Governor Task Farce strikes again

This year alone, Kentucky has had a gubernatorial task force on public employee benefits that did nothing to repair our $27 billion overspending, a government spending transparency task force that has kept public information hidden for several more months than necessary, and a K-12 assessments task force that is about to conclude that our broken, inflated CATS program is just dandy.

It's Tuesday. Must be time for another task force.

This morning Gov. Beshear told the dutiful attendees at his press conference that he has been to the mountaintop and heard the pleas of the people to lower tuition at state colleges and universities.

A quick glance at the list of task force members doesn't necessarily preclude a finding that trying free market principles could cure what ails us in the higher education department, but Gov. Beshear has amassed a pretty uninspiring track record on which to base much hope.

It should go without saying that expanding government's role in making college more affordable will continue to fail just as it has for the last few decades. Last year's big idea was price-fixing. Expect to see that again. And they will try to open up Kentucky's Affordable Pre-paid Tuition program. Grab your checkbooks.

Kentucky persists in creating artificial demand with reduced academic standards and then we throw borrowed taxpayer money at the artificial demand. We will have to stop that before we can hope to see any improvement. Then we need to expand our merit-based scholarship program and shrink our need-based financial aid program, so indifferent students are incentivized to either get serious or get out.