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.

Frankfort's corporate manipulation plan advances

The most shocking, offensive thing about the language of the corporate welfare bill in the 2009 special session of the General Assembly is that it is not widely viewed as shocking and offensive.



In other words, if this bill passes and you have a business in Kentucky, decisions of "the authority" to grant welfare to you or your competitors will be of "paramount importance." Can't imagine Frankfort messing that up, can you?

Herald Leader's accuracy streak ends fast

It's pretty odd that in the same week in which we have seen decent reporting and opinion from the Lexington Herald Leader on House Democrats' casino scheming, we would see what is easily one of the worst, most misleading headlines of the year:



At least the story explains the plan really only involves spending "up to $700 million," despite the headline's ridiculous claim that it would "provide" it. That's the worst of journalism and a perfect example of why the paper's circulation keeps declining.

But the best part comes deep in the story with the following passage:



Don't know who wrote the bad headline, but this one is on the reporter and editors. Couldn't they find anyone to explain the joke? I thought everyone knew that it took seventeen years for the legislature to finally keep that promise. Maybe Rep. Flood doesn't know that since she was in California back when the lottery was fraudulently sold to taxpayers as a funding source for education. But the newspaper folks should know.

By the way, the Courier Journal did it right:

... from our cold, dead hands

The Internal Revenue Service this afternoon backed off plans to tax employer-provided cell phones at 25%, under the assumption that one-fourth of the usage of such phones was personal and, therefore, taxable.

Now if we can only get people as stirred up about private property rights, civil liberties, private contracts, currency manipulation, wealth redistribution, and public debt as they are about their cell phones, we will really be getting someplace.

Walking into the eye of the storm

I'm on my way to Frankfort to speak in the Capitol Rotunda at noon about Gov. Beshear's casino gambling proposal.

Beshear has already mishandled the issue enough to kill it for this special session and to put it at long odds for the 2010 session beginning in January.

What a mess...

Bunning second wind?

Sen. Jim Bunning just said his second quarter fundraising is going better than his first quarter fundraising but that he wouldn't say more about it until July 15 when campaign finance filing is made publicly available.

Might Kentucky sell itself to Tennessee?

Michigan doesn't have to worry about overspending its treasury for a little while longer after Vice President Joe Biden's $2 billion handshake on Friday.



This is a very bad plan, of course, but that won't stop anyone. California will be next and Illinois can't be far behind them. Rather than inspire Frankfort to really cut back on its own insatiable appetite, this action will only generate worse ideas. In this insane time, who would really be surprised to see us join up with another state to reach a similar "too big to fail" status?

Dems in disarray on socialized medicine

In his latest fundraising appeal, Howard Dean can't decide if he should be attacking Democrats or Republicans for not playing along with the government takeover of medicine in America plan.



He should probably be attacking both, which really clarifies what his problem is. Notice that Dean points out the latest "Republican" tactic, which has been primarily championed by U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat.

And supporters of socialized medicine in Kentucky should be yelling at Rep. Ben Chandler, who has clearly staked out positions on both sides of the issue in Washington D.C.

And while you are yelling, check out Ben's new fiscal responsibility web site.

Wasting time and money in Frankfort

The Kentucky House budget committee will meet Tuesday in the Capitol Annex at 1 pm to discuss casinos.

That will be right after the anti-casino rally in the Capitol's Rotunda, which starts at noon. Casino supporters in the state simply haven't done enough to answer the concerns of open-minded opponents and they will hear about it tomorrow.

It probably doesn't matter, though. The same cast of characters will be back next year with a somewhat different pitch. Figuring out a way to do what they want without creating more wasteful, less accountable government should be the top priority.

But it won't be.

What about our cultural heritage of not spending our state government into oblivion?

Send a letter to Gov. Steve Beshear complaining about wasteful government spending and the casino gambling scheme and you will receive a form letter printed on very handsome stationary at your own expense.

Another thing Chandler, Yarmuth didn't read

When Spendocrats in Washington D.C. rushed to pass the stimulus bill without actually knowing what it said, they missed an opportunity to find out if it jived with other entitlement programs.

Newsflash: it didn't.