Let's blow the lid off Frankfort now

Pretty funny to watch the author of last year's Secrecy Bill take credit for opening up the smoke-filled room budget negotiation process. The fact that HB 413 has gone unnoticed in Harry Moberly's own A&R Committee for seven weeks suggests a certain lack of sincerity as well.

Nevertheless, something is changing in Frankfort. With the growth of the internet, citizens aren't content to sit in the dark waiting to be lied to by our elected representatives. Moberly, Speaker Jody Richards, and Senate President David Williams are starting to see that. We need real government transparency and there is no legitimate reason to keep us waiting any more. This General Assembly has already been a colossal failure with no meaningful reform of anything. Transparency is something on which everyone can agree. Let's do it.

Tell your lawmakers to pull back the curtains now. Passing HB 413, HB 105 (or HB 769 if you prefer yours watered down), and HB 58 would be a good way to start.

Beshear wins bet, gets pork

Western Kentucky University won their NCAA tournament game against Drake in an overtime shocker and so Governor Steve Beshear won his bet with Iowa's governor. As his payoff, he will receive forty pounds of pork.

That may be Beshear's last winning bet for a while. But as long as our New York bankers hold up, he will continue to be overstuffed with pork.

Good: Beshear couldn't sell RomneyCare

A silver lining in the dark clouds over this dysfunctional General Assembly may just be that there is no sentiment for expanding government health insurance.

It's instructive to see what the government plan in Massachusetts(RomneyCare) has done to that state. It's noteworthy also that the casino industry has also failed so far to make inroads into Massachusetts beyond that state's governor.

New look for Kentucky "economic development"

Speaker Jody Richards has added Rep. Scott Alexander to the House Economic Development Committee.

Beating up Christians on Good Friday

House Judiciary Chair Kathy Stein has tortured the immigration bill, HB 304, all year long. Today, she has called a special committee meeting to continue talking the bill to death. Stein has wasted many valuable hours mishandling her committee. She is now adding insult to injury by keeping the Christian members of her committee from church services so she can stage an unnecessary political stunt.

Saving Kentucky taxpayer money online

The Senate Judiciary Committee just advanced a bill that will save us a little money and points toward the way to save much more.

Senate Bill 188 would save taxpayers about $60,000 a year by allowing county court clerks to email (rather than snail mail) documents relating to children in foster care. As more government communications occur over the internet, we get closer to the time we can put government notices currently required to be printed in newspapers on the web instead.

That will save us a lot of money.

Expanding harassment laws not necessary

In case you thought the Kentucky bill to prohibit anonymous blogging was just a silly waste of time, you might want to look at how New Jersey is trying to do the same thing by using existing consumer protection law.

It's a lot like suing the phone company because someone called you and said something mean. If someone is really being hurt, there are already protections in place. We need to be very careful how we define our terms, though, so we don't wind up infringing further on political speech.

Governor Beshear, keep the block on my blog

Page One Kentucky reports Governor Steve Beshear is ending the block on political blogs enacted by Governor Ernie Fletcher.

May I suggest Governor Beshear keep the block on blogs he opposes politically? I have no problem with a continued block on this site.

And get this one, too, while you are at it, Governor.

How's that voter discontent feel now?

Remember way back in 2006 when Republicans were about to get their rear ends handed to them and people on the right were as upset as those on the left? What has changed since then? Anything?

I just came across the video of a Kentucky Tonight program in October 2006 when I was trying to make the case for blaming the Republicans who were causing the problems rather than those who held to conservative principles.

Can there be any disagreement on the point that we are worse off now than we were then?

House tries tinkering its way to prosperity

The House just chickened out on meaningful public employee benefit reform by rejecting the changes the Senate made to HB 600 which would have moved us in the direction of sufficient funding for our woefully underfunded liabilities.

The House must prefer that we just pay more later. Our payday lender friends should be overjoyed that so many people have such disdain for fiscal prudence.

Kathy Stein gets schooled

House Judiciary Chair Kathy Stein has tried every trick in the book this year to keep the illegal immigration bill from getting an honest hearing in Frankfort. As neighboring states pass laws to restrict hiring of those here illegally, Kentucky can't just stand by and do nothing.

Falsified identification documents are a big part of the problem. So this afternoon when Rep. Bob Damron attached identity theft provisions from HB 304 to HB 553, it sailed through the House. Don't know if the MSM picked up on this, but it is a big story today.

Ronnie Ellis needs answers

Columnist Ronnie Ellis describes problems with the Kentucky budget process such as the do-nothingness of legislators for at least the first half of the session, the secrecy, and the way the budget is then rammed down everyone's throats at the last minute so it has to be voted on without being read or discussed.

