Who's watching the dogs for you?

When Republicans get caught in a scandal, the newspapers go talk to Democrats for a response. When Democrats get caught in a scandal, the newspapers go talk to Republicans for a response.

But when both sides stray from the mark, increasingly often the Louisville Courier Journal talks to the Bluegrass Institute:

"Jim Waters of the Bluegrass Institute, a free-market think tank that favors smaller government, said so many trips are wasteful."

""One or two trips a year (per legislator) would be fine," Waters said. "But if legislators who travel so much are finding solutions to the tough issues on these trips, we haven't seen results of it yet.""

That one's gonna leave a mark.

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We appreciate your support.

Pension panic in Lexington?

Speculation has run rampant in Lexington since a pension reform task force meeting was abruptly cancelled earlier this week.

Chronic underfunding in the city's public employee pension plan now necessitates a contribution from city coffers to the plans of 46% of salary.

Not good.

Cities around the country are facing bankruptcy after years of the same kind of neglect.

Task Force no waste of time for Sen. Dan Kelly

Here’s why


Another blogger just reported on his interview with Kentucky State Senator Dan Kelly (See the article “A Softball for Dan Kelly” dated Wednesday, November 26, 2008 Here) and the recent Assessment and Accountability Task Force.

That other blog reports Senator Kelly didn’t consider the Task Force to be a total waste of time, but it is important to understand why.

When last year’s Senate Bill - 1 on education was floated, Senators Kelly and Williams took a lot of heat for not consulting teachers and educators prior to proposing the legislation.

So, Kelly took abundant opportunity in Task Force deliberations to sound out teachers and their representatives on the group about various issues of interest. No-one will be able to say that at least some of the proposals in the expected SB-1 in 2009 were not discussed with any educators – those discussions are on public record in the recordings of the Task Force. Kelly couldn’t have much more compelling evidence.

And, consider some of those comments.

When Doris Redfield, the testing expert on the Task Force, summarized results from the public comments, she indicated that 69 percent of the respondents, virtually all teachers, said writing portfolios were a problem when used for accountability. These teachers called for portfolios to be removed from CATS.

Redfield’s comments were immediately reinforced by Sharron Oxendine, another Task Force member and the head of the Kentucky Education Association. Oxendine said her organization surveyed teachers about two years ago and got virtually the same percentage of responses calling for writing portfolios to come out of CATS. Teachers in the audience at the first Task Force meeting were also queried and raised objections to portfolios in CATS.

The writing portfolio problem is that teachers have never been able to cope with the arcane rules they have to follow while teaching writing. Teachers have to follow these awkward rules so that they are not accused of cheating on CATS. These arcane rules turn writing instruction into a double guessing game. Making explicit, detailed red ink corrections right where the error is made for such things as awkward wording and the wrong or missing punctuation mark is verboten under CATS writing rules. Under the awkward CATS rules, teachers first have to constantly ask themselves what they are and are not allowed to do as they correct papers. Then, students have to decode these sometimes cryptic corrections. It’s a lousy way to teach writing, and our teachers know it.

I should note that some KDE presenters at the Task Force continue to say that all of these problems exist only because teachers have not been properly trained about what to do. However, after 16 years of failure in this area, this excuse now rings hollow. The Kentucky Department of Education hasn’t been able to fix this problem since it began in 1992; so, it’s rather foolish to think they will be able to do better in the future.

The portfolio-in-assessment supporters also lamented to the Task Force that removing portfolios from assessment will mean the demise of writing instruction in Kentucky. That’s nonsense. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) writing evidence from states like Tennessee and California (evidence the Task Force avoided, even though it was requested by member Steve Stevens) indicates that writing portfolios in assessment don’t give Kentucky any advantages. The NAEP data indicates that portfolios in assessment actually are a detriment to effective instruction as our teachers allege.

In any event, Senator Kelly now has compelling, on the record evidence of what teachers think about this area – and that he most definitely talked to them.

So, Senator Kelly did indeed get things of value from the Task Force. In fact, the overwhelming indication that teachers want portfolios out of CATS, coupled with the fact that the Task Force ignored this testimony along with other critical information such as NAEP Writing Assessment results, gives Kelly at least two arrows in his quiver – one, an incontestable record that he did indeed talk to teachers and their representatives and that they want portfolios out; and two, that the Task Force was not data driven, not only because it ignored two separate samples of teacher opinion, but also because it failed to even discuss other important evidence like the NAEP, even though that data was fairly requested.

