Pork in Kentucky
Kentucky's Coal Severance Tax is currently designed so that half of the tax revenue is reserved for Kentucky's coal-producing counties. The idea is that these are areas of Kentucky that need economic development assistance to keep up with Kentucky's urban centers, and the revenue was generated from land and citizens in the counties.
There are many problems with the execution of this idea, and one of the big ones is Pork Earmarks by the General Assembly. David Hawpe, of all people, puts together an embarrassing list of pork projects from the last budget, saying:
"It makes no sense to toss these little wads of this money everywhere and hope they'll lands somewhere useful."
This raises the number of times I remember agreeing with David Hawpe up to: One. Read it here (C-J).
