David Williams caught on tape

Stupid politician tricks in Shepherdsville on Saturday night featured Kentucky state Senate President David Williams expressing his shock and dismay that anyone would abuse the rigged pension scheme that he set up in 2005. He then tried to blame the whole mess on Governor Steve Beshear and topped off the evening by claiming falsely that he and the legislature have not underfunded state public employee pensions over the last decade.

The really funny thing about this is that Williams has no better answer. This scandal can't be swept away with a tidal wave of lawyerspeak. It will be fun watching him continue to try though.

Phil Moffett on radio

Kentucky's Tea Party Republican gubernatorial candidate Phil Moffett will be a guest on the Jack Pattie Show on Monday morning at 9am ET. Tune in at WVLK AM 590 or listen online at www.wvlkam.com.

Call in with questions to 859-253-5959.

David Williams has already lost

David Williams' legislative pension chickens are coming home to roost while he is still busily trying to count his unhatched legislative pension eggs.

WHAS radio talk show host Mandy Connell asked the question at last night's Bullitt County GOP Lincoln dinner.

"You also have some votes in the past that have led to a legislative pension situation where legislators are double-dipping and triple-dipping and going back for other pensions. How do you reconcile where you have voted in the past that would not necessarily jive with some of the things you are saying now? How does that go together?"

Williams asked her to be more specific, which is fair, but it was also very funny to watch for those who knew what what coming (and knew that he knew too.)

"The legislative pension system allows for a high three situation that has been abused by legislators who are now receiving huge pensions because of a rules change that you in previous years have voted for."

Williams then spent the next five minutes rambling about the abuse being "unanticipated," blaming the problem on Steve Beshear and then trying to change the subject with a bunch of nonsense about actuarial assumptions and by stating falsely that the legislature has adequately funded the pension system over the years.

The bottom line is there is no way for Williams to wiggle out of the fact that he pushed through HB 299 in 2005. He knew what the bill would do but he didn't care because he wanted the money. Inexplicably, he thinks Republican primary voters are too stupid to figure this out.

If Williams is elected governor, because of HB 299, you will pay him his governor's salary every year for the rest of his life. He has known this question was coming for a long time and he clearly has no good answer.

Ten weeks to election day. Should be fun.

If you have been hesitant so far to get on board with Phil Moffett's gubernatorial campaign, now is the time.

Phil Moffett: Nullify hemp prohibition

Skyrocketing food and fuel prices should be met by Kentucky nullifying federal prohibition of industrial hemp cultivation, Republican Tea Party gubernatorial candidate Phil Moffett said.

"We are out of time for continuing the confusion about what hemp is and what it could do for Kentucky's economy," Moffett said. "Hemp as both a food and fuel source could be a great blessing to Kentucky especially if recent trends continue or worsen. There is no good reason for allowing the federal government to stand in our way."

Repeal campaign finance laws

Kentucky's campaign finance laws should all be repealed.

Section 8 of Kentucky's Constitution states: "Printing presses shall be free to every person who undertakes to examine the proceedings of the General Assembly or any branch of government, and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. Every person may freely and fully speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty."

The federal government and every state except Kentucky have written a "press exemption" into their campaign finance laws in order to claim that a news article or editorial can't be considered a campaign contribution and to get around this kind of absolute guarantee of free speech rights. In 2007, the Federal Election Commission ruled that bloggers are also exempt from campaign finance laws. But if a non-blogger, non-journalist Kentuckian wants to print up some flyers or yard signs or bumperstickers or whatever, he is suddenly subject to campaign finance limitations.

Big government types in the Kentucky Senate have tried repeatedly to enact a press exemption in order to give Kentucky's unconstitutional campaign finance laws some legal underpinning. The fact that they have also repeatedly failed to enact a press exemption means there is really no justification for Kentucky to place any kind of limits on political speech. After all, campaign finance laws mostly came about as an attempt to keep corruption out of politics in the 1970's. How well is that working out for us?

Time to wake up in Kentucky

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll reports that 48% of Americans either believe the new Republican majority in the U.S. House have already repealed ObamaCare or aren't sure if it has been repealed.

The truth, of course, is that ObamaCare is still bearing down on us like a freight train and despite Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear starting to admit that it won't work out well for us, ObamaCare is still very much alive.

Lack of awareness allows ruling class politicians like David Williams to continue his attempt to paint himself as some kind of conservative crusader when he has so clearly shown himself to be a big part of the problem.

Don't just assume that everyone around you already knows what's going on. Chances are pretty good that they do not.

