Greg Stumbo is $7 billion too late

Monday night on KET, Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo rehashed his old 2010 billion dollar school stimulus idea that gave Senate President David Williams his best talking point in last year's gubernatorial race about stopping Democrats' wild spending.

Stumbo apparently thinks he is still on the gravy train he and Williams rode on the way to larding themselves up with approximately $7 billion in bonded debt and federal stimulus in Beshear's first term. 

No one seems to have told Mr. Stumbo that the party is over. Worse, he appears to have the concept of "government money" backwards and sideways.

"Now is a good time to invest," Stumbo said. "My theory is that if the government doesn't invest in itself then why should private citizens have the courage to go forward and make investments. 

What Kentucky is doing with ObamaCare

None of the media "legislative preview" stories I've seen so far have mentioned the biggest potential budget-buster facing Frankfort: ObamaCare.

Governor Steve Beshear has been bobbing and weaving for months to avoid getting pinned down on his position regarding the federal takeover of health care. His excuse was that he was waiting for federal guidance on how to proceed, but that guidance came a week before Christmas.

So far, Kentucky is one of only 11 states who haven't even filed enabling legislation to set up a state-run insurance exchange. We've already taken millions of federal dollars for setting up an exchange, which is the hook that traps states into ObamaCare.

Beshear could try to set up a state exchange by executive order. If that is his idea, he shouldn't be allowed to do it quietly. As some other Republicans around the country are folding like cheap suits in the battle to stop ObamaCare, it's hard not to imagine Senate President David Williams doing the same when pressed.

Like last year's Snot Tax, this one is going to be up to us. Are you ready?

Kentucky needs a debt ceiling

The biggest news story with the least amount of coverage in Kentucky in 2011 is easily Kentucky's debt problem.

Revenues continue to increase for the state and politicians in both parties continue to claim they need more revenue. But at the heart of the problem is that spending has increased even faster.

And that problem has been hidden by debt and unfunded liabilities. In order to believe that Kentucky's budget finished the last fiscal year in surplus, as the state claims, you have to ignore the money borrowed from the 2012 state Medicaid budget and ignore the unemployment benefits money borrowed from the federal government and ignore the money not paid into the state public employee benefits system and ignore the new billion dollars in bonded debt created in just the last year.

That's a lot of ignoring. And in 2012 we are going to have to get a handle on it.

Why Steve Beshear thinks he can raise taxes

Governor Steve Beshear didn't say anything about raising taxes before this year's election. In fact, he bragged in nuanced fashion about not raising any "broad-based" taxes in his first term.

He got away with that because his general election opponent played the same nuanced game to, in fact, raise taxes. And they together also played a much more harmful trick on Kentuckians by jointly underfunding and raiding public employee pensions by hundreds of millions of dollars and borrowing to spend billions more.

So the two most powerful politicians in Frankfort see no downside to increasing revenues now. They need the money, as they see it.

This is the kind of bipartisan agreement we are going to have to fight against even harder in 2012. And that is why we need a state debt ceiling and/or to amend the Constitution to give us a real balanced budget requirement.

This isn't transparency, Governor Beshear

Ellen Ballard in the Commonwealth of Kentucky Controller's Office said this morning the state's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report will remain hidden from the public at least until next Wednesday.

The FY 2011 report will show clearly that Kentucky made its budget appear balanced for the most recent year with the issuance of hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term debt.

KRS 48.800(3) states this report must be made available within 90 days of the end of the fiscal year. That was September 30, about five weeks before the November election. We shouldn't have to beg to see this report.

Fletcher versus Stumbo one more time?

Former Governor Ernie Fletcher's Chief of Staff Stan Cave weighed in on Paul Patton's expensive and controversial plan to get state funding for the University of Pikeville.

"Admission of University of Pikeville into the public university system is quid pro quo for eastern Kentucky legislators' vote for expanded gambling," Cave said. "The House Speaker doesn't give a tinker's darn about a recurring $12 million cost to taxpayers."

Via Facebook.

Phyllis Sparks should be next

State Rep. Alecia Webb-Edgington has resigned as Kentucky's 4th Congressional District GOP chair so she can run in a likely crowded primary for Congress without an apparent conflict of interest.

Good move.

An even better one would be to replace her with Boone County Republican businesswoman and activist Phyllis Sparks. She has been very active in the Tea Party movement and would be a very solid choice to keep growing the party in the northern Kentucky district.

Can't grow cotton in Kentucky

I'm told anything that can be made of cotton can also be made of industrial hemp. Kentucky can't grow cotton. Growing hemp doesn't require the water and pesticides necessary to grow cotton.

Federal law prevents us from taking advantage of this competitive advantage.

Kentucky's new Agriculture Commissioner James Comer supports growing industrial hemp and resistance in the legislature is weak and based on ignorance of what industrial hemp is.

Anyone who supports economic growth in Kentucky should support overturning federal restrictions on growing industrial hemp.

Any questions?

Frankfort's chance to support Christians

The Commonwealth of Kentucky has been battling for years to keep an organization called Christian Care Medi-Share from saving Kentuckians money on their health care expenses.

This currently makes less sense than ever before and must stop now.

A constitutional amendment is necessary to allow cost-sharing programs to function in the state. As Medi-Share states on its web site, an exemption written into the ObamaCare law will keep their program a viable alternative should ObamaCare survive to 2014 and beyond.

Some Frankfort Republican leadership on this would really come in handy now.

What's $336 million among friends?

Earlier in the week, Kentucky's Consensus Forecasting Group predicted revenues for the fiscal year ending next June 30 will be $9.0 billion. They also predicted a $136.5 million dollar surplus for the same time period.

That's interesting, considering the legislature voted just last spring to spend $9.2 billion.