So, as I said above, Senator Kelly did indeed benefit from the Task Force, but that does not make the Task Force successful. Given the generally vague, repetitive (we are already supposed to be doing formative assessments) and incompletely researched (the TF never examined the possible cost to implement its Arts & Humanities recommendation) recommendations that were adopted, I suspect the Kentucky Board of Education will be sorely pressed to produce much of value from the Task Force. We’ll learn more about that when the Board meets in December.

Krauthammer gives them a hand

We aren't gaining much clarity on our nascent bailout economy with the garbled mess coming from our talking heads and their big-media filters.

Perhaps they want to keep the air thick with dust to better angle for a bailout of their own.

The latest example of this muddle comes from Charles Krauthammer of the Washington post. His article in Friday's Post discussed how we have tossed aside market incentives in our economy for political considerations and backroom deals:

"We may one day go back to a market economy. Meanwhile, we need to face the two most important implications of our newly politicized economy: the vastly increased importance of lobbying and the massive market inefficiencies that political directives will introduce."

The Post headlined his article like this:

...and that is what most of the article is about.

But Krauthammer included this unfortunate passage near the end of his missive:
"The ruling Democrats have a choice: Rescue this economy to return it to market control. Or use this crisis to seize the commanding heights of the economy for the greater social good. Note: The latter has already been tried. The results are filed under "History, ash heap of.""
The part I have a problem with it "Rescue this economy to..."

Is he saying that all this bailing will cause the economy to recover? How is that going to work, really? Criticizing in advance the usurpation of the usurpers while also granting their first premise is like sticking one finger in the dyke while swinging a hammer with the other hand.

Looks like we needs some one-handed pundits, just as Gov. Steve Beshear warms up his own private airplane headed to Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, Krauthammer's unclear conclusion gave the Louisville Courier Journal an opportunity to continue the confusion with this headline on the same column:

Those who doubt the wisdom of our present course must be clearer in opposition to reasoning for the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer-financed bailouts.

Isn't Kentucky Lottery listening?

Kentucky Lottery loyalists foamed at the mouth earlier this year when Senate Republicans forced them to waste a little less money on advertising.

So, sales are up and education money is down:

"That's because the lottery increased its prize payouts to players and paid higher retailer commissions. But the amount of money the lottery paid to state scholarship programs, including the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship or KEES, decreased by about $4 million from $196.3 million in 2007 to $192.1 million in 2008, the audit found."

Yeah, that wasn't exactly the idea. We need to get the lottery folks out of the business of spreading around advertising dollars. And weaning ourselves of lottery "profits" would probably be a good idea, too.

School District Overmanned – But won’t cut anyone

The Interior Journal reports at least one Kentucky school district seems to think that maintaining a significant overstaffing in teachers at taxpayer expense is the right way to go even as more education funding cuts are being discussed in Frankfort and taxpayers are reeling from the bad news in the economy.

Local taxpayers in Lincoln County should pony up for this folly on their own because state education dollars drop when attendance falls.

With its classrooms emptying, Lincoln County seems set on keeping all of its teachers on staff, even if 48 of them are an overage even according to the district’s own finance officer. There are real fiscal penalties for this action.

Lincoln County certified to the Kentucky Department of Education earlier this year that they had 307 full time equivalent certified staff members, which are mostly teachers. An overage of 48 teachers is an incredible 15.6 percent overage. That’s a lot of tax money that could, and should, be going to something else, which might include better salaries for the teachers that should be retained on staff.

For example, in the 2006-07 school year, the average classroom teacher salary in Lincoln County was just over $41,000, so the 48 unnecessary positions cost an extra $1.97 million, give or take. If the 48 teachers were eliminated, the remaining teachers could share an average salary increase of nearly $8,000 – each.

I wonder if any other school districts are pulling the same, fiscally irresponsible stunt.

Thanksgiving: Overcoming Socialism

Here’s a neat little YouTube, just in time for the holiday.

Obama's own efficiency study!

Had an odd sense of deja vu when I saw President-elect Barack Obama promising to save taxpayers "billions" of dollars by cutting wasteful spending.

What did that remind me of? Oh, that's right! It reminded me of then-candidate Steve Beshear promising over a year ago that he would save Kentucky up to $180 million a year in efficiencies.

