Magic tax increase proposed

Rep. David Watkins has pre-filed the seventy cent cigarette tax increase that is going to save us all by cutting smoking rates, raising revenue, funding our woefully underfunded public employee benefits plans, put more money in our schools, buy health insurance for all our children, pay off our debt, fill in for current overspending, and make the blue skies bluer.

Why we still miss mark on college affordability

A striking paragraph in the Lexington Herald Leader's college affordability story today deserves clarification:

"The 40 percent of Kentucky families who earn the least must use 39 percent of their income to attend a 4-year college, up from 33 percent in 2004, the report found. And that's after accounting for financial aid, which is increasingly being used to lure high-achieving students who boost a school's reputation, but who don't need help to go to college."

The 39% figure is highly misleading. It includes food and lodging expenses. Those would have to be incurred whether the student chooses to live on campus and overpay for necessities or not. The fact that poor families are choosing to pay luxury prices for necessary services is more indicative of the fact that federally-insured student loans are readily available than the inaccurate picture that poor families face living on 61% of their income in order to send a child to college.

Solutions are readily available. We already incentivize students to attend community colleges by allowing them to continue paying the lower tuition rates at universities when they transfer after earning a two-year degree. This is not well-publicized. It should be.

If more students stayed at home with their parents and took courses online through KYVC.org, they would save substantially as well.

The article's criticism that too much financial aid is being awarded to students "who don't need help to go to college" is off-base also. Raising academic standards in our public colleges is the only way to approach long-term success. Doling out too much financial aid strictly on the basis of financial need and then encouraging overspending for services is at the heart of this problem. Attempting to address college affordability without naming the actual culprits will continue to frustrate our efforts to improve the situation.

Obama pulls his first Beshear

In Georgia.

Checked your gun rights, lately?

Noticed that since the election, former Rep. Kathy Stein's wacky anti-gun bill from the 2008 session is the most-read bill on KentuckyVotes.org.

There are still some major technical problems with KentuckyVotes, but most of the site is functioning normally. Bill searches and voting records, for example, are fine.

That's our Skippy!

Gov. Steve Beshear's endless trail of blue ribbon work groups continues Tuesday with a swipe at college education affordability.

Here's the great part: the meeting features Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary Jonathan "Skippy" Miller giving introductory remarks, offering a discussion of priorities for a January meeting, and addressing meeting topics and issues for further meeting till next September.

I'm not expecting much more than a rehash of KAPT from Miller, are you?

Recession official; official response horrible

The National Bureau of Economic Research now says the nation has been in a recession since December 2007.

Recorded history is full of business cycles going up and coming down. The lesson too many are missing is that there is nothing any politician is going to do to stop that. In fact, many of them seem determined to make it worse.

From White House spokesman Tony Fratto:

"What's important is what is being done about it," Fratto said. "The most important things we can do for the economy right now are to return the financial and credit markets to normal, and to continue to make progress in housing, and that's where we'll continue to focus."

Yeah, right. Just get the heck out of the way.

Bipartisan attack on government transparency

Please support two Louisville men, Steve Magruder and Brian Tucker, in their efforts to force Mayor Jerry Abramson to show taxpayers how their money is being spent.

Go here and here. And please use the comments section on this site to publicize any other similar efforts in Louisville or elsewhere.

Bailout spin to begin, again

The Big Three automakers are going back to Capitol Hill this week to beg for a bailout.

There is nothing they can say that will justify throwing taxpayer money at them. Even if the government could "turn a profit" on the deal by taking an equity stake in one or more of them, there is no way we should allow the government to buy up more companies in the name of stability. Just like when Joseph in the Old Testament taxed the Egyptians twenty percent of their grain and sold it back to them in return for their freedom, we will all be slaves when the government figures it can buy up businesses.

Some of the resources tied up in the car companies are misplaced. Delaying the realization of that fact costs us all money. And it might wind up costing us more than that.

Tell Beshear to drop tax increase plan

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) has a history lesson both President-elect Barack Obama and Gov. Steve Beshear would do very well to pay attention to:

"Important lessons on our current crisis can be drawn from Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s, where deeply flawed policy responses lead to a protracted period of stagnation. In the early 1990s, Japan experienced a sharp economic slowdown resulting from the bursting of a real estate and stock market bubble. Sound familiar? In response, Japan’s policy makers pursued an aggressive agenda of fiscal stimulus packages after 1993. Japan’s preference for public spending at the expense of private investment led to record deficits, increasing government debt to 130% of GDP. Following the array of new spending projects, Japan made the critical mistake of raising its consumption tax rate in 1997, proving fatal for Japan’s already stagnant economy. Rather than addressing the significant structural problems in Japan’s financial sector or reducing taxes to spur sustained economic growth, Japan followed a path of increased spending followed by increased taxes. Such a path proved disastrous for Japan, and – should Obama and the Congressional Majority follow a similar path as they’ve promised – it will prove disastrous for America."

Team Obama seems to have gotten the message that tax increases won't do any good for the economy. Maybe they should talk to Gov. Beshear.

While you were hyperventilating...

With all the current problems in Kentucky government to be concerned about, The Lexington Herald Leader is upset about this:


God help us. Oh, sorry guys!

