How's that pension reform going, Governor?

At the last State Government Committee meeting in Frankfort, Sen. Julian Carroll asked Budget Director Mary Lassiter how much of the General Fund budget is going to public employee retirement costs. The answer is a shocker.

In a letter to Sen. Carroll dated September 2, Lassiter said:

"For Fiscal Year 2009, the enacted Budget of the Commonwealth for the Executive Branch provides approximately $628 million from the General Fund, or 7.1% of General Fund appropriations for retirement costs."

And we are spending all that money on a woefully underfunded system, with bad cash management practices that is only going to get more underfunded despite our efforts to pour billions more dollars into it over the next two decades.

Is anyone else ready to seriously cut back on public employee benefits to fall more in line with those of the private sector workers picking up the tab? So far, "reform" has been a total bust.

Hey Obama, fifty-seven days left!

That is, of course, one day for every state. Right, Barry?

Obama botches abortion apology

You can always tell a politician is worried when he starts going out to "clarify" earlier comments that have hurt him in the polls. So it was interesting to hear Sen. Barack Obama go on the "This Week" television program today to apologize for dismissing the abortion issue as "above my paygrade" last month.

"All I meant to communicate was that I don’t presume to be able to answer these kinds of theological questions," Obama said.

"Theological questions?" Barry?

Supporting the abortion-on-demand business of Planned Parenthood and left-wing extremists across the country is no theological question. Nor is it the purview of nine people on any court. Defining murder is at least a political issue and politicians like Obama should stop trying to hide behind slippery language. He should explain his wretched record on the subject.

Do they really think they can ignore Sarah Palin?

The Louisville Courier Journal is on a tirade about health insurance in America. And yet they managed to write a whole article about it without checking with the most popular governor -- and most famous politician -- in the nation.

She could help them. Of course, that is assuming they really want to solve the problem and aren't just pushing an agenda.

What do you think about this?

Why Kentucky casinos will never pass

According the Lexington Herald Leader, Gov. Steve Beshear and former Gov. Brereton Jones have decided to gird up their loins and try again to bring casinos to Kentucky.

"“Gov. Beshear and Gov. Jones have been friends for a long time. And they have always shared a commitment to working together in the best interests of Kentucky and, particularly, the state’s signature industry – the equine industry,” Jay Blanton, Beshear’s communications director, said in a statement."

It will never work, other than for raising campaign contributions from the horse industry, left-wing groups and New Jersey mobsters.

At issue in Kentucky is a never-ending struggle between those who think they can use casino money to save the horse industry and those who think that bringing in casinos will allow us to continue to overspend without consequences.

I'm glad to see that Steve and Brereton have gotten over their little spat from earlier in the year, but let's not pretend that this is anything more than party-building rhetoric.

Sarah Palin needs to talk to her KY chairman

Gov. Sarah Palin is drawing attention to state over regulation of healthcare services and one of the most important ways to bring those costs down. Kentucky Senate President David Williams, state campaign chairman of McCain/Palin, hasn't gotten the memo:

Kentucky needs to get straight on the laws of supply and demand and then repeal the wasteful certificate of need process.

Public appearance time

I'll be out of pocket for a while this morning as I speak about free trade to a group of supporters -- and, apparently, some protesters -- at Thiel Audio in Lexington.

Come on by at 9 AM if you can.

Burying good health insurance news

Buying insurance for something consumers can afford to pay out of pocket is always an expensive proposition. Think about it: which would cost more, an insurance company processing and paying a claim you have the money for in your pocket, or you reaching in your pocket and paying for it yourself?

So it was good to hear from the Mercer consulting firm that 19% of companies surveyed will begin in 2009 to offer consumer-directed health plans that encourage employees to watch health costs by letting them pocket savings.

Interesting that the Lexington Herald Leader didn't mention this key fact until the thirteenth paragraph of a fourteen paragraph story that started with the headline "Study: Workers to pay more for health care."

I'm surprised the AP story didn't end with some nonsense about 50 million Americans dying in the street for lack of health insurance.

Barack Obama, what is a community organizer?

Community-organizer-in-chief Barack Obama may not want to talk specifics about what exactly a community organizer is and does. But his campaign manager does.

Sort of.

Apparently it has to do with responding, or failing, or ... something. (click to read)

When your best ideas are socialized medicine, empowering union bosses, and keeping women in court and out of the workplace, you may want to avoid specifics about your life's work.

What's with all the optimism?

Survey USA put out the chart below showing poll numbers in fifteen states of people mostly predicting economic doom and gloom. Oddly, no other state had a higher percentage than Kentucky of people taking the Phil Gramm approach.

EKU professor lost in the woods

When it comes to tracking government-related nonsense, one fertile field is that populated by education bloggers who live inside the system.

Such is the case sometimes with Richard Day, an Eastern Kentucky University education professor.