What are the odds the national media will let Obama slide the way Kentucky's has given Gov. Beshear a pass?

If Frankfort is really in a mood to cut...

Rep. Steve Riggs (D-Louisville) has gotten on board the "Stop Bobby Sherman's Huge Raise" train with House Bill 57, a bill that would have the entire legislature vote on salary increases for the LRC director.

While we are talking about who decides who gets paid what, why don't we open up the idea of voters deciding what kind of money we should properly pay public employees? Letting the legislature decide that hasn't worked out so well for us.

Beshear could learn action habit from Jindal

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is getting some great press for leading the way for government spending transparency in his state.

Jindal ordered a public web site with valuable spending data for taxpayers on his first day in office. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to get him to move in the same direction.

We certainly would have gotten a lot farther down the road toward efficient government in Kentucky if Beshear merely followed Jindal's example.

CATS Scoring Inflation – Here’s the Evidence!

We’ve written plenty about the scoring inflation in Kentucky’s public school assessment program, known as CATS, but some of you clearly have not had time to read it.

Now, a nice discussion of the evidence has been collected in one, easy to read source in the freedomkentucky.org Web site.

Everyone in Kentucky owes it to our kids to take a few moments to check this out and then let your legislators hear loud and clear that we are tired of getting inflated pictures of how our schools are really performing. As I commented yesterday, plenty of legislators seem anxious to fix this issue, but there still are holdouts. So, all our elected state officials need to hear it loud and clear – the inflated nonsense from CATS isn’t what we were promised back in 1990, and with tax dollars now severely constrained, we cannot afford a feel-good fabrication that doesn’t really level with us about our education problems.

Read Atlas Shrugged this Christmas

Jim Rogers used to live in America. When he had the means to live anywhere he wanted, he moved to Singapore. Here is how he describes what is going on now:

"Why are 300 million Americans having to pay for Citibank's mistakes? The way the system is supposed to work: people fail and then the competent people take over the assets from the failed people and you start again with a new, stronger base. What we are doing this time is they are taking the assets from the competent people, giving them to the incompetent people, and saying 'okay, now you can compete with the competent people.' So everyone is weakened. The whole nation is weakened. The whole economy is weakened. That's not the way it is supposed to work."

His entire interview is here. It's long, but very good. There is a better way that doesn't involve bloodshed, but we have to move fast.

In other words, a Russian foreign affairs expert suggests his country may want to consider taking over Alaska.

Scammed for the holidays

Big-government fans in Ohio are promoting an expansion of the food stamp program. Expect the same nonsense to catch on here in Kentucky soon enough:

"If you really want to help people who need such help - do so. With your own funds or time or talents that you have. But don't fall prey to lobbying efforts and then use them as an excuse to take more money from the dwindling supply the rest of us have."

Maggie Thurber has the whole story here.

Task Force CATStastrophy – Legislators Know It

The paucity of recommendations from the KDE’s Assessment and Accountability Task Force is a travesty.

Three of the recommendations, (1) using formative assessments in the classroom, (2) fixing our weak assessment standards and (3) properly training teachers for their role in assessment are things we should have been doing for years. Because this hasn’t happened after 18 years of KERA, there is little reason to suspect that having the task force call, yet again, for this to happen will lead to any meaningful improvement.

The fourth recommendation – do a better job of evaluating the arts and humanities – is a nice idea, but the task force never completed its homework by getting cost data for implementation, which could be a prohibitive killer in this austere funding climate.

Bottom line: even the few recommendations from this largely ineffective effort are likely to make much difference for Kentucky’s students. So, forget the task force. Its vague and repetitive recommendations don’t say very much.

But, the failure to come to grips with CATS tells us that allowing the KDE to manage this group just wasted another year while students still don’t get the assessment program, and in too many cases the educations, they need.

In any event, there is plenty wrong with CATS, and legislators know it. Last week’s meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Education brought that home loud and clear. Of course, with press coverage of education issues all but extinct in the commonwealth, you have to come to this blog or our new Wiki at www.freedomkentucky.org to learn anything about what is happening.

For example, the media never made a single task force meeting, which says a bundle about how important the state’s news editors viewed the task force in the larger scheme of things.

I don’t recall seeing any press coverage of last week’s contentious meeting of the Interim Joint Education Committee, either. So, here’s a bit more on that, to add to my previous comments.

