Time To Audit Big Ed

The hubbub over the Auditor's performance audit of Medicaid has died down. It's now time to do one of the Kentucky Department of Education.

But there's no way I would trust the partisan Auditor to do the job. We need to hire an outside firm for this one. The accounting at KDE is so bad that any honest efficiency report writers would have a field day sorting through their mess.

Throwing (Jerry) Down The Gauntlet

Page One Kentucky promises to lay the smackdown on Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson in 2008 and suggests their information is the reason he didn't get in the race for governor.

Meanwhile, the Lexington Herald Leader wants to see Abramson's running mate, Rep. Ben Chandler, act a little more like Al Gore.

U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler: Follow the path of another Albert. Use your popularity to illuminate inconvenient truths.

Yeah, I'd like to see that too.

Fixing Things In 2008

An income tax on businesses with no income is always going to be a bad idea.

Let's kill it.

And after we do that, perhaps we should reconsider the wisdom of dropping 500,000 low-income Kentuckians from state tax rolls, which we did in the same 2005 bill that created the state AMT. Seems like subsidizing our least productive citizens might be something we would want to target more carefully than that. Our "welfare state" mentality, you must agree, is the biggest thing holding us back. Couldn't we better help those who can't help themselves if we made it a little more difficult for capable people to exist on the dole?

2007 Kaypee Awards

Probably should have thought about this a week ago, but I was inspired today by Bluegrass Roots' Rooties and came up with a name for a Kentucky awards show called the Kaypees.

Time is short to really do it justice, but if you have a funny nomination, have at it. Otherwise, I thought we might take the high road and try to come up with a consensus Best Public Policy Idea/Worst Public Policy Idea for 2008.

Eyes On Arizona

Starting Tuesday, Arizona starts cracking down on employers of illegal aliens. Kentucky has a bill that would do the same thing here.

The Song That Never Ends

One thing that would really inform the present debate about what kind of fiscal shape state government is in would be to put all state government checkbooks online.

Where are all you good government types on this?

The House Democrats should have all kinds of motivation for supporting this. Jody Richards was out there this past week blaming the state shortfall on the national economy, for heaven's sake. If his much hoped for recession doesn't materialize -- or even doesn't materialize soon enough to lend some credibility to his ridiculous assertion -- what will he do?

Face it, big spenders, the cat is out of the bag. Citizen awareness and communication will soon demolish the old way of running Frankfort. Soon Rep. Harry Moberly (Mr. Government Secrecy and Mr. Conflict of Interest) will be the last one operating in the shadows.

Other legislators with better motives had better make sure there is no confusion about which side they are on in this most important battle.

Oklahoma!

The great state of Oklahoma leads the way on government transparency and Kentucky would do very to follow them.

Did I mention we already have a bill?

If you don't like being surprised by details of the state's finances when we change governors, you will probably want to get on board the transparency movement as well.

Saving State Health Dollars

We all agree that having more affordable health insurance would be a good thing. What should be clear, but apparently isn't, is that more competition and wider consumer choice would create a more efficient health insurance market.

In Kentucky, we seem to like to pack our insurers with mandated benefits. This increases costs, pricing more people out of the market. So, rather than address the root cost of the higher prices, we then seek to subsidize those prices with tax dollars. Any economics textbook would tell you this just causes prices to go up further still.

We need to give up the long-running lawsuit against Christian Care Medi-Share and encourage more such providers to come to the state. We need to shut down the ICARE subsidy Governor Beshear wants to expand.

And we need to give insurers more flexibility on which people they agree to insure.

Cut Spending, Have More Money

If we only cut the level of executive branch employment to the legal limit, stopped advertising the Kentucky Lottery, stopped the coal-to-liquid subsidy nonsense and cancelled the Louisville Arena project, we wouldn't have a "budget crisis."

I'm still laughing about Julian Carroll comparing state overspending to getting a car repossessed, but it's probably time we should seriously start talking about what assets the state should sell -- or at least stop leasing.

Beshear's Campaign Promises Dropping Like Flies

In his weekly column, Bluegrass Institute's Jim Waters says if we really want to lower healthcare costs we will push to allow people to buy insurance across state lines and let individuals purchase coverage just like businesses do -- with pre-tax dollars.

Typically, with the Bush vetoes came attempts to label him as the Grinch who stole health care from needy kids. But the president made the right decision.

Bush argued that expanding the program would hurt kids. It would “move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage,” he said.

Buckeye Institute researcher Marc Kilmer agrees: “Kids who would have had better private care will instead be using substandard government care.”

All of this sounds Grinch-like to those with an inclination to expand public programs rather than look for better solutions.

Reality is forcing Governor Steve Beshear to abandon more and more of his pie-in-the-sky plans. Cutting spending and state employee benefits will be the first two dominoes to fall. Casino gambling has no chance in a possible GOP super-majority Senate. Might socialized health insurance be next?

