center for family members or failing to apply for coal severance money.

Now the Democratic party wants us to put him in charge of "fixing" our elections.

Time To Get Our $100 Million Back

Learning from others' experiences is always cheaper than waiting around to take the hit yourself. We have a golden opportunity to avoid some serious pain right now.

We learned over the weekend China has backed off their effort to supplement their country's transportation fuel needs with coal. Meanwhile, Kentucky hasn't yet bonded the $100 million HB 1 would borrow and spend on CTL plants here.

We have a chance to cancel the whole thing and keep our money. We should do just that.

Taxing Their Way To Prosperity

Don't laugh at Michigan's financial problems. Their tough votes will be in our future pretty soon as the much-ignored public pension mess in Kentucky gets much harder to ignore.

Our state workers are overpaid and we spend too much on social services. Until we get some people willing to be one-term politicians (by their own choice), we will continue to miss opportunities to deal creatively with our fiscal problems.

Another Great Reason For You To Move To Indiana

Indiana has casinos and soon will add government health insurance for families earning up to 300% of the poverty level.

So if you think out-of-state casinos make good in-state public policy and you don't think you can get by on $62,000 without taxpayer-provided health insurance, maybe you should move north.

Hey, Let's Make Another Law!

The best thing about the Courier-Journal story on bogus campaign contributions is that anyone could have put this one together, but no one did.

The all-too-predictable response will be to make new campaign finance laws. But after we all got caught ignoring law-breaking, let's not lose sight of the fact that the necessary laws already exist.

Too Much Socialism For The Communists

As Kentucky lurches checkbook-first into the world of heavily subsidized "energy production," the world's largest experimenter in coal-to-liquid technology, China, is backing off. This is according to the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission.

Kentucky has already sunk more than $106 million into this stuff that has failed to be self-sufficient any place else.

We should cut our losses there.

No Newt In 2008

Newt Gingrich ended speculation today that he might run for president in 2008.

Over the past few months, Gingrich had stoked speculation he might enter the crowded GOP field. He noted that Republicans, especially conservatives, were unhappy with the candidates already in the race.

Yet he also has spoken positively of all the leading contenders, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Splitting The Difference With Socialism

Thanks to the Club for Growth for pointing out this one:

Honor Among Thieves

I love this one:

A request by Caesars Indiana to dismiss a Tennessee woman's lawsuit claiming that the casino took advantage of her gambling addiction was rejected yesterday by a Harrison County judge.

Circuit Judge H. Lloyd Whitis' ruling in the case of Jenny Kephart could open the door to a trial examining a casino's duty in handling compulsive gamblers.

Given the potential public policy implications of such a lawsuit, can gambling proceeds recipients really afford to have disgruntled gamblers suing to get some of their money back using what amounts to a "temporary insanity" plea?

What's next, nicotine addicts suing the state and federal governments to get their tobacco taxes back? And what would that mean for the "the children" whose government health insurance is funded by those smokers?

Would "the kids" have a lawsuit against the smokers? Maybe "the kids" should start working up a lawsuit against compulsive gamblers.

Californial Dreamin' Makes Sense For Kentucky

Newport Beach, California city council members killed a proposal this week to require a public vote before increasing pension benefits for public employees.

Kentucky and all its municipalities should do what Newport Beach didn't have the courage to do. And we should do it immediately.

If nothing else, by pushing back against the multi-billion dollar sea of red ink our politicians have poured on us with pension goodies for their cronies, we might get to see some serious issues aired out like this:

The Pilot also quoted the head of the city's firefighters union, arguing that the initiative would "be ground zero of a statewide war. … We don't want to go there." Well, a political war is brewing, as government pensions have gotten out of hand and as pension debt has soared. We know why the unions don't want to go there, given that they have the cushiest deal imaginable. But someone is going to have to go there, given that the current situation cannot be sustained without leading to bonds, tax increases or reduction in other government programs.

Writing in the Register's Orange Grove earlier this month, Lincoln Club officials Richard Wagner and David Bahnsen pointed out that San Francisco has had such a pension-vote measure for 100 years, which has resulted in that city having a fully funded pension system that is the model for the nation. San Diego voters approved a similar measure after "a string of pension mismanagement scandals resulted in a $1.3 billion retirement-fund shortfall that nearly caused the city to declare bankruptcy and led to five felony indictments of union, city and pension officials in January 2006."

Better Yesterday Than Never

They probably should have hopped on this wagon over the summer when everyone else was hot on immigration, but the Fletcher administration has engaged on getting tough with illegals.

Good.