Time for some Wisconsin overreach

The word of the day for political pundits appears to be "overreach." They are talking about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the hubbub created by his attempt to limit public employee collective bargaining in his state. Walker has been called every name in the book for attempting to address his state's fiscal mess and it's telling that the end-of-times rhetoric heaped on him was somewhat less pronounced in 1993 when Democratic Governor Douglas Wilder of Virginia banned all collective bargaining in his state, which goes beyond Gov. Walker's proposal. It should also be noted that Virginia has not exactly spent the last two decades imploding for lack of public employee collective bargaining "rights."

In short, the Wisconsin debacle is about little more than partisan politics. Moveon.org proved as much this past Saturday with rallies across the country, including in Frankfort, providing lots of heated words but precious little light on the subject of getting state finances under control.

Left-wing activists want to capitalize on the emotional nature of the debate to energize the Democratic Party faithful. That's why the discussion has morphed into something involving all kinds of union activity and an extremely liberal usage of the term "worker rights."

Tea Party leader Phil Moffett responded:
“No one is arguing against workers having rights,” Moffett said. “That’s just rhetoric coming from the other side. We need to peel back the things we can’t afford like prevailing wage laws. We need to make Kentucky a right to work state. And we need to end teacher tenure and the state merit system. These efforts to get politics out of state employment have failed. We need to try something else.”

Much of what is wrong with government in America comes about as a result of sentimental attachment to policies that do not function as intended. Kentucky needs a governor who can lead the state past those sentimental attachments and toward solutions that work for everyone, not just those with political connections.

Taking the Tea Party to Frankfort

Jack Hunter Interviews Phil Moffett for Governor of Kentucky

During last week's 'Tea Party Goes to Washington' Book Bomb Jack Hunter interviewed Tea Party Candidate for Kentucky Governor.

Help Phil Moffett. Donate today at http://www.philmoffett.com/donate/

Phil Moffett takes on House of Fraud

News reports of Saudi royal family members squandering billions in public dollars on ostentatious lifestyles may foreshadow coverage of the retirements of Kentucky politicians like House Speaker Greg Stumbo and Senate President David Williams.

Reuters describes Saudi princes blowing through multimillion dollar stipends and going back to the government to demand more when their supply of cash runs dry. The source of their riches is the good fortune to be born into the House of Saud. Kentucky's political elite are set to reap a retirement bonanza by virtue of voting themselves multimillion dollar pension bonuses in Frankfort's House of Fraud.

Kentucky's HB 299 in 2005 made an instant pension millionaire of Stumbo, who, after serving one term, will get paid 100% of an Attorney General's salary for life in retirement thanks to his buddy Williams strong-arming the bill through the legislature. If Williams can get himself appointed or elected to higher office for as much as three years before he hangs up his gavel, he will reap millions in taxpayer-provided pension largesse as well. Williams is running for Governor.

The Tea Party was created to point out and to stop nonsense like this. Phil Moffett is the Tea Party Republican candidate for Governor and his entire platform is devoted to eliminating Kentucky's political ruling class, clearing out government incentives for waste and corruption and leveling the playing field so Kentuckians from all walks of life can earn an honest living and thrive in the Bluegrass State.

Kentucky requests ObamaCare waiver

With absolutely no fanfare, Governor Steve Beshear has admitted that ObamaCare won't work for Kentucky. Previously an unqualified supporter of Obama's policies, Beshear emailed the White House earlier this month and asked to delay some ObamaCare damage until after his term in office ends later this year.

With Kentucky quietly joining the growing list of states requesting exemption from part of ObamaCare, Kentuckians must fight harder for repeal of the whole thing, Tea Party Republican gubernatorial candidate Phil Moffett said.

"Governor Steve Beshear is very slowly starting to realize ObamaCare will bankrupt Kentucky and Senate President David Williams has been too busy fattening his pension to notice," Moffett said. "Kentucky's elected officials are turning our state over to Obama one stimulus check at a time when we should be getting government out of our health care decisions and out of our lives. This moment is what the Tea Party is all about."

In the email requesting the waiver, Kentucky Department of Insurance Commissioner Sharon Clark mentioned Kentucky's failed experiment with big-government health reform in 1994, saying that we still have not recovered from that move which left the insurance market "completely destabilized." Interesting that she could recognize that but couldn't add it up to see that government meddling is what caused that problem and the ones ahead.

Frankfort's Department of Oxymoronic Redundancy

The Louisville Courier Journal's Joe Gerth today describes "legislative productivity" in terms of the number of bills that become law in a General Assembly session along the way to suggesting Kentucky may not need annual sessions.

If I believed eliminating annual sessions would actually reduce government mandates or regulations or costs that do harm to Liberty, I might be more interested in going to the trouble of amending the state constitution again to remove them.