Both sides of the aisle jumped on a Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) report about the CATS and NCLB scores for 2008. Among other things, legislators zeroed in with displeasure on the persistent wide education gaps for minorities. The people who will ultimately make the decisions certainly didn’t sound happy about gaps and with CATS in general for failing to disclose them the way NCLB does.

There also is extensive ire about the obvious disconnect between CATS scores and college remediation rates. Senator Tim Shaughnessy, among others, was irate that the new tests from the ACT and our freshman college remediation rates show CATS is disconnected from what kids really need.

Representative Derrick Graham echoed and expanded on those sentiments, as mentioned in the previous blog. Graham specifically noted that schools prepare kids for CATS, but not for college. He clearly understands the disconnect between whatever CATS tests and what colleges want.

Graham was joined by fellow African-American Senator Gerald Neal in deploring the gap situation. Neal said he was almost speechless, finding the report depressing. He pointed out we have been going at this “since forever,” yet the gaps continue. Under Neal’s questioning, the KDE’s Ken Draut admitted that while there were some good examples of schools doing well with poor kids, that there were fewer examples of schools fixing the African-American gaps.

Representative Jim DeCesare pointed out that a CATS score of 85 isn’t terribly impressive performance. He says we need to do much better than that, something the Bluegrass Institute has extensively discussed in many publications and YouTubes.

Representative Alicia Webb-Edgington asked what was being done to fix the continuing 20 point gaps. Deputy Commissioner of Education Elaine Farris agreed that the gaps are indeed very large. She also admitted that some kids do not get exposed to the core curriculum in our schools and suffer from a culture of low expectations. That wasn’t mentioned in CATS Task Force meetings, as far as I recall.

Adding to the general tenor of strong displeasure, Representative Addia Wuchner pointed out there is an obvious disconnect in CATS, and the statistics are our kids. Says Wuchner, “It is time for dramatic reform of the reform.”

And, that seemed to pretty well sum up the overall tenor of the education committee members. So, forget the CATS task force. I doubt that even a little of the little it recommended will ever pass by a legislator’s way.

Will Steve Beshear take your basketball tickets?

Big hubbub over the weekend in Oklahoma after the state insurance commissioner floated the idea of taking Sooner football tickets away from people who don't buy health insurance.

The State Policy Blog responded:

"I'm glad that residents of the Sooner state were willing to stand up for their rights, when their football tickets were threatened."

"I hope the rest of the country responds as strongly when U.S. Senator Max Baucus tries to impose the Massachusetts plan on the entire United States."

Gov. Steve Beshear is already combing the neighborhoods to get more people signed up on government health insurance. Let's don't tell him about this one, okay?

Information, please

Pension Tsunami UPDATE: I guess they saw you guys coming, because the latest data is now on the KRS web site.

The Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS), under fire recently for unusually bad investment returns, was supposed to release its latest actuarial report late last week.

Instead, the Annual Reports section of the KRS web site has been down all weekend and remains unavailable early this morning.

Taxpayers get to pay up to replace investment losses because Kentucky "guarantees" pensions to public employees with a defined benefit pension plan.

Small High School Fad – Fading

We were told it could be the “Silver Bullet” to fix America’s lagging high school performance – moving to smaller high schools (around 400 or fewer students).

Since 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been all over small high schools to the tune of an incredible $2 billion. With Gates support, over 2,600 small high schools were opened across the country.

Here in Kentucky, small schools have been pushed by the Kentucky Long Term Policy Research Center and the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.

Now, education historian and commentator Diane Ravitch writes that this education fad simply isn’t working out, and the Gates crowd admits it.

Ravitch reports that students in the fad high schools didn’t learn as much math as kids in traditional high schools. Test scores in reading and math came in lower for the boutique high schools. Also, supposed small school advantages in New York City turned out to be due to the fact that the small schools turned away students with learning disabilities and students who were still learning English.

In a remarkable bit of candor, Ravitch writes that while the Gates Foundation deserves credit for honest self-scrutiny of its small high schools program, that, “Most proponents of education reform defend their ideas against all critics, regardless of what evaluations show.”

I wonder – was Ravitch was thinking of Kentucky when she wrote that?

Ravitch’s bottom line – there are no silver bullets in education. Clearly, we need to be wary of those who think there are.

