Monday Catch-up: Groundhog Day 2009
Every Monday I have a fair list of news from the previous week that I didn't get to. Here's this week's:
In true government-think, scandal apparently requires hiring extra PR people (instead of actually dealing with the ethical violation). First we saw the Bluegrass Airport hire a PR firm when it's officers were caught spending airport money on strip clubs in Texas. Now the state Department of Homeland Security has hired a PR man in the wake of the Beshear administration's illegal raise to Adam Edelen's business partner. Apparently, scandal doesn't just cost the taxpayer on the front-end; it requires the expansion of bureaucracy...
Anti-business columnist Tom Eblen found an interesting report from 1949 that reminds us that Kentucky's political inertia is a long-recognized impediment to growth. Not only did the report recognize the allegiance of the political establishment to the status quo, it prescribed more of the same (spending and more spending).
Sen. DeMint (R-SC) described the White House creating 'crisis' and 'panic' to push the little-stimulus-and-lots-of-growing-the-welfare-state bill. The second quarter revenue report for Kentucky predicts Kentucky state revenues shrinking at an incredible 7% over the next six-months, fully 10 percentage points lower than the last six months. I think we know what Sen. DeMint would say about that. Did you know that General Fund revenues have only declined once in the past 22 years? Did you know Governor Beshear is pushing tax increases and campaigned on opening casinos in Kentucky?