But before we even get into that, let's make clear that the definition of legislative productivity should not be seen as the number of bills passed but instead as amassed debt and distortive impact on economic activity. Putting it in those terms would more accurately describe the failure of Kentucky's political class.

It is worth mentioning here that in 2010 state government increased our debt costs by extending the terms on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bonds in order to make the current budget appear balanced. And they authorized bonding of an additional $2.855 billion.

David Williams' pension scandal is THE issue

Kentucky's Senate President David Williams wants to be Governor in the worst way.

Ask him why he deserves the promotion and he will tell you Kentucky is "adrift" and that he has experience to make us not "adrift." Of course, that's a funny approach to take since Williams has cut his teeth over the last quarter century mostly voting in favor of making government much bigger and harder to afford. Over the past decade, in which he has held de facto veto power over the legislature, state indebtedness has exploded from $3 billion to over $44 billion.

Williams refuses to apologize for raising taxes and debt, opting when pressed to list some taxes the legislature has reduced or eliminated in recent years. Great, only 240 more taxes, fees and surcharges left, too many of which Williams has supported and continues to support increasing.

The biggest issue personally for Williams is his government pension. He is set to receive an annual pension equal to 100% of his highest legislative salary when he retires. He will get that pension for the rest of his life. In 2005, Williams pushed through a bill that would make him a government pension millionaire if he can manage to get himself appointed or elected to higher state office. If he becomes governor, Williams' years as a legislator combine with his 2005 pension grab to instantly make him a government pension millionaire. We would actually wind up paying him a governor's salary in retirement for the rest of his life. Democrats are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to make this an issue this fall. Republicans should beat them to the punch and eliminate David Williams from consideration for the state's highest political office before this scandal messes up the party's chances in November.

Steve Beshear doesn't want to have to run against tea party leader Phil Moffett and his fresh approach to managing state government. He would much rather run against Williams, who will have a tougher time differentiating himself from the incumbent.

Williams can't answer questions about his pension scandal now and he won't be able to answer them this fall if he is still running. Kentucky Republicans can save themselves a big headache by encouraging Senator Williams to drop out of the race now.

Wisconsin labor strife visits Kentucky

The Phil Moffett for Governor campaign is the only one seriously addressing abusive labor union issues.

Phil Moffett responds to Moveon.org stunt

Left-wing activist group Moveon.org held a rally in Frankfort today in support of left-wing activists in Wisconsin. They are trying to frame their effort as supporting union-provided worker rights, without which employees, they suggest, would have no rights at all.

This is absurd.

Kentucky's Tea Party Republican gubernatorial candidate Phil Moffett cut through the nonsense.

"No one is arguing against workers having rights," Moffett said. "That's just rhetoric coming from the other side. We need to peel back the things we can't afford like prevailing wage laws. We need to make Kentucky a right to work state. And we need to end teacher tenure and the state merit system. These efforts to get politics out of state employment have failed. We need to try something else."

Phil Moffett is the better choice

Kentucky Senate President David Williams has been very expensive to keep around in Frankfort with his votes to pile up more than $40 billion in debt on us over the past decade. And if he were to get elected governor, we would have to pay him more than $120,000 in retirement every year for the rest of his life because of pension language he slipped into the law books back in 2005.

My memo to the movement

Yesterday a political reporter with a major national media outlet asked me if, having left the Rand Paul campaign, I still supported Rand's candidacy. I was a little surprised by the question because I thought I had made my position very clear. Then it occurred to me that my answer was not likely to wind up in print because it wasn't an explosive or damaging answer and so it was probably worth saying again and a little louder. Yes, yes, a million times yes, I will continue to support Rand Paul for the U.S. Senate and will very proudly vote for him on November 2.

It has been a wild year on the Randwagon. Wilder still has been the year and a half in the nascent Tea Party movement in Kentucky. For those of us who have poured our hearts and souls into promoting capitalism and constitutional government for years, I think the defining moment came just after enactment of the bank bailout when Congress tried and failed to pass a car bailout. When the Bush administration went ahead and gave billions of our dollars to GM and Chrysler anyway -- and out of the bank bailout bill so few people had read -- an important yet threadbare bond between government and people was irretrievably ripped apart.

And then Barack Obama came along and made it even worse.

Some of us who were there at the beginning of the Tea Party movement in Kentucky saw big opportunities right away. I don't claim any special insightfulness for having been there and for seeing in advance what could happen. There was a fundamental shift in the electorate and I didn't have any reason to pretend that it wasn't there, that's all. When I realized very few other people who were in a position to do something about it saw the opportunity, I joined others in working on a plan that will ultimately, I believe, help Kentucky achieve much more of its potential. Further, I think Kentucky will advance so quickly once it grasps correct principles and throws off forever the chains of corruption that have bound it for way too long, that the rest of the nation will take heed of our sudden restoration and want to follow along.