In a post yesterday, he reprinted a Kentucky Department of Education press release and headlined it "Draud Touts Progress under KERA."

The press release is riddled with factual errors. Bluegrass Institute education analyst Richard Innes already pointed several of them out on the Bluegrass Policy Blog.

But when Mr. Innes tried to point these errors out again and engage in a reasoned discourse, Dr. Day responded with this:

"Arguing specific data points in the face of the larger picture might be seen as an attempt to focus on a tree while ignoring the forest."

Unfortunately, that is an all-too-typical response one gets when daring to call Kentucky's education establishment on the carpet for their incompetence and the arrogant way in which they try to cover it up.

A "moral obligation" to increase welfare fraud?

Gov. Steve Beshear announced yesterday to the Herald Leader editorial board that his latest great idea is to make it easier for people to sign up for the KCHIP health insurance entitlement.

"His administration estimates that the changes could encourage the parents of the 67,000 children who are eligible but not enrolled to participate in the federally sponsored program."

""To me, it is a moral obligation for Kentucky to provide adequate health care for its children," Beshear said."

Given that anyone can now qualify for KCHIP by showing up with two pay stubs to "prove" a low income, I'm not sure how excited we should be about a plan to advertise the program more heavily and reduce recipient accountability in hopes of further inflating health insurance costs with our own money.

Beshear has now put out a press release also.

More misuse of federal grants in Kentucky

If you followed the Page One Kentucky coverage of the Robert Felner scandal at the University of Louisville, then you can certainly understand that the mainstream media in Lexington will be very slow to cover the federal investigation of former Fayette County Detention Center administrator Don Leach for also pocketing grant money.

Biggest illegal alien bust in the country

What do you think about this?

Just a teeny, tiny tax increase on the other guy

Anyone who believes the people pushing for a cigarette tax increase to educate our children, build roads, improve the economy, keep social workers safe, and encourage people to stop smoking will be satisfied with that one little sin tax probably also believe Sen. Barack Obama is really going to fund trillions of dollars in new programs without raising taxes on everyone.

Most conservative GOP platform ever

In an on-the-record conference call this morning, Secretary of State Trey Grayson called the 2008 Republican Party Platform the most conservative ever written.

A couple of bright spots I noticed quickly glancing at the platform was urging for private accounts to preserve Social Security and urging, in the event of passage of a national sales tax like the FairTax, a simultaneous repeal of the 16th Amendment, which allowed the federal government to levy a permanent income tax.

In other news, the platform discusses "global warming," but uses the term "climate change."

Here is the platform.

A Senate vote for lower taxes, transparency

State Senate candidate Chuck Ellinger is running against Rep. Kathy Stein, who wants to make bullets illegal in Kentucky.

Ellinger has already been promised a spot on the powerful Senate Appropriations and Revenue Cabinet, while Stein, now thankfully the former House Judiciary Chair, would be reduced to making easy-to-ignore floor speeches.

By the way, I'd like to point out here a major advantage to tracking the legislature through Kentucky Votes. The above reference to HB 715 will always stay up as an example of Rep. Stein's radical anti-Second Amendment stance. At the LRC site, this evidence has been scrubbed just because Stein asked for it to be.

Please sign up for email updates at Kentucky Votes to track the action in Frankfort.

Incest pays in Lexington

On Thurday September 4, U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer Coffman will announce a settlement in a class action lawsuit between employees of the Fayette County Detention Center and the City of Lexington.

But the fix is already in.

Jail employees got caught in the middle of an incestuous relationship between the attorneys who run the city and the attorneys of Miller, Griffin & Marks who represented the jail employees.

The attorneys are all going to get paid, as usual, but it appears the employees are going to come up short with a surprisingly low settlement.

It's worth mentioning at this point that the biggest ongoing civil lawsuit against the city related to mismanagement of the jail is taking place in Jessamine County.

Educating ourselves into oblivion at $4000 a pop

Now that I have two children in college, I sure don't want Sen. Barack Obama making higher education "more affordable" as he promises to do.

In an outstanding post on Jay P. Greene's Blog entitled "Obama's Higher Education Plan: Throw Money Now, Ask Questions Later?" about Obama's proposed $4000 "gift" to every college student, Mathew Ladner gets to the heart of the matter:

"The Congress has been chasing its own tail on "college affordability" for decades -- providing more and more subsidies, watching costs go up and up, begin process again. Einstein's definition of insanity certainly comes to mind."

"Sadly, the Obama plan would simply add more fuel to the fire and leave our very serious higher education problems unaddressed. We need to take a long, hard look at higher education, not simply throw more money at the problem."

With with lower academic standards gaining acceptance at our institutions of higher education and no check on higher costs, much of what we are going to see is colleges growing larger on borrowed taxpayer money turning out less-educated graduates and charging much higher fees for the whole mess.

Better to spend more on merit-based aid, less on need-based aid, and watch education results and consumer value appreciate.