Kentucky Club for Growth

Buying more state workers

Many state and local governments are stacking up the workers.

Posted by Brian Richmond at May 01, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A Chat with Pat

I'll be appearing with Pat Crowley on his ICN 6 show which airs here in Northern Kentucky. Airtimes are various.

Posted by Brian Richmond at April 20, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

They Can't Pass a Secret Budget?

From David Adams at the Bluegrass Institute:

Didn't the House and Senate leaders tell us the public had to get out of the conference committee room so they could work their magic and get a budget worked out?

Polwatchers suggests the House now doesn't have the votes to pass the secret spending plan.

Whether they pass the budget bill or not, the very idea that their lack of progress last week was the public's fault is worthy of the harshest scorn.

Argh! Scrutiny! Legislators can't do the people's work in the face of scrutiny!

At the extreme, wouldn't you rather government get nothing done in transparency than pass all kinds of legislation that the public isn't allowed to see until after it's law?

Posted by Brian Richmond at April 01, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Transparency, Shmanceparency

The General Assembly has again gone behind closed doors to hammer out the final details of a budget. It's ridiculous that lawmakers believe that the most important part of the budget process ought to be conducted in secret.

The budget fight has elicited this bizarre comment from former Fletcherite Brett Hall:

The press corps need to ask themselves whether it serves the public interest more for the legislature to deliver an on-time budget or for conferees to make TV news more interesting with clips of their bickering in the committee meetings. With only four legislative days remaining in this session, they likely can't have it both ways.

Brett's a nice guy, but he's offering us a false choice between having a budget on time (and secretively negotiated) versus no budget at all (with total transparency). Government transparency exists for the purpose of government accountability. Transparency is not its own reward and it's not good for its own sake.

The state budget is, without question, the piece of legislation for which legislators should be held most accountable. The fact that it ought to be done in daylight is nothing more than the price you pay for running around the state begging for votes (and campaign funds) so you can do the people's business in Frankfort.

If you're not interested in doing your job in the light of day, your constituents should be wondering how interested you are in keeping your job.

Grandstanding aside, most lawmakers like the fact that budgets are negotiated in secret. They may wring their hands and whine that the leadership crammed the budget down their throats and they simply "had to vote for it," but the fact is that most lawmakers simply aren't interested in taking a responsible stand on behalf of open and accountable government when it's easier to cave to pressure from leadership to shut up and obey.

When your legislator votes for the budget (and he/she probably will), ask if they had enough time to read it. If the answer is "I didn't read it, but I voted for it," then you need to scan your local community for a better candidate.

Posted by Brian Richmond at March 31, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Priorities, please

From the Associated Press:

A Senate spending plan to run state government for the next two years would release up to 2,000 felons from prison and put them into home incarceration or drug treatment programs.
The plan would allow for the release of nonviolent and non-sexual felony offenders and place them in drug treatment programs or home monitoring programs. State government could save up to nearly $50 million over the next two fiscal years under the proposal, lawmakers said.

To all those lawmakers who crammed an arena down Louisvillians' throats (that they really weren't really jazzed about, anyway), I ask this: Did you really want to release felons to pay for it? Even if many of these felons shouldn't be in prison in the first place, it's a tough political sell to Kentuckians, and for good reason.

This is why Kentucky needs a tax and expenditure limitation: Priorities would necessarily emerge if lawmakers knew going in exactly how much they could spend. Arenas would have to take a back seat in this case.

Here are two podcasts (one, two) on state spending limits from Michael J. New at the Cato Institute.

Posted by Brian Richmond at March 24, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

An On-Time Budget?

From the State Journal:

Despite having different opinions, leaders in the House and Senate say they can create a budget without a special session.
The legislature failed to pass a budget in regular session in 2002 and 2004. Public financing of political campaigns was the key sticking point in 2002. In 2004, lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on proposed tax reform.

Think back to 2006. The budget that passed that year was a massive, bloated spending plan with $3.8 billion in new debt. The only way lawmakers got a budget passed was to hide in a room for a week or so and hammer out the details while the rank and file lawmakers were kept in the dark about the budget's contents.

Ernie Fletcher then signed the largest budget in Kentucky history into law. If this year's budget is smaller, it won't be because lawmakers decided to take it easy on taxpayers. It will be because taxpayers are already tapped out.

Posted by Brian Richmond at March 24, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Moberly and 'Revenue Enhancers'

A bill to give lemurs tax breaks passed out of the Kentucky House budget committee today. (HB262)

Why?

It's a vehicle to enclose tax increases foisted upon the full Kentucky House by committee chairman Harry Moberly.

Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that this piece of legislation is most likely to end up as a tax increase. (I know, I know)

Did anyone on the committee express any objection that the bill under consideration is fundamentally different from the bill they'll eventually see on the floor of the house? Probably not, given that the lawmakers in the committee chuckled and joked about the bill.

That bills go to committee before they come to the full chamber is a function of having some degree of expertise applied to legislation before a terrible piece of legislation can become law. It's precisely the purpose of committees to raise credible objections to legislation before it goes further down the road to passage.

Unfortunately for Kentucky taxpayers, committee members abrogated their duty to make sure that the bills they consider are in the best shape before their fellow lawmakers vote on them.

Moberly, instead of giving his committee a chance to vote on substantive legislation, denied them the opportunity to vote against a tax hike and made his committee a sad farce.

