Following orders at Lexington jail

Fayette County jail Director Ron Bishop sent Assistant Director of Operations James Kammer to dig through federal whistleblower John Vest's training records yesterday.

It is unclear whether Bishop was looking for information for the upcoming criminal trial or his upcoming civil trial. Could be for a new criminal trial against Bishop that hasn't been initiated yet. More on that later.

Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry has no comment.

Doesn't KY media care about solutions at all?

Kentucky's mainstream media has been mostly silent about the state's endless trail of wasteful economic development tax scams, pension raids, and union schemes. And they have made it easier for Frankfort politicians to ignore almost every kind of free market, small government solution to our most persistent problems.

But this is ridiculous.

A new group, Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, is promoting a commonsense prevailing wage exemption for school building projects and is being actively ignored by the pundits when the need for money-saving ideas couldn't be more clear.

Just watch: when the media can be bothered to respond at all to Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, they will focus on the organization's connections to the Gov. Ernie Fletcher Administration rather than engage anyone in a discussion of the issues.

Pathetic.

Kudos, however, to Elephants in the Bluegrass and Kentucky Politics for telling the story.

Bubba Bailout advances

After making us endure their endless whining about needing more of our money, raising our taxes, and raiding the employee health fund, you might think Frankfort legislators would be almost finished ripping us off with their half-baked schemes.



Of course, you'd be wrong.

Gov. Steve Beshear should laugh less and do more explaining about why we need to give tens of millions of dollars to someone to build his business up in a way that he already said he was going to do on his own.

Do you really enjoy wasting our money that much, Governor?

Are we all Orwellian economists now?

I love that the Obama Administration has started this morning labeling high questionable press releases "FACT SHEET." (Click the image below to read it.)

Feel better yet?

Highlighted in this press release is the assertion that Spendulus "is expected to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year."

Of course, there will be no way to prove or disprove this unless several million of us will give Obama and Congress credit for "saving" our jobs.

What's really funny is that they used "the same economic model" to make up a number of road jobs created or "saved."

What a mess...

Possible Senate candidate coming to Lexington

Dr. Rand Paul, a Bowling Green physician and the son of Congressman Ron Paul, will speak about his possible campaign for U.S. Senate on Thursday, March 19 at The Inn on Broadway in Lexington.

The meeting will take place from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm and is open to the public.

Dr. Paul said last week he isn't interested in running against Sen. Jim Bunning next year, but would enter the race if Bunning dropped out.

What will Mitch do, this time?

The last time Sen. Mitch McConnell had a choice of who to help in a Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat representing Pennsylvania in 2004, he chose Sen. Arlen Specter over Congressman Pat Toomey. Specter won then and cast the deciding vote this year in favor of the Mother of All Bailouts.

Toomey is the President of the national Club for Growth and a very strong fiscal conservative.

Now it appears Toomey is gearing up for a 2010 run at Specter. At least that is what he suggested to a Pennsylvania talk radio audience this morning, saying a run was "back on the table." Toomey added:

“Senator Specter cast the deciding vote on the very worrisome stimulus bill, when he could have negotiated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama for more productive tax cuts and less wasteful spending.”

Should Toomey file to run, it will be interesting to see who Mitch supports.

Not enough pig in AIG's poke

Amazing that we are giving another $30 billion to AIG when they can't repay the first $150 billion.

My favorite is the "as needed" part.

Debunking more Big Ed spin

Last fall, Kentucky's education bureaucrats beat their chests about Kentucky ACT scores while Bluegrass Institute education analyst Richard Innes quietly suggested they were taking credit for success that wasn't theirs.

Now we know Innes was right. Click here to read the latest.

A new campaign, an old dirty trick

The most popular post on Kentucky Progress in the last week was the breaking news about Rand Paul weighing a run for the U.S. Senate.

The most popular post on Bluegrass Policy Blog was about the David Williams/Greg Stumbo legislative secrecy effort.

Jessamine Co. Lincoln Day 2009

The evening started with a little nervous laughter when a letter was read from Sen. Mitch McConnell expressing his appreciation of the Kentucky state Senate for not raising taxes.

Senate President David Williams is the speaker. No one fainted when he stated, when talking about the U.S. Senate, there are three Senators that "can't be counted on." Presumably he is talking about Specter, Snowe, and Collins rather than anyone in Frankfort.

Williams just hinted that he may be running for U.S. Senate next year by saying that he will be campaigning next year just like he did last year for Sen. McConnell, but that he didn't know in what capacity he would be "riding the bus."

AP: What overspending problem?

The Associated Press read Warren Buffett's famous annual letter to his shareholders today and managed to miss the part in which he predicted things will get much worse for state and city governments.

The Bluegrass Policy Blog, however, didn't miss it.

Saturday reading assignment

Christina Romer, Chairwoman of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, makes the case for Spendulus 2009 and beyond. You can read it here.

She makes three main points. First, she says it's okay that we can't measure the plan's results:

"The first issue is what it would mean for the policy to work. The President gave a very concrete metric: he wanted a program that would raise employment relative to what it would be in the absence of stimulus by 3 to 4 million by the end of 2010."

So the plan is essentially to start with an unknown (national employment without government stimulus), add 3 or 4 million to it, and declare victory. Nice jobs plan.

Second, she says that if we assume stimulus will create "or save" jobs then it's okay to go ahead and assume the government will inflate the economy into another comfortable bubble.

