Worse than the obesity epidemic

Projections

I was reading about President-elect Barack Obama's healthcare reform proposal tonight in a book called "Obamanomics." Found a very interesting passage about his plans to pay for universal coverage that sheds light on the idea of predicting the fiscal impact of most policy changes. I've marked portions of the paragraph and provided my thoughts below. All the numbers in parentheses and the italics were added by me:

"Obama expects that the (1)premiums paid by most Americans will decline and subsidies will be offered to more moderate-income people to allow them to buy into the plan. Of course, this is not all free. Obama's team estimates it should cost approximately (2)$100 billion a year. Obama does not intend to raise average Americans' taxes to pay for the plan, but rather intends to fund the plan from the government savings he expects we will get by pulling our troops out of Iraq and (3)ending the war, from the tax increase he proposes for (4)Americans earning over $250,000 per year, and from the money he raises by instituting a (5)carbon tax on carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, Obama will mandate that employers who are not currently paying for quality healthcare coverage for their employees will (6)have to contribute a percentage of their payroll costs to the plan."

(1) Really? With his plan to mandate no exclusions for pre-existing conditions, this claim is false by definition.

(2) Totally made up number. Like every other new government program, this probably understates the true cost dramatically.

(3) Ending which war? When? How? Might be interesting to see what the terrorists say about this one.

(4) This one already bit the dust.

(5) Significantly dumber and larger than Kentucky's cigarette tax increase but analogous in the sense that the stated purpose of the tax is for it to go to zero, but the dependence on the revenue will only grow.

(6) Swing-district Democrats probably will have to oppose this as it will be clearly seen as a heavy, new, widespread tax increase.

Making precise projections for the cost of starting a new program is a sure way to be proven wildly inaccurate by things that can't be predicted. Same goes for cutting programs. Might make for interesting conversation at cocktail parties, but the best you can really hope to do is get the direction of revenues and expenditures right.

And the bottom line is that the federal government and our state government are buying more government than they can afford. The only answer is to start deciding which programs we can live without and make plans to eliminate -- or at least shrink -- them.

China's thugs make a Kentucky move

The Wall Street Journal reports China is blocking the New York Times web site.

That's almost as bad as Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear's move to take down web sites because he doesn't like their content.

Beshear's internet censorship case remains mired in a court battle. A Court of Appeals ruling may come in January.

The ACLU has joined the fight against Beshear because his actions violate the First Amendment. I'm not very comfortable being on the same side of an issue with the ACLU, but when they're right, they're right.

Sales of garlic skyrocket in Kentucky

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear wants to raise your taxes so badly, he can taste it.

Giving in to all his seductive cigarette tax increase nonsense is just like inviting Count Beshear into your house.

Where are my shoes?

President Bush is giving $17.4 billion to General Motors and Chrysler. That should get them through till spring. Then they'll be back for more and Ford will want their's, too.

Where we are headed

New York Gov. David Paterson has a plan to save the world one 65% fruit juice at a time. He wrote:

"Nearly one out of every four New Yorkers under the age of 18 is obese. In many high-poverty areas, the rate is closer to one out of three."

"That is why, in the state budget I presented last Tuesday, I proposed a tax on sugared beverages like soda. Research has demonstrated that soft-drink consumption is one of the main drivers of childhood obesity."

"For example, a study by Harvard researchers found that each additional 12-ounce soft drink consumed per day increases the risk of a child becoming obese by 60 percent. For adults, the association is similar."

"If we are to succeed in reducing childhood obesity, we must reduce consumption of sugared beverages. That is the purpose of our proposed tax. We estimate that an 18 percent tax will reduce consumption by five percent."

"Our tax would apply only to sugared drinks -- including fruit drinks that are less than 70 percent juice -- that are nondiet. The $404 million this tax would raise next year will go toward funding public health programs, including obesity prevention programs, across New York state."

Something tells me the only thing Gov. Beshear saw in that passage was the $404 million.

Biggest issue in Kentucky right now

Kentucky's two biggest newspapers have been relentless in their pursuit of a seventy cent per pack cigarette tax increase. There is no bigger issue in the state and it has nothing to do with whether you smoke or not.

It's all about making government bigger.