Anybody Up For A Media Appearance?

I will be a guest on the Leland Conway Show tomorrow with guest host Jim Waters. It's on 630 AM or www.wlap.com from nine to noon.

Skippy Miller, Gambling Man

Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary Jonathan Miller met with the State Tax Increment Financing Commission this afternoon to discuss blowing more state tax dollars on the Louisville Arena project.

He didn't answer any questions, though, about about last spring's Las Vegas vacation he took one week after kissing the ring of soon-to-be casino nominee Steve Beshear and dropping his own bid for governor.

The scandal is in the cover-up, Skippy, not the sex. The real question is not who Miller was bunking with in Vegas, but who he was meeting with to discuss "career options."

Miller will be under a dark cloud until all these questions are answered. It is time for Miller to produce some of these suitors he met with, assuming he can remember them.

Your State Needs More Than Your Mouth

As the General Assembly warms up for its 2008 session, the big spenders really don't have a good reason not to create a "Tax Me More Fund."

The lottery and casinos are supposed to be voluntary as well, aren't they? How are those who don't want to wait in convenience store lines behind ragged, toothless scratch-off buyers and their malnourished, snot-nosed kids or who don't want to risk sitting in a urine-soaked chair going to pay a little extra?

It is only being humane to afford those generous souls the opportunity to avoid these indignities in support of their Commonwealth.

Perhaps Speaker Jody Richards would sign on to this bill if we agreed to send one-third of any contribution directly to foreign casino owners.

Kentucky's Education Odd Couple That Isn't

There is an interesting story in the Baltimore Sun about the Democratic governor in Maryland trying to run off the Republican state superintendent of schools.

Governor Steve Beshear already tried to get the state school board to not hire now-education commissioner (and former GOP state representative) Jon Draud. But while the difference between the two officials in Maryland has some basis in ideological conflict, their Kentucky counterparts seem to have little if anything they disagree about in terms of policy.

The education story for 2008, though, may well be that budget realities force a much tighter fiscal rein on the education establishment and an overhaul of the fraudulent CATS program, something neither Draud nor Beshear would ever be inclined to pursue in fatter economic times.

Specifically, what we need is an outside financial audit from the top of the Kentucky Department of Education to the bottom of the smallest elementary school. A bill to mandate this and to strip the KDE of the ability to grade itself with the CATS testing should be something both parties can get behind.

The education bureaucracy will be much easier to handle when their game is exposed for all to see.

Merry Christmas

It has been a good year writing on this blog. I really appreciate the comments, criticisms, emails, and news tips. The way we get and share information is changing rapidly. I hope this site plays a role in how you stay connected.

David

Help For The Dentally-Challenged

You may have heard about the New York Times/IHT article discussing tooth loss in Kentucky.

Quoted in the article is a Corbin man who illegally provides dentures to people who need them.

It is currently illegal for anyone other than a licensed dentist to provide dentures. There is a bill from Rep. Tom Burch seeking to change this.

Are we actually allowing the private sector to lower a medical cost? Let's hope this idea catches on in Frankfort.

Did I mention this?

Getting Benefits Right Another Beshear Opportunity

The Louisville Courier Journal's David Hawpe gets it right this morning when he calls the effort by the Fletcher administration on public employee benefits weak.

The answer clearly is not the anemic approach suggested last week by a (pale) blue ribbon commission. The truth is, the current system is unsustainable. It must be changed. Future state hires will have to accept the kinds of changes that millions of Americans have had to stomach, as private employers have adjusted their retiree pension and benefit plans.

Empowering a generation of state government employees as a strong goody-getting voting block was never going to work for our fiscal health. Demanding a phase-out of legislator pensions would also help change this culture of self-destruction.

Cutting the benefits won't hurt state government. Not cutting them will bankrupt us. Do the math.

This political gift was wrapped up by Ernie Fletcher last summer when he didn't make the special session about public employee benefits.

For Mayor Jim Newberry's Eyes Only

The meltdown at the the Fayette County jail includes a sexual harassment lawsuit whose mishandling is indicative of the leadership failure in Lexington.

It will be interesting to see if the sexual harassment grievance filed at the Lexington Police Department is managed any differently. (You know, the one regarding the effects of a bullet-proof vest.)

Pinching Pennies

If Governor Steve Beshear is looking for new ways to save money -- and he'd better be -- he should get rid of the law that requires government entities to publish public notices in local newspapers.

It's much cheaper to put them online. The Kentucky Press Association already has a website set up.

Any other ideas?

Dissenting Comments On A Blog Make It Better

I don't know when the Louisville Courier Journal will start deleting unfriendly blog comments like some other newspaper's political blog. Maybe they just haven't seen this yet.