There's my Herald Leader!

Agreeing with the Lexington Herald Leader editorial page's slots bill opposition recently was pretty strange. Tuesday morning brought a return to normal:



If "incentivizing" our economy with corporate welfare worked, then Kentucky, with one of the most active state economic development cabinets in the nation in this decade, would already be an economic nirvana.



Since the government's definition of "economic competitiveness" translates into English as Kentucky being one of the poorest states, shouldn't we be considering a new strategy instead of tweaking and expanding the old one?

One thing that should be perfectly clear by now is we don't need state government trying to serve as a mini-Obama, picking which companies get welfare and which ones pay it. What we need to do is repeal corporate taxes, which are all passed along to consumers anyway. Pay for the cuts by making government smaller. Until we start thinking like this, we will continue getting the same bad results from Frankfort.

Keep killing the zombie casino effort

Interesting to hear red-faced slots supporters in the Capitol Annex Monday evening snarling about raising $100,000 against every Republican Senator in next year's elections.

I thought they were all immediately moving to Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Kentucky is never going to start moving toward general prosperity until we get past these money games. To think that we are using $742 million from Washington D.C. (improperly, of course) to fill in a hole caused by rampant overspending and then borrowing more than $1 billion more to buy votes to set up another money-losing scheme should have us all grabbing our torches and pitchforks.

My friends who threw in with the casino mob used the "levelling the playing field" argument to say "all the other kids are doing it." The point, though, is that all the other kids are broke because they have fallen for yet another fool's gold scheme. Kentucky is going to have to stop falling for them and stop following the failed examples of neighboring states if we are ever to right our ship.

Cooking up different ways to bankrupt our state is never going to improve our fiscal situation. Never.

We should stop trying pretty soon, don't you think?

Ben Chandler goes squishy, again

U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler has already decided to take a firm stand on both sides of the socialized medicine issue. Now, he appears determined to say nice things about monetary system transparency without actually doing anything about it.



This is Chandler's form letter that he sends to everyone who asks him to cosponsor the Audit the Fed bill.

Slots for Tots, or not?

The Kentucky House of Representatives is still sitting on the slots bill passed Friday. The Senate has already passed the budget and appears ready to go home if the House doesn't produce their bill by 4:30 this afternoon.

I suspect the House will send over Slots for Tots and it will die in the Senate.

4:30 pm Update: The House met the 4:30 deadline and the Senate is going into budget committee to consider the slots bill.

6:00 pm Update: The Senate budget committee is now hearing testimony in opposition to casinos, which the House refused to do.

7:10 pm Update: Senate budget committee has killed the slots bill.

Attaching a label to Mitch McConnell

Winchester Sun editor Randy Patrick recently interviewed Sen. Mitch McConnell biographer John David Dyche. Here's an interesting excerpt:



You can read the rest of the interview here.

Moving the electorate on a similar shift from its current big-government mindset to support of liberty and support for smaller government will be tough with no apparent Ronald Reagan type on the horizon. As dependency continues to grow, some catalyst is needed to move us back in the other direction. Sen. McConnell could play an important role in that.

Slow news day in Lexington?

If our intrepid mainstream reporters in Lexington are looking for something to do today, they should read this and then ask mayoral candidate Teresa Isaac her opinion about how her successor Mayor Jim Newberry has handled the ongoing federal investigation of the Fayette jail inmate abuse scandal.

Why I do what I do

At the state Lincoln dinner last month, Senate President David Williams said "For those bloggers who want to see a battle over taxation and spending, you're about to see Armageddon."

That is, indeed, what I want to see. And what Kentucky needs to see.

In his Louisville Courier Journal column this morning, Joe Gerth printed that Williams quote, but left out the word "blogger."

Countering mainstream media spin was my original intention in starting up this site over four years ago. Having them sometimes try to edit me out of the picture is just part of the payoff.

Living to see a real Frankfort battle over taxes and spending (or, in this case, borrowing and spending) would just be awesome. And this could be the week it happens.

You don't have bring on the end of the world, Senator Williams. Just say no and go home.

Do you approve this message?

Attorney General Jack Conway has started running a television commercial telling parents to "friend" their children on Facebook and to watch out for online predators.

If anyone in Frankfort is really looking for someplace to cut unnecessary state expenditures, this kind of "welfare for politicians" should go first.

Rand Paul defends Bunning from attacks

Sen. Jim Bunning's political opponents have continued efforts to smear Kentucky's junior senator over a $20k a year salary he earns for baseball autographs. Yesterday, potential Republican rival Dr. Rand Paul came to Bunning's defense:

"It is okay for Ted Kennedy to accept $2 million or Hillary Clinton $6 million up front for a book, likely ghostwritten, but Jim Bunning is taken to the shed for accepting $20,000 for signing autographs."

"The Congressional ethics rules are a farce, and I believe the attacks on Jim Bunning are partisan in nature. Many years ago, Millicent Fenwick, a liberal Republican from the Northeast, was a great champion of so-called ethical rules on earnings for Congressmen. Of course, she rarely mentioned that she had never worked a day in her life and lived off of a family trust fund."

"Current ethical rules allow multimillionaire businessmen to continue earning large checks from ownership of business but limit the earnings of anyone who must expend labor. Thus teachers, lawyers, barbers, and doctors are limited in outside income."

"The unintended consequence is to deter citizen legislators who live in their state and continue to work. Once elected officials are completely dependent on their Congressional salary, they are even more likely to vote to please special interests in order to continue to get elected."