The huge revenue projections for the tax increase ignore the entrepreneurs who currently pick up low-tax cigarettes in Kentucky and deliver them to other, higher-tax states. When the cigarette tax goes up in Kentucky, that inflow of cash will reverse course.

So the spending projections related to passage of the cigarette tax are bogus. But that isn't the point.

The point of this exercise is getting state legislators on the record voting for a tax increase to "solve" a fiscal problem. Tax increases don't solve fiscal problems.

Prove me wrong.

As if...

Yahoo News has been talking all day about Barack Obama wanting to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to "save" the economy.

The silliness cuts both ways because, tonight, George Bush had this one:

"I'm not going to let this economy crater in order to preserve the free market system."

Sure would be nice to get a president with a realistic view of his office's powers and abilities.

And how the free market works.

Buying the cow when the milk could be free

Kentucky taxpayers are still paying lots of money for local governments to buy newspaper advertising space to display public notices. Sounds pretty 20th century to me.

And at first blush it seems the Kentucky Press Association, the state's newspaper trade association agrees. They are working to put all the state's public notices online and available to the public for free (click to expand):

But when anyone starts talking about repealing the law that requires local governments to purchase newspaper advertising, the newspaper folks go ballistic. David Thompson, executive director of the Kentucky Press Association said:

"A part of the public notice law allows smaller cities to mail their notices by first class mail, if the city can show it’s cheaper than publishing in the local newspaper. In the 22 years that’s been part of the law, not one single agency has found it cheaper to mail a notice by first class than by newspaper publication."

Well no kidding! Fortunately, there's this little thing called the internet that has come along in the last few years. It's much cheaper than sending out individual letters or buying expensive newspaper advertising.

The public notices law should be changed to stop requiring governments to buy advertising and instead require them to post public notices and all budget and spending data online.

"Time to lean"

Anyone who ever worked at McDonald's has been told many times "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean."

I'm guessing if President Barack Obama ushers the Service Employee International Union in behind the counter at the home of the Golden Arches, such an admonition will be deemed an abusive management tactic.

And Happy Meals will cost $12. And you will get yours when they are good and ready to give it to you.

The Obama/Pelosi/Reid effort to expand unions with the card check bill will whack our economy like a union thug whacks a scab.

Why Republicans have lost Bailout Jam 2008

You may not have seen this ad on Kentucky blogs, but it's clear that this is why Republicans in Congress have already lost any political ground they might have gained by stopping the bailout train.

As each week brings another story of bailed out financial firms behaving badly, Democrats can complain for each constituency they want to throw money at by ripping Republicans for larding up the money guys.

No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!

Rep. Darryl Owens is pre-filing a bill to pour an extra $2 million into the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

No one in Kentucky is going to freeze to death living indoors this winter. We are going to have to get past the point of these feel-good appropriations should times really get hard in America.

Will someone please call Rep. Owens and tell him to quit sending this garbage up and instead look for spending to cut?

Who needs the lesson here?

Looks like Rep. Jim Glenn (D-Owensboro) wants to try again in the 2009 session with his 2008 bill that would require colleges to hand out personal finance materials to students.

Seems like a better idea to require legislators and Gov. Steve Beshear to get a clue about spending taxpayer dollars more wisely before they try to tell our students anything about managing their finances.

Since young people learn much more from behaviors they observe than from words they hear, I'm guessing what's being picked up on campus now by those who pay attention to Frankfort is to spend all you have as soon as you can and start immediately whining for more.

Who they are protecting now

Lexington police complaints to the Fayette County Detention Center administration about an ex-convict working in pre-trial services at the facility continue to be vigorously -- and inexplicably -- ignored.

Francis Lee Baker (D.O.B 7/27/1962) appears to be a small-time criminal with a few return trips to the gray bar motel. With as many honest people out of work as there are right now, it is certainly a mystery why the city of Lexington needs him making decisions inside the jail.

This came to my attention today because an officer in the jail who complained about Mr. Baker was not only repeatedly ignored, but wound up being punished herself as a result of making the complaints.

Looks like another lawsuit for FCDC Director Ron Bishop and friends.

Has anyone seen our education spending?

The Bluegrass Institute has just released Part 1 of a two-part study on education spending in Kentucky.

The first part lays out how funding has increased since KERA but hasn't quite made it into the classroom very well. The worst part is that we don't know for sure because the Kentucky Department of Education is so secretive about what it does with our money.