Rand Paul is a good man who came along at the right time with the right message. Waiting around for perfect people to run our federal government is a fool's errand and Rand has rightly campaigned on letting the U.S. Constitution bind them all down from their mischief. If we do that, there is no room for ObamaCare and no room for the wild spending Obama has already enacted or the even wilder tax increases and labor reforms he plans to enact. Rand's opponent Jack Conway largely supports Obama in his recklessness. As far as most Kentuckians are concerned, that's the end of the story. And then the Tea Party movement begins to become America's movement with the election of a few people like Rand to federal office.

That gets us to Kentucky's race for Governor. I'm going to have much more to say about this in the days and weeks ahead. For now, just let me say that those who yearn for restoration of America's guiding ideas will be emboldened by their successes in 2010 but -- and this is the key part -- they will be far from satisfied. In 2011, only three states will elect a governor. Kentucky's race will be a focal point for much of the nation and the race will go to those who best understand and can capitalize on the power of simple ideas like not obligating future taxpayers to pay future expenses they can't possibly afford to pay and knowing when government can best serve the people by getting out of their way. Kentucky will succeed when our leaders are less interested in building their own political power than they are in shrinking government's influence so the power resides with the people.

Nancy Pelosi would keep us in the weeds

Amid skyrocketing federal debt and looming Obama tax hikes, embattled Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be holding a telephone "Grassroots Strategy Call" tomorrow, apparently for anyone who contributes $5 to the Democratic Party today.

What on earth are they going to talk about: how to pretend people don't hate ObamaCare, how to say with a straight face that cap and trade won't dramatically increase energy costs, or that what this country really needs is bigger road signs proclaiming the efficacy of federal borrow-and-stimulate spending before they can get around to raising taxes next year?

In an email to supporters this afternoon, Pelosi said "Democrats will keep control of the House this year and prevent a return to the catastrophic Republican policies of the past, so long as you continue standing with me every step of the way."

This is funny because Republican primary voters have already made it clear to their candidates that there will be no return to the "catastrophic" bailout economy and reckless deficit spending that not only deflated enthusiasm for Republicans the last few years, but led directly to the catastrophic Democratic policies of the present. Also, given the growing lack of support for Democratic politicians, it's noteworthy that Pelosi qualifies her optimism by predicting Dem victories only if supporters stay on board "every step of the way." Fat chance.

It's shaping up to be a good November for Kentucky Republicans. And then in December, we get to turn our attention to Gov. Steve "Holiday Tree" Beshear.

Mark your calendars for Thursday

This Thursday, July 29, Kentucky's tea party movement takes its next big step in announcing a tea party candidate for Governor in 2011.

Everyone is invited to a press conference at Clear Channel Lexington studios at 2601 Nicholasville Rd at 3:30 pm on Thursday following an interview on the Leland Conway Show.

Anyone with questions may call David Adams at 859-537-5372 or sign up for email updates by clicking here.

The next battlefield is Kentucky 2011

You may have heard that I will be starting work on a new project very soon. This is an important time for the Tea Party movement. We have shared in some amazing success. In doing so, we have built a strong team of Americans sharing our message of smaller government operating within the limits of existing revenues and within constitutional boundaries.

Now is the time to spread the field.

There will only be three gubernatorial elections in the United States next year, so the eyes of the nation will be on Kentucky and how seriously we take our form of self-government. Building a large, national list of people who want to continue to help getting our country back on track is critical to this effort. All Kentuckians have a stake in electing a governor who believes in real reform, obviously, but people in other states do as well. That's because Kentucky gets more money from the federal government than it sends in, so all Americans depend on Kentucky to get off the dole as quickly as possible.

Now is the time to kick our efforts into a higher gear. Please spread the word to everyone you know to join us by clicking here.

Thanks,

David Adams
859-537-5372

On a personal note...

I am suspending publishing of the Kentucky Progress blog immediately to take a position as a consultant with the Rand Paul for U.S. Senate Exploratory Committee.

More about that soon.

This site has been both very hard work and a lot of fun. I expect to return to it at the conclusion of this new project. Meanwhile, the site with its existing posts will remain up as will my contact information at the top of the page.

I've met and worked with a lot of fantastic people during the 4 1/2 years on Kentucky Progress who I probably would not have gotten to know otherwise. I'll always be grateful for that.


Hope to see you soon!

David