Frankfort in January is going to be a sight to behold. Merry Christmas!

Governor Beshear's Christmas horror story

Governor Beshear's Finance and Administration Cabinet appears intent on making good on their threat to keep the truth about the state's finances hidden until the last business day before Christmas.

The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report will show an increase of $1 billion in appropriation-supported debt in the fiscal year ending June 30. The report was apparently completed prior to September 30 but has been kept quiet since then.

The media is not going to report on this at all but this is exactly why we need a state debt ceiling.

Please spread the word.

Let's protect the First Amendment

It's funny that the same big-government types who insist paid media is not speech want political speech to be paid for with tax dollars and think that will make everything just fine.

Exhibit A is Congressman John Yarmuth. He has filed a constitutional amendment to "get the money out of politics." We've never heard that before, have we?




Indeed, we have heard this same line constantly since the Watergate scandal and all the regulations, restrictions and penalties have done nothing to improve the political process. Prior to that, the idea that we needed government to control our political speech was universally understood as anathema to our American freedoms dating back to colonial times.

What we need is less regulation of political speech. Kentucky could lead the way on this by repealing all of our state campaign finance laws. With Yarmuth pushing so hard in the wrong direction, 2012 may be the perfect time to put this front and center.

Beshear still hiding bad news

Kentucky's Gov. Steve Beshear appears likely to get away with hiding the state's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report through the election and up to an expected just-before-Christmas release.

The report will show Frankfort accumulated an additional billion dollars in revenue-supported debt in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011 despite claims of spending austerity and budget surplus.

Unfortunately, the GOP establishment in Frankfort has a big enough megaphone to draw attention to this but most of them voted for it, so they won't.

Those who vote for the status quo can't be surprised when they keep getting the same old thing.

When they get around to posting the report, you should be able to see it here.

The force is strong with this one

Lewis County Judge Executive Thomas Massie will soon become a household name in Kentucky for the massive amounts of waste he has uncovered and eliminated since his 2010 election. It's no surprise that he is drawing a lot of attention as a possible candidate for Congress in the 4th congressional district in the 2012 open election.

Some NKY political hacks are spreading a rumor that Massie has declined to enter the race, but that is not true. Stay tuned here for updates.

Here he is with his wife and two of their four children along with presidential candidate Ron Paul at a 2010 Louisville fundraiser for Senator Rand Paul. Thomas also hosted a fundraiser at his home very early in Sen. Paul's campaign.



Thomas and his wife Rhonda are both Kentucky natives and MIT graduates. His children attend public school in Lewis County.

A policy split in the GOP establishment?

Sen. Damon Thayer has pre-filed a bill to remove the constitutional office of state Treasurer. The Senate has passed this bill before and the GOP nominee in 2007 ran with this as the main plank in her platform.

Here's hoping Sen. Thayer pushes SB 51 past any establishment resistance in the Senate.

Now two bills to end Kentucky legislator pensions

Kentucky legislative bills addressing the David Williams pension scandal keep coming in. The latest is from House Republican Brent Housman. It will be HB 149. Like Senate Democrat Dennis Parrett's bill, Housman's would shut down the Legislators' Retirement Plan to new participants as of August 1, 2012.

There are currently 5 pre-filed bills addressing this problem. Please, keep them coming.

How slowly can we fix KY pension scandal?

For the first time, each caucus in the Kentucky General Assembly has filed a bill to fix the David Williams pension scandal.

In the Senate, Republican Jimmy Higdon pre-filed SB 26 to stop legislators from getting a huge pension boost if they can get appointed to an executive or judicial branch position for as little as three years. Democratic Senator Dennis Parrett previously filed a similar bill, SB 28.

In the House, Republican Rep. Ron Crimm already filed HB 65.

And now, House Democratic Rep. Mike Cherry has re-filed the same bill he filed last year and then ignored in his own committee.

The bills have some similarities and differences, but the one feature that stands out the most is how quickly they each take effect. Interestingly, Sen. Higdon's bill doesn't kick in until the end of 2014. This makes it the slowest one of the bunch. Sen. Parrett's bill actually stops legislators from grabbing the outlandish pension boost on August 1, 2012 and goes so far as to shut down the Legislators Pension Plan to new members on the same date.

Sen. Parrett has the right idea.

Frankfort doesn't want you to know

Kentucky finance cabinet officials continue to sit on a devastating report on the accumulation of state debt nearly three full months after the report was supposed to have been prepared.

An official at the Cabinet said current plans are to release the report on December 23 or 24.

Please ask your representatives to demand the immediate release of the current Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.

Is PNC taking your money to Pennsylvania?

Government officials in Latvia and Sweden are blaming Twitter for a weekend run on two Swedish banks in Latvia after "tweets" claimed Swedish officials were about to close the banks and leave depositors empty handed.

Twitter is not to blame; government bank deposit insurance is.

Think about it. If a rumor spread in Kentucky that Pennsylvania-based PNC Bank would shut its branches here and take all its depositors' money back to Pennsylvania, how would a lot of people react? You know it would get ugly.

The point is that government deposit insurance has made banking consumers all over the world dumber than they should be and subject to freaking out when presented with rumors like this.

The flip side of a false sense of security is a susceptibility to unwarranted panic. In addition to protecting taxpayers from huge amounts of moral hazard, ending government deposit insurance would force bank customers to educate themselves about the health of their bank.

At a time in which the world is growing keenly aware of the devastation caused by banking crises, that would be a good thing.

Can we interrupt inauguration to ask about this?

Kentucky's Finance and Administration Cabinet should have a report out any day now showing clearly that the state went $1 billion deeper into debt in the last fiscal year.

The report is supposed to post to this web site. In fact, according to KRS 48.800(3) it should have been posted by September 30.