"When people are employed and buying things, loan defaults fall and asset prices are likely to rise. Both of these developments would surely be helpful to stressed financial institutions. This is, I believe, a key lesson of the Great Depression. In the Depression, the end of deflation, renewed optimism, and increased employment and output were as crucial to the recovery of the financial system as the more direct actions taken to stabilize banks. Thus, real and financial recovery reinforced each other. So, fiscal policy to raise employment may help to restart lending and in that way generate a more durable recovery."

Finally, Romer offers as proof that the city and state bailout is working the fact that the money is already being spent.

"And when, a week after the bill is signed, we see my home state of California raising taxes and cutting spending by more than the amount of the relief the package provides, it certainly doesn’t feel like we’ve accomplishing anything. But we have. States have balanced budget requirements. In the absence of the relief provided in the package, the best case is that their spending cuts and tax increases would be even larger, and the worst case is that they would be unable to pay their bills at all. The fact that states are already changing their budgets, and are factoring in the funds from the package in doing so, is a sign that this portion of the package is timely and effective."

As scary as it is that this pitiful rationale was sufficient to ram massive pork spending through Congress, what's next will be even worse. That comes when taxpayers start buying government health insurance for 48 million people while being promised that doing so will generate "slowing health care costs."

What you already knew about Jim Bunning

National Journal's Congressional Conservative/Liberal ratings are out for the 2008 session. Sen. Jim Bunning leads the way for the Kentucky delegation, coming in 9th most conservative in the Senate. Sen. Mitch McConnell was 15th.

In the House were Rep. Geoff Davis #48, Rep. Ron Lews #75, Rep. Hal Rogers #102, Rep. Ed Whitfield #121, Rep. Ben Chandler #230, and Rep. John Yarmuth #323.

Beshear's "Weekend at Bernie's" policy

Looks like Gov. Beshear sat around all week trying to think of something to make a YouTube video about and could only manage to re-float a flat, two week old trial balloon.

Now you see them, now you don't

Tuesday night, President Barack Obama said this:

"But let me perfectly clear, because I know you’ll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime."

Friday morning, Stateline.org reports this:

"On climate change, the administration figures the federal government will collect $646 billion between 2012 and 2019 for carbon credits. That plan assumes Congress would be able to pass a nationwide “cap-and-trade” system quickly, likely by the end of this year. Obama cabinet officials told governors last weekend they hope Congress passes a law by this summer."

"The nationwide limits on carbon dioxide pollution would apply to all sources of the problem, including cars and trucks."

I didn't see Obama deliver the "one single dime" line on television. Was he wagging his finger?

But maybe he is going to lean on the "see your taxes increased" as justification for hidden costs of the cap-and-trade (or cap-and-tax) scheme.

Ron Paul's son may run for Senate from KY

Congressman Ron Paul's son Rand is going to run for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Jim Bunning if Bunning ultimately decides not to run, he said Thursday night.

"We will need a conservative to run against that liberal David Williams," Dr. Paul, 46, a Bowling Green opthamologist, said.

"Bunning has been treated unfairly," he said. "It's been his finest hour within the last year or so with his votes on the bailouts."

"David Williams has given up the ghost on the budget. He didn't even put up a fight on raising taxes."

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Stop feeding them...

... and the Left turns to eating each other.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman isn't happy with the bank bailouts that the rest of us aren't happy with either:

"Obama and Geithner say things like,"
"If you underestimate the problem; if you do too little, too late; if you don’t move aggressively enough; if you are not open and honest in trying to assess the true cost of this; then you will face a deeper, long lasting crisis."
"But what they’re actually doing is underestimating the problem, doing too little too late, and not being open and honest in trying to assess the true cost. The actual plan seems to be to keep the banks semi-alive by implicitly guaranteeing their liabilities and dribbling in money as necessary, all the while proclaiming that they’re adequately capitalized — and hope that things turn up. It’s Japan all over again."
"And the result will probably be a deeper, long-lasting crisis."

As funny as it is to see President "Nationalize It All" catch hell for not nationalizing fast enough, the rest of us need to keep making the case for less government intervention so the private sector can pull us out of this downturn. Just like it always does.

Eliminate these middle men

Why in the world are we trusting a bunch of bureaucrats who can't balance their own books with picking our winners and losers in the corporate welfare game?



If we are going to credit "incentives" with bringing the factory and "creating" jobs via bureaucratic decree, doesn't it make more sense to lower taxes for everyone and see how much better the market can do at creating growth?

How's your new hope and change going?

It's funny how every time a bunch of politicians get together and claim a grand victory for bipartisanship, what really happens is that the taxpayers get hammered and the ranks of principled lawmakers just gets smaller.

Nevertheless, it's disheartening that, with all their wheeling and double-dealing in Frankfort, they couldn't manage to even give a hearing to a bill that would merely require a 24 hour waiting period on tax and spending bills.

I know several Kentucky groups are working up tax and wasteful spending protest rallies. If you know of one, please mention it in the comments section.

Otherwise, stay tuned for at least one big announcement tomorrow on this site.

Drinking our way to prosperity

The Hartford Courant reports Republicans in Connecticut want to solve their state's overspending problems by expanding drinking hours in casinos. With a $1.35 billion projected deficit, what's next, a 2500 drink minimum?

Fortunately for Connecticut, cooler -- Democratic -- heads seem to be prevailing.


Can't wait till Kentucky's good-time crowd in Frankfort gets wind of this one. In our new era of bipartisan cooperation, there is no telling what we might get when the good old boys start mixing booze, late nights, and gambling.