Instead of getting stuck on this stuff, would it be too much to ask the Herald Leader to look into out-of-control public employee compensation, unaccountable school systems, or lying executives?

Special message for Fayette Jail head

Fayette County Detention Center Director Ron Bishop is about to get more of a special greeting from federal investigators than the rest of us. Here's yours:

Bishop may be enjoying the holiday season at his home in Louisville with his Lexington taxpayer-provided luxury car in his garage, but given all the people close to him who are talking to investigators, it's not looking like a Happy New Year.

Numbers suggest Beshear expects GOP to fold

I wish I had thought of this one, but credit goes to Andy Hightower at the Kentucky Club for Growth for adding up the numbers and finding the hole in Gov. Steve Beshear's fiscal plan:

"... he's either expecting to raise taxes, or not expecting the $456 million shortfall to materialize."

Read the rest of Andy's post here.

Just plug in your efficiency study, Governor, and everything will be fine. The Senate Republicans have little reason to cut their own throats just to bail you out. In fact, many of the House Democrats don't either.

Will Obama cause food costs to rise?

Harvard professor Dr. Greg Mankiw notes that President-elect Barack Obama's flip-flop on farm subsidies is the wrong prescription:

"Like President-elect Obama (but unlike candidate Obama), I am all for getting rid of farm subsidies. But why would you want to use taxpayer funds to encourage large, efficient, profitable farms to break up into smaller, less efficient, less profitable farms?"

If we are going to get out of subsidizing farmers, let's do it right by eliminating all subsidies, not just those on the "rich."

Really bad financial news closer to home

Nearly a week after receiving the latest report on the financial mess that is the Kentucky Retirement Systems, the KRS has released their information to the unwashed masses.

The good news is that the unfunded actuarial liability has only increased by $1,684,998,416. The bad news is that even if we had an extra two billion dollars laying around, it would not put a dent in the deficit carried over from last year which was $31,128,411,829. And the really scary news is that the current $32,813,410,245 deficit is based on June 30, 2008 figures when the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 11,350. It is now 25% lower at 8452. The current figures also don't include all the toxic securities our investment gurus were loading up on before they exploded this past fall.

And, of course, you get to make up whatever they can't pay out. Good thing House Speaker Jody Richards fixed all this in June.

Don't hate the brown people

WHAS 11 reported on Mexican gangsters setting up shop in Kentucky which you may have already read about here.

"Sutter said, “Now is the time to get on this. It isn’t something we want to wait for. We need to be very proactive with this.""

"Shelbyville’s quality of life may depend on it."

"The latest report by the National Drug Intelligence Center reports drug cartel activity involving the Federation Cartel in Louisville and the rival Gulf Coast Cartel in Lexington."

"Authorities fear violence in the future as these two groups begin to fight over territory here in Kentucky."

You can watch the rest of the WHAS report here.

State investment experts play hide and seek

The Kentucky Retirement Systems seems to have something to hide.

New, New Deal is no free meal

America would be far better off if some of our elected "leaders" had to go to a car dealership and buy their own ride. Something magical happens when you go in, pick a car, and hear the salesman's first offer.

If you say no, the price goes down.

The same thing happens every place else in the economy. That's why there is no reason to be afraid of the possibility of price deflation. Think of it as a big blue light special. Enterprises needing exorbitant pricing just to stay afloat don't make it in times like this. Denying this fact only makes the reality more painful when it hits. Better to take our medicine and get on with it.

So President-elect Barack Obama's plan to "stimulate" the economy with $700 billion should be viewed as hostile to our interests. Will it allow some people to continue to be overpaid for a while? Yes. But I'd love to have someone explain to me how it benefits our nation as a whole to temporarily prop up the price level of anything when the market is trying to say that the party is over.

Like it or not, the market is going to win this one. Best to hang on to our money. We are going to need it.

Beshear misses out on another victim

On a weekend in which a vampire teen chick flick, Twilight, featured a young girl almost getting eaten, University of Louisville freshman Jordan Fulkerson should probably consider himself fortunate to be alive.

Jordan fell one sporting contest pick short of winning an ESPN online $1 million prize when the Atlanta Falcons beat the Carolina Panthers Sunday. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, who has already leapt fangs-first onto the back of online poker web sites, is on the rampage for tax money from innocent Kentuckians to prop up an unsustainable state government.

A belt for Jim Newberry to tighten

Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry is joining the tax increase chorus we are now hearing at all levels of government.

And yet, Lexington jail administrators are still zipping all over the state in taxpayer-provided cars.

Wonder why?

Rep. Ben Chandler, use your influence

Congressman Ben Chandler deserved some credit for voting against the bank bailout when his vote didn't matter.

Now he needs to step up when he can really make a difference.

North Carolina Congresswoman Virginia Foxx has filed a bill to cut our bailout losses in half.

Her bill needs Democratic co-sponsors, Rep. Chandler. Also don't see Rep. Hal Rogers, Rep. Geoff Davis, Rep. Ed Whitfield, Rep. Ron Lewis on there. Newly-elected Brett Guthrie could weigh in. And Rep. John Yarmuth should have to explain why he still wants to hand more money over to the fat cats.