"I agree that politicians should not be allowed to make $50,000 speeches to groups that receive or seek federal funds, but we should rethink rules that prevent elected officials from continuing their original careers."

Dr. Paul has formed an exploratory committee to consider a run at Bunning's Senate seat, as has Kentucky's Secretary of State Trey Grayson.

Cheering for a trainwreck

The Senate has amended and combined various bills in the already disastrous special session, effectively tying the whole process in knots.

Good.

Next week will be lots of fun watching the House and Senate slug it out if only because any agreement now very likely won't include a lot of the junk (here and here) proposed by Gov. Steve Beshear and House Speaker Greg Stumbo -- and perhaps none of it.

5:20 pm update: Senate President David Williams said the House Democrats have until 4:30 pm on Monday to deliver the slots bill to them or he will send the Senate home ending the special session.

Obama blows up Kentucky special session

Gov. Steve Beshear may want to talk to his buddy in the White House.

The Obama administration is threatening states with loss of federal funding if they use stimulus funds (from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund) for purposes other than to increase school funding:



This is, of course, exactly what we are in Frankfort doing right now. From the budget bill HB 1:



In other words, the federal government is telling us that Gov. Beshear needs to go back to the drawing board on his budget plan and that this special session is now officially a bigger disaster than anyone could have imagined.

Checkmate, again

US News and World Report has a story about schools that will delight public school bureaucrats who only read headlines and then spin superficial analysis into a justification for giving more money and power to public school bureaucrats while expecting less from them.



The story is actually fairly well balanced if you read it all. There are some real problems with the study referenced in the article, but refuting it is not really necessary.

Regular public schools that fail mainly just get more money. Public charters that fail get shut down. Which type of school do you think is going to be more motivated to innovate and improve?

Kentucky law currently prohibits establishment of the kind of school that is routinely shut down if it fails to educate students.

Panic thick enough to cut with a knife

Rep. Charlie Hoffman is the last person in the General Assembly who would betray labor union chiefs. So it was interesting to see him file an amendment to the slots bill that would repeal prevailing wage requirements on school construction projects.



It's like a tell in poker. And all the House Dems' chips are on the table.

Repeal the state income tax, require drug testing of welfare recipients, post all government (state, local, and school) spending on the internet, repeal certificate of need and give us school vouchers and maybe we'll talk.

(Midnight update -- thanks to Kristen Webb Hill, who pointed out the LRC entry of this amendment has Hoffman's name on it, but that the actual amendment language has Rep. Jeff Hoover's name on it. That would make more sense and would also be the second time this month the LRC has put the wrong name on a bill.)

(9 AM update -- House Minority Leader Jeff Hoover was indeed the sponsor of the prevailing wage amendment and the LRC has fixed their error. Bet Rep. Hoffman got some interesting phone calls last night and early this morning. Here is the new entry on the LRC web site:

Next up: energy

I'm headed to Lexington for a discussion about energy production in Kentucky. We're meeting at The Inn on Broadway at 6:30 pm.

The meeting is open to the public.

Stumbo clings to overspending habit

Rep. James Comer just demonstrated to House Speaker Greg Stumbo that Kentucky could build 28 more schools with the proposed school spending in the current vote buying scheme if we only suspended the prevailing wage.

Stumbo responded that he is willing to "study" the issue. Wonder how long it will take him to study the impact of lowering construction costs by twenty percent and decide to waste the money anyway because his labor union supporters want him to.

This is no revenue shortfall crisis. It is a crisis of propping up failed ideology.

Moberly denies vote buying

Rep. Harry Moberly is testifying to the House Budget Committee and complaining about the "vote buying" criticism of tying votes for slots to spending on school construction.

He said tying policy priorities via spending to revenue measures was "Budgeting 101" and something that is always done.

Right. If only we did a better job of linking our spending to our revenues, we wouldn't even be talking about a budget crisis in the current year, much less sucking up $742 million in federal money to even come close on the next two years.

Will Gitmo prisoners come to Kentucky?

Well, it looks like Tennessee is doing what it can to keep the terrorists we know about out of their state:



Rep. Stacey Campfield is a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

Kicking Frankfort's can down the road

While Kentucky plays around with lesser issues, California is at least looking at what we should be looking at: unfunded public pension liabilities.

Kentucky is in the hole $30 billion on our pension obligations, but continues to play funding games rather than seriously cutting state government to be able to afford massive retirement bills when they come due.

When Kentucky's retirement system actuarial reports come out later this fall, renewed interest in this mess should motivate proper action, but probably won't.

In California today, a vote is expected to allow their retirement system to continue to pretend that there is no problem. Kentucky has done the same thing -- a process called "smoothing," which involves spreading current financial losses over future years -- in each of our last two legislative sessions. This allows the problem to get bigger, costing taxpayers more. From a legislator's perspective it is okay, though, because they are future taxpayers.

To his credit, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets it:


All the legislators in Frankfort know that this pension time bomb is our biggest problem.

Upping the bogus casino headline ante

The Lexington Herald Leader's misleading $700 million casino headline hadn't even cycled off their web site's front page Wednesday evening and they went and added another, $1.3 billion, one.



Nice job, guys. How many billions will you be up to tomorrow? Make mine a red Ferrari.

Kentucky Tea Party today

I'm headed to Frankfort to speak on the Capitol steps at noon.