Take it like a man

Congress expands SCHIP, Kentucky loses

Gov. Steve Beshear has made a big deal out of signing up children for government health insurance and the U.S. House of Representatives just helped him waste our money even faster.

From the Cato Institute:

"SCHIP’s great expense stems from the fact that in many cases, it simply enrolls children who were already insured privately. Economists Jonathan Gruber and Kosali Simon estimate that out of every ten children added to the SCHIP rolls, six already had private coverage. Only in government is a program deemed to “work” when it covers four uninsured children for the price of ten."

If Gov. Beshear were really serious about putting Kentucky in position to grow when the economy recovers, he would consider encouraging Kentuckians to get off SCHIP rather than trying to get them on:

"One thing SCHIP does accomplish is to discourage work. SCHIP and similar programs create enormous disincentives to climb the economic ladder. A single mother of two earning minimum wage in New Mexico who increased her earnings by $30,000 would find no change in her net income: She would pay an additional $4,000 in taxes and lose $26,000 in SCHIP and other government benefits, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute for the federal government."

Read more here.

Obama bailout needs a bailout

As American support for President Barack Obama's $900 billion bailout plan drops precipitously, a group of Republicans are fighting back against Obamanomics:

Thanks for standing up against this, Sen. Bunning.

It will be no surprise to see the mainstream media full of news stories about how critical this bailout is. But one thing I didn't expect was to get two emails from the White House press office today inviting me to two different press conference calls about the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." Tomorrow Melody Barnes, Director of the Domestic Policy Council will speak to "Southern reporters" at 1:30 and then at 2:30, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood will be on at 2:30 talking to "Midwest Reporters."

What they lack in substance, they probably more than make up for in outreach.

Will KY legislators approve voter initiatives?

Kentucky House Minority Whip David Floyd has filed a bill sure to catch the imagination of active citizens across the state.

House Bill 217 would allow individuals to collect petition signatures to change either state law or the state Constitution via voter approval and without any action by the General Assembly.

Before you start buying clipboards, though, HB 217 first has to pass both the House and the Senate by three-fifths votes this year, go on the 2010 ballot, and recieve a majority vote of the electorate.

I'm not aware of a similar bill in Kentucky in recent years. It will be interesting to see what kind of treatment this gets from our legislators.

Bunning was against bailouts; still is

While many in Congress are figuring out their fiscal principles on government bailouts by sticking their fingers in the air, stalwart Sen. Jim Bunning has been a notable exception. In a press conference today, he described the battle he fights today:

"There is no will to bite the bullet and reduce the spending. They are already talking about another trillion dollars for the banks. If I were a banker in Kentucky, I'd be very concerned that the federal government is going to nationalize the banks and take control of all the banking industry across the country."

Bunning also said he thought the Dow Jones Industrial Average, currently near 8000, would hit 6000 before it hits 9000.

Did Don Leach lose another consulting gig?

The graphic below shows a California-based visitor to this blog who seems to know something about the ongoing federal investigation into criminal activity at the Fayette County Detention Center.

Donald Leach is a former administrator at the Lexington jail who was a subject of a recent city Budget & Finance Committee meeting, documentation of which seems to have disappeared.

(Click image to read it)

This story just keeps getting better.

Bipartisan opposition to corporate welfare

Very interesting article in The Wall Street Journal today about how some states are expanding taxpayer-funded incentive deals for companies despite lacking evidence that the approach is worth the investment.

The article includes this salient passage:

Kentucky shows every indication it will continue to play the sucker's bet that state officials can really pick our economic winners and losers.

If Kentucky called a unilateral cease fire on the corporate incentives battlefield, we would very likely have less of a fiscal problem on our hands. At the very least, state "economic development" officials should have to demonstrate the return on investment for their handiwork. The fact that they don't shout their results from the rooftops speaks volumes, doesn't it?

How about a colorblind natural disaster?

A North Carolina think tank stuck its tongue in its cheek over the weekend and asked why President Barack Obama hates the white people in Kentucky. The question isn't any more ridiculous than the persistent nonsense about former President George W. Bush hating all the black people in Katrina-struck New Orleans, but the following point from John Locke Foundation is worth considering:

"It is the iron law of Katrina: The federal government, marginally competent in the best of times, assumes super-human powers in times of natural disasters. Ergo, any lack of relief is the direct result of a lack of compassion, probably racially motivated, on the part of the occupant of the White House."

Of course, there is no danger of the mainstream media picking up on an "Obama lied while Kentuckians died" screed. They understand he is busy fixing the world's economy.

And speaking of racism, Obama now wants to keep the Yellow Man down. Or something (click to expand):

More Left Coast activism headed our way?

An effort in California to make health insurance premiums more "fair" for women looks like just the kind of bad idea that would attract Gov. Steve Beshear.

Current law allows individual health insurers in both California and Kentucky to charge higher health premiums for women than for men. It's nothing personal; it's just that women tend to cost more to insure than do men.

California wants to level the playing field, which just means men will be charged more for the same coverage.

In much the same way that the effort to force Kentucky car insurance companies to stop charging higher premiums for people who exhibit certain irresponsible behaviors merely penalizes everyone else, activism here is a bad idea.

When insurance companies don't pay claims their policies require them to pay, government intervention is wholly appropriate. But legislating fair premiums isn't going to magically start working now, just because some politicians have good intentions.

Thanks to InsureBlog for the tip on this one.

Some hope for Kentucky public education

In a surprising Friday afternoon move, Kentucky's education bureaucracy gave House Democrats permission to vote for higher math standards in Kentucky schools.

Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence Executive Director Robert Sexton gave the official green light.

