Who is Stumbo using now?

House Speaker Greg Stumbo was still selling the idea that the tax increases enacted last month are simply "user fees" at a news conference Friday.

What will he call the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority scheme the Kentucky Club for Growth uncovered? Check it out here.

These guys never stop.

The kiss of death for GOP candidates

The New York Times jumped on the bandwagon to criticize Sen. Jim Bunning today. But National Public Radio got to the heart of the matter regarding a potential GOP challenge from the left in a blog post:

"But is Williams the right guy to save the GOP? Williams was instrumental in working out a deal with Beshear to raise taxes, not the kind of thing that would attract conservatives to your cause. Right-wing chatter suggests that there's no way they would abandon Bunning for someone whose record on taxes was so questionable."

It should be pretty clear by now that efforts to move the Republican party leftward haven't done much for the country.

Will David Williams apologize?

Listeners to Leland Conway's radio show on WLAP 630 AM in Lexington know Senate President David Williams wants to make an appearance and that Leland put it to a vote on his web site.

Looks like the ball is in Williams' court. If he apologizes for raising taxes, listeners say, let him on the show.

Can anyone in the Senate President's office really be surprised that things are working out like this?

It's about time to ask members of our federal delegation if they support Williams' tax-raising and pension raiding efforts.

Kentucky tea partiers, unite!

Michelle Malkin reports the U.S. Senate stopped the progress of President Obama's $410 billion pork-laden spending bill tonight. Majority Leader Harry Reid fell one vote short of the 60 required to call a vote.

Here's Michelle's advice:

"The delay buys time not just for lawmakers, but for constituents to mobilize and make their voices heard."
"Tea Party people, activate! Time to melt the phones — not just of Republicans, but of those liberal and moderate Democrats on the fence."

At least two Kentucky tax protests are being planned. Should have details Friday. Stay tuned...

Trouble in bailout paradise?

Just as the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on the $75 billion mortgage bailout today -- and no, you can't have any -- General Motors is admitting that their bailout didn't work and they need $30 billion more or they are done.

How surprised are we supposed to be when all those bailed out governors and mayors come back and beg for more?

Vanity alert

If you understand how Google rules the world, then you may think this is pretty cool:

Busy day today with several meetings but, thanks to Verizon Wireless, I'll be updating the blogs. If you're in Lexington tonight, come on by the Fayette County Republican Party HQ tonight at 7:00. I'll be there for the Young Republicans meeting.

Kentucky's beer-goggled tax hikers

The Kentucky General Assembly is soaking taxpayers so fast some legislators are making a mess of their voting records.

Andy Hightower at the Kentucky Club for Growth points out that eleven House members stood up to the booze tax increase but then turned around and caved on a technology tax hike.

"We can't really guess the motivation for this divide, except that one issue (beer) has a large lobby that organized beer trucks to drive around the Capitol and dump bourbon on the Capitol lawn, and the other (IT businesses) is just a collection of small businesses entrepreneurs that did not put on a show," Hightower said.

More here.

More useless and misleading government info

The Lexington Herald Leader and the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) have teamed up to provide more useless and misleading government information in order to promote another one of their solutions. The following clip is from the paper's Bluegrass Politics blog:

The Bluegrass Institute has repeatedly blown the whistle on KDE's phony dropout rate numbers. That didn't stop the Herald Leader from repeating them here without attribution.

And what's this "can expect to earn a salary" stuff? The reporter is quoting here average salary figures. Thanks for the sloppy reporting. And the numbers are useless in making the case for or against the subject of the article, HB 189, which would force students to stay in high school until age 18.

Maybe this dumb idea will be more effective than Kentucky's no pass, no drive law, but I doubt it. In any event, making the case with junk numbers doesn't help anyone but those who make their living off keeping Kentuckians in the dark.

The Bluegrass Institute's education analyst Richard Innes has more here.

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."