Energy bill
While the General Assembly hurries to hand out tax breaks to one company, how about one for the rest of us?
What's most troubling about this upcoming special session is that the General Assembly is willing to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on various vetoed projects in order to merely be able to spend $300-million in tax breaks for one company. After that, I expect Peabody will hope for more handouts for construction costs and other benefits merely for staying in the state.
If Kentucky's economic development policy is little more than a series of handouts to companies that "might leave" without the handout or "might not come" without the handout, taxpayers are getting a raw deal.
Here's an idea: Don't spend either amount of money. Have a special session to cut several more projects. Use the savings for tax cuts and debt retirement and go home. Guess what, that's a better economic development policy.