"Senator Dan Kelly has introduced Senate Joint Resolution 19," Sexton said, "aimed at revising the state’s mathematics content standards and related assessments based upon National Council of Teachers of Mathematics recommendations. I like this legislation because it starts to move Kentucky toward fewer, clearer, and deeper standards."

Now we need to take similar steps for English and science instruction.

Day five of Newberry videotape scandal

Still no word from the city of Lexington about where they hid the thirty minutes of embarrassing video of Fayette County Detention Center Director Ron Bishop catching flak for just a tiny bit of the problems relating to his mismanagement of the city jail.

Also, there can be no doubt that Lexington's fearless watchdogs in the mainstream media would be all over this if they weren't covering for Newberry.

It's the same story again and again.

Ohio Gov. Strickland: move to Kentucky

Funny quote about proposed education reforms by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland in yesterday's Cincinnati.com:

"Earlier in the day, Strickland took a hard line on one of the most radical ideas - adding almost a full month to the school year. If new teachers are unhappy with a longer school year in Ohio, or his proposed four-year resident-training requirement, he said they are welcome to work in other states such as Kentucky."

""... If a teacher says, 'I'm going to teach in Kentucky instead of Ohio because the school day or the school year is longer in Ohio,' I would say to them, 'Move to Lexington or Louisville or Hazard," Strickland said."

Must be some pretty good stuff in that Ohio reform proposal, right?

Not so fast, says Bluegrass Institute education analyst Richard Innes:

"What Ohio’s situation really shows is the deplorable lack of decent education research to guide policymakers about what really does work in education. That problem has seen Kentucky chasing expensive education fads since 1990. Sadly, it now it looks like the same lack of data to support intelligent education choices is going to wreck havoc on the north side of the Ohio River."

Get more of Mr. Innes' analysis here.

Wonder how much this job pays?

The image below shows site reader data of this blog captured from a Lexington city government computer.

I think I liked Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry better when he was blocking this site from the view of on-the-clock employees.

Will Democrats be "racists" now?

The Republican National Committee appears to be about to elect Michael Steele to a two-year term as chairman.

Democrats will be dismissive and may well avoid, at least for the most part, the usual slurs a conservative African-American usually gets from the left.

Steele and the Republicans get to claim they are ready to move in a new direction.

We certainly need a viable alternative to the new regime in Washington. It will be interesting to watch.

Pull down one charade, put up another

Remember last November when the Louisville Courier Journal sent three reporters out to find substantial support in the Kentucky Senate for raising taxes?

They "found" it, but it just didn't pass the smell test. This passage from Bluegrass Policy Blog sums it up:

"The "substantial" support includes twenty Senators who said they would either vote for, consider, or not rule out a cigarette tax increase."

"In other words, there is insufficient support in the Senate for a cigarette tax increase."

Reality is slowly setting in:

A noncommittal answer from a politician is the same as a polite "no." The big tax increase parade to save the state from spending cut doom just isn't going to happen. Accept it and get ready for a combination of smallish spending cuts that solve nothing and massive borrowing we can't afford.

Tape erasing scandal belongs to Newberry

A full 24 hours since a report surfaced of erased videotape testimony in the ongoing Fayette County Detention Center scandals (here, here, here, and here), Lexington officials have neither responded nor provided the missing tape.

Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry shouldn't be allowed to hide from this one. Also, Councilman Kevin Stinnett, who chaired the meeting with the erased tape, has not returned a phone message from Wednesday.

Lessons about Rocky Mountain moochers

A report on Colorado's health insurance market suggests the much-repeated claim about government health insurance lowering healthcare costs is about as solid as the case for bigger government bailouts expanding failing government programs:

"This suggests that aside from gorging the coffers of those who want dysfunctional government health care programs expanded in order to crowd out all private medical arrangements, the massive SCHIP and Medicaid expansions in the pork-filled stimulus package will also raise costs for responsible people who pay for their own health care and health insurance."

More details here.

These are, of course, the same kind of reforms being brought to Kentuckians by our own Gov. Steve Beshear as fast as he can round up our money.

Didn't Richard Nixon try erasing tapes, too?

Online viewers eager to see Lexington Councilman Ed Lane blister Fayette County Detention Center Director Ron Bishop for his bad audit yesterday will be disappointed to see someone at the city edited out half of the Budget & Finance Committee meeting.

Missing is the half of the meeting in which Bishop was brought in to speak.

Wonder who would have done such a thing?

See it for yourself here. The first thirty minutes of the tape is full of commercials. Then the meeting starts at that point and the video ends mid-sentence at the one hour point.

Jack Conway's predatory rhetoric

Gov. Steve Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway had a big time last fall calling gasoline retailers nasty names when worldwide oil demand caused prices to increase.

Given real-world concerns over possible supply disruptions and shortages in the wake of this week's ice storm, Conway is at it again. While some hot air might do us a little good, Conway's is at least good for one laugh:

Someone please buy Jack Conway a thesaurus before he tries to run for the U.S. Senate. Predatory pricing occurs when retailers seek competitive advantage by lowering retail prices below cost.

I'm assuming that's not what he meant to say.

Prichard should get out of the kitchen

The last thing Kentucky can afford now is clinging to the status quo, especially in cases where it has proven to be ineffective and counterproductive.

Enter the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, the chief protector of failed bureaucratic education policies that have held Kentucky back for decades.

The Bluegrass Institute's education analyst Richard Innes congratulated the Prichard folks for coming out of hiding to debate their policy positions a week ago when they started their own blog.

But now they appear to not be posting his comments. Bad form, Prichard. Here is my attempt to smoke them out:

Withstanding criticism of your ideas is hard work. And what kind of watchdog organization prohibits comments about unethical conduct? Could it be that Prichard just isn't up to the task of defending its practices?