Posted by Brian Richmond at March 04, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Pat Crowley Gives KYCFG some ink

Pat Crowley wonders who the fiscal conservatives are now?

In Frankfort, it is Republicans leading the charge to spend billions and billions of new dollars. Certainly some Democrats will go along, but it is the Senate Republicans who want to borrow nearly $1 billion to shore up the state's pension system.
"Borrowing your way out the pension system is the most ridiculous thing in the world," said Brian Richmond, executive director of the Kentucky Club For Growth. "If you can't pay your mortgage and car payments, do you take a loan to pay them?
"Politicians who have mismanaged the pension system for decades are now asking our children and grandchildren to pay for it," he said.
Richmond has similar concerns about the bill filed by Senate President David Williams, a Burkesville Republican. It attempts to address the replacement of the Brent Spence Bridge over the Ohio River.
Williams' bill, which has plenty of Northern Kentucky lawmakers squeamish, would allow local governments to form finance authorities that could raise money for big infrastructure projects, like the Brent Spence Bridge.
Good idea, until you read the fine print. Tolls might be the only way for those finance authorities to pay for the projects.

In principle, of course, tolls are a great way to pay for road and bridge construction. The problem is that overspending in most other areas of state finance make tolls an unattractive option for a state that ought to be jump starting its economy.

Posted by Brian Richmond at January 13, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

How to Cut Kentucky's Budget Without Really Trying

The idea of a "fiscal shortfall," something you'll hear plenty about in the coming months, is a bit of a misnomer.

The real term, at least in our fine commonwealth, should be "overspending."

Kentucky revenues increased by more than nine percent in two of Ernie Fletcher's four years in office. The other years saw more moderate increases in state revenue.

If revenues increased so much over the past four years, why is the cupboard bare? Because no lawmaker or Gov. Beshear can imagine that any of that spending was poorly conceived.

Here's a suggestion: Instead of creating a whole new budget this year, why not pass the substance of a budget from a few years ago. Say, the budget passed in 2003.

The budget passed in 2006 (not all of it was enacted) appropriated $26.2 billion the first year and $22.5 billion the following year. 2003, by contrast, saw a budget that appropriated just $18.9 billion the first year and $17.8 billion the second year. Again, not all of that passed budget became law.

Passing a budget the same size as the one passed in 2003 could save Kentucky taxpayers approximately $6 billion a year.

Just how much of our money does Frankfort need?

Posted by Brian Richmond at January 04, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Kentucky 'behind on any measure'

This is why Kentucky needs school choice:

Determining how Kentucky high school students measure academically against students nationwide is not an easy task.
But no matter what reports or test scores are analyzed, one point appears obvious.
"You can't look at any data anywhere and say Kentucky is leading the nation in anything," said Barbara Stonewater.

The "Champions for Education" summit will be held Nov. 14 at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center.

Posted by Brian Richmond at November 04, 2007 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A special Thank You

Thanks to all who came out to our big event. It was a great success. Now it's time to get ready for elections in 2008!

Posted by Brian Richmond at October 28, 2007 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Meet Club for Growth President Pat Toomey!

Come meet Club for Growth President Pat Toomey and help the Kentucky Club for Growth make the commonwealth more business-friendly.

6:00 - 8:00
Oct. 24
Cincinnati Airport Marriott
2395 Progress Drive
Hebron, KY 41048
(859) 586-0166
(800) 696-0165

Call 859-261-2582 for sponsorship information.

Posted by Brian Richmond at October 17, 2007 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

National Club Hints at McConnell Challenge

From The Hill:

Despite registering approval ratings under 50 percent in several recent polls, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appears a safe bet for reelection as of now. But liberal groups are eyeing the prospect of a strong GOP challenger — perhaps from Larry Forgy, the GOP gubernatorial nominee in 1995. And the influential anti-tax group Club for Growth signaled Wednesday that it might play a role in a primary fight against McConnell.

The Club remarked in a statement Wednesday that the Republican leader “is looking more and more like his counterpart across the aisle, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)” on spending issues.

McConnell has backed all four of the appropriations bills that the Senate has considered this year, three of which face White House veto threats.

“If Republicans want to convince taxpayers that they are fiscally responsible, they are going to have to start backing up their words with some votes,” said Club President Pat Toomey, a former House Republican.

Just so we're clear, the Kentucky Club for Growth is not involved in federal races.

Posted by Brian Richmond at September 28, 2007 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Kentucky's education failures

Caleb O. Brown at the Bluegrass Institute shows us why Kentucky's tragic education system won't (or can't) reform itself:

Research Report 338 published last year by the Legislative Research Commission found that while educators now devote more money to improving key educational outcomes, "spending for programs linked to specific accountability areas, such as reading and math core content, currently cannot be analyzed" due to misreporting of expenditures. The report stated that such misrepresentation "limits the ability to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of these programs."
For several spending categories at some schools, the commission found it impossible to determine where much of the money went, concluding in its report that "there is no way to identify the specific purpose of the expenditures or to evaluate the impact of the spending." Due to this atrocious accounting, it's likely that even a competent audit could not track the money.
The challenge remains clear: Lawmakers must find a way to hold Kentucky educators responsible to parents and taxpayers for the education of public-school students.

Posted by Brian Richmond at September 20, 2007 | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)