Part 2 of the report will focus on how much education our money is actually buying.

WWBJD?

Read an interesting article this morning about the likelihood of a General Motors bankruptcy even with an auto bailout and it occurred to me that I'd like to see what a bankruptcy judge would do to Kentucky if the state had to seek protection from its creditors.

Would a bankruptcy judge allow Kentucky to pay employees more than taxpayers get paid in the private sector? Would a bankruptcy judge throw out the whole merit system? Would a bankruptcy judge allow the school systems to continue spending money without being accountable for every dime? Would a bankruptcy judge allow public projects to be built under current prevailing wage laws? Would a bankruptcy judge allow the state to limit healthcare services under the current Certificate of Need laws? Would a bankruptcy judge allow the court system to build oversized temples for itself on borrowed money? Would a bankruptcy judge allow state government to pay off local newspapers by mandating local governments to buy ad space for public notices? Would a bankruptcy judge allow any government entity in the state to go another month without posting all of its expenditures on the internet?

Food for thought...

Is Beshear triangulating himself again?

Casino interests crashed and burned in Kentucky earlier this year to the delight of those who don't support making government bigger on a fool's gold promise.

Beshear got stuck between competing interests who both want casinos: interest groups who want more revenue to spend and horse industry people who want them to save their business.

Call it triangulation in reverse.

Beshear appears to be putting himself in the same spot between those who want to spend a cigarette tax increase and those who want to price Kentuckians out of smoking's bad health effects.

The easy way out for Senate opponents to the tax hike is to show evidence of the negative revenue impact of raising the tax higher than five of our neighboring states. Further opportunity could be realized by cutting Medicaid benefits for smokers.

Will you support bailout of Frankfort politicians?

Make no mistake, Gov. Steve Beshear's proposed cigarette tax increase affects everyone in Kentucky.

Here's the deal: the cigarette tax increase won't "work" for normal Kentuckians, but it will be very effective in forcing us to bail out politicians.

The tax hike is very unlikely to bring in $81 million between now and June 30, as Beshear says it will. Cigarette taxes are notorious for failing to produce hoped-for revenues in other states. And it is probably worse in Kentucky, where a seventy cent increase would stop residents of five surrounding states from crossing state lines to buy cigarettes and other things here. It's pretty likely we would lose at least that much revenue from that lost business.

And if they were really worried about health of smokers, they would be using the "extra revenue" to help people quit smoking, wouldn't they?

What the cigarette tax would accomplish, if it were to pass the legislature, is to open up the door for more tax increases. It's a test case, that's all.

Even if you don't smoke, you probably understand that raising taxes on Kentuckians right now is a terrible idea. If we miss this opportunity to force government to wring out some of its wasteful spending, we will have only ourselves to blame.

You've seen the signs at campgrounds: Don't Feed the Bears. Same goes for the big spenders in Frankfort. If we don't stand up to them on this, they will only come back for more.

Just say no to Gov. Steve Beshear

If we are going to set anything right in Kentucky state government, we must get this one right. Gov. Steve Beshear wants to make government bigger by raising taxes and he has to be stopped.

From the Lexington Herald Leader:

"Cutting alone, though, only gets the state about a third of the way to the nearly half-billion mark."
"To make even this slim budget work, there's got to be more revenue, and Beshear is looking to a 70 cent a pack increase in the tax on cigarettes to make up about half the shortfall."
"We have long supported increasing this tax, to improve both revenue and public health. When the price increases, some people quit smoking and a lot — especially young people — don't start."

The budget hasn't gotten "slim," yet. Keeping bureaucrats fat and happy is not the taxpayers' responsibility. Until we force them to cut back on their government lifestyles, nothing will change in Kentucky.

The cigarette tax is merely a gateway drug for Gov. Beshear and the Frankfort big-spenders. Stopping that and then cutting off the excessive borrowing will get us on the road to smaller, less intrusive government and a freer Kentucky.

You'd better not cry, I'm tellin' you why...

All the big-spending babies in Frankfort may be headed for the naughty list if they don't get serious about showing Kentucky taxpayers what is really going on with their money.

The Kentucky spending transparency group on Facebook appears to have picked up at least one very powerful member: