Senate, don't be as cynical as the House

The theme for this week in Frankfort has been politicians saying one thing and meaning another. A bipartisan Gang of 11 House members betrayed a pledge to their constituents to never support a tax increase. That same Gang also joined 54 fellow House members in tossing aside their seven month old promise to stop making the public employee benefits debacle worse.

Then it was House Budget Chairman Rick Rand's turn.

"We felt it was important that we let the citizens of Kentucky know," he told his Budget Committee, "that everything would be on the table: all cuts, any potential revenue measures, and anything we could do to bring this budget into balance."

Then, presented a commonsense amendment by Rep. Joe Fischer to stop forcing Kentucky taxpayers to pay excessive union wages for public construction projects, Rand spit the bit. Fischer's measure didn't even get a vote. Others tried the same thing on the tax increase bill with the same result.

Unless the Senate's intention is to simply join their friends in the House in raising taxes, they should restore Fischer's amendment and remove the Health Fund raid in HB 143. It also hardly makes sense to allow Beshear to restore funds to prior spending cuts as the bill does with borrowed money. You remember how overextending got us into this mess, right?

Come on, guys. This is ridiculous.