Maybe if we are going to have a bill to criminalize anonymous comments online, we need a bill to prohibit syndicated columnists from complaining about the bad actions of lawmakers without offering solutions.

Mr. Ellis would do very well to familiarize himself with House Bill 58, House Bill 413, and Senate Bill 3 which would eliminate each of the problems he describes.

If we're broke, let's be transparent

It continues to amaze me that the mainstream media hasn't jumped on board the government transparency movement. Even Chairman Harry Moberly's protege Rep. Don Pasley stuck his toe in the water. Governor Steve Beshear got caught on tape promising to show the public more of where their money is going. Come on in, guys, the water is fine!

The Sam Adams Alliance is leading the charge in getting the states to open their books to public inspection. We should join them now!

Cracking The CON, Inflating Health Insurance

Another disappointing feature of the Governor Steve Beshear administration is the continuation of support for the destructive Certificate of Need (CON) program.

House Bill 747 would open the door just wide enough to start justifying repeal of the whole mess. HB 747 comes up for a vote in the House Health & Welfare Committee tomorrow morning.

Also tomorrow, the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee will vote on making the ICARE subsidy permanent. ICARE takes tax money from you and me and gives it to people who don't buy their own health insurance. ICARE was established as a pilot project in 2006.

Team McCain Might Want To Look At This

Project Vote Smart regularly chastises candidates of both political parties for not answering its "Political Courage Test."

Currently, if you look at the PVS entries for both Anne Northup and Rep. John Yarmuth, you will see the following message:

REPEATEDLY REFUSED TO PROVIDE ANY
RESPONSES TO CITIZENS ON ISSUES THROUGH THE 2006
NATIONAL POLITICAL AWARENESS TEST WHEN ASKED TO DO SO BY

Key national leaders of both major parties including:
John McCain, Republican Senator
Geraldine Ferraro, Former Democratic Congresswoman
Michael Dukakis, Former Democratic Governor
Bill Frenzel, Former Republican Congressman
Richard Kimball, Project Vote Smart President

Over 100 news organizations throughout the nation also urged their candidates to supply their issue positions through the National Political Awareness Test.

If you happen to look at the entry for presidential candidate John McCain, you will find the following:

Senator John Sidney McCain III repeatedly refused to provide any responses to citizens on the issues through the 2008 Political Courage Test when asked to do so by national leaders of the political parties, prominent members of the media, Project Vote Smart President Richard Kimball, and Project Vote Smart staff.


Urge Senator John Sidney McCain III to fill out the Political Courage Test

Senator McCain might want to stop asking others to fill out this stupid survey if he won't do it himself.

Kentucky Progress 2.0 Open Thread

I just took a class in blogging. Planning some major upgrades. Stay tuned...

Cutting Taxpayer Spending On Corporate Welfare

Are you still looking for a way to cut government spending to shore up Kentucky's bad budget picture?

Try HB 748 and HB 750, which would set Kentucky up to get out of the corporate welfare business. This is something a lot of Kentuckians should be able to agree on. Tax cuts across-the-board benefit taxpayers, but individualized tax abatements to individual corporations benefit very narrowly while hurting everyone else.

Beshear Holding Tax Increase Rally Wednesday

After campaigning for months as a candidate against tax increases, Governor Steve Beshear is now apparently leading the charge.

Their cause celebre, raising the cigarette tax, seems like an odd move for a politician whose jumping-off point in October was this:

Beshear said he not only would not raise taxes, but that he would support repeal of the infamous Limited Liability Entity tax (LLET) signed into law by Governor Fletcher. Beshear won't have to go far to find a way to repeal the unpopular tax, as the bill has already been pre-filed. The third horse on Beshear's trifecta box is, of course, casino gambling.

Lots of water under the bridge since then.

I'll gladly pay you Tuesday, for a bridge today...

Probably the best thing that can be said about the state's role in federally-matched health coverage plans like SCHIP and Medicaid is that they are big government at a discounted rate.

So what are we to think when the House wants to spend money we don't have to build bridges on interstate roads?

Our all-powerful congressional delegation really should be playing a role in this, rather than leaving it to Frankfort.

One way to handle a bullying bill

Senate Democrats are up in arms because the House's "bullying" bill got a committee substitute from President David Williams that doesn't include the word "bullying" or the phrase "The Golden Rule." More symbolism over substance, as usual, from that chamber's minority party.

After an angry diatribe, Senator Julian Carroll thoughtfully added "I am not a Greek philosopher."

The bill passed. I'm sure my kids feel safer already.