How big government feeds on itself

Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was in Louisville Saturday night stumping for socialized medicine with an analogy that doesn't hold up under any serious scrutiny:

"Elders called on President-elect Barack Obama and Congress to overhaul the health-care system to provide coverage for all, despite the potential cost to taxpayers."

""They say we can't afford it," she said, when "in one month we got $700 billion for Wall Street.""

Right. And how well is that working out so far, Joycelyn?

Besides, as the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon points out, we already have enough government control of healthcare to see widespread negative effects:

"Consider two distinguishing features of socialist economies. The first is that the government decides what individuals may produce, what they consume, and the terms of exchange."

"That is largely true of America's health care system. Government controls production and consumption by determining the number of physicians; what services medical professionals can offer and under what terms; where they can practice; who can open a hospital or purchase a new MRI; who can market a drug or medical device; and what kind of health insurance consumers may purchase."

"Government bureaucrats even set the prices for half of our health care sector directly, and indirectly set prices for the other half. When you read about Medicare over-paying imaging centers and hospitals, or that it's impossible for Bostonians to get an appointment with a general practitioner, it's largely because the bureaucrats got the prices wrong, and those rigid prices do not automatically eliminate shortages and gluts like flexible market prices do."

"A second feature of socialist economies is that there is little incentive to make careful economic decisions, because government has put everyone in the position of spending other people's money."

"Canada may have the most heavily socialized health care system in the advanced world. Yet America's system is as much a tragedy of the commons as the Canadian system, where health care is ostensibly "free." In each country, only about 14 cents out of every dollar of medical spending comes directly from the patient."

"How can America's health care system be "socialized" when we rely on the private sector more than any advanced nation? Because it doesn't matter whether the dollars and the hospitals are owned publicly or privately. What matters is who controls how they are used."

Just as the banking bailout shouldn't persuade anyone to further expand government's role in healthcare, reality should inform us to pursue free-market reforms instead of continuing to hope that a little bit more socialism will suddenly start to work.

Very cool new site coming Sunday

KentuckyVotes.org, the Bluegrass Institute's legislative tracking web site received 1.75 million page views in the last twelve months, but the site has been pulled down this weekend for a major upgrade.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that when the site comes up, probably sometime on Sunday, it will have all the bells and whistles of MichiganVotes.org. Check it out!

You had me at non-essential

Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson announced plans Friday to let go enough non-essential government employees for three days to save $2 million.

Let's see: 2,000,000 times 365 divided by 3 equals $243,333,333.

Hmmm...

Harry Moberly, call your office

House Bill 51 would probably encourage more economic development in Kentucky than any amount of corporate welfare incentive programs Frankfort can dole out.

The bill is available to view and discuss on Kentucky Votes.

House Budget Chairman Harry Moberly should have to explain in committee his position on this bill.

Damon Thayer lays down the law

Sen. Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown) took the opportunity of a speech to the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Friday to encourage support for some familiar Bluegrass Institute themes.

"My pledge to you and the citizens of Northern Kentucky is that I will strive to be a leader that puts problem solving before politics," Thayer said.

"That means not raising taxes. That means fixing our education system. And that means protecting taxpayers from the partisan agenda of a governor who just doesn’t seem to get it."

Thayer criticized big-spending politicians who now seek to raise taxes.

"Government should be forced to do more with less. Not do more with more.
But the drumbeat for higher taxes has already begun. And the band leader is Steve Beshear."

Beshear has been actively involved in promoting a cigarette tax hike.

Thayer mentioned the absence of Beshear's promised $180 million a year "efficiency study" and the legislature's continued support for prevailing wage policies.

"The state of Kentucky could easily save $130 million a year by eliminating the prevailing wage law on public construction projects. This silly idea costs the taxpayers millions at a time when we can ill-afford to cater to any special interest group."

Thayer listed several education statistics in making the case for reforming school policies that mislead parents and policymakers to believe schools are performing better than they actually are.

"It is high-time we got rid of the CATS testing system, and replaced it with something that actually tells parents, educators, and policymakers what we need to know."

Two states address budget crunch

New York state, facing an $8.8 billion budget gap, at least has their fiscal crunch framed properly:

"There's the tradeoff: supergenerous benefits for a well-paid public workforce that also enjoys pensions most people can only dream of, versus school programs, public safety and a functioning transit system."

There is no guarantee that state will make the right call under union pressure, but at least New York isn't doing a New Jersey:

"Gov. Jon S. Corzine is set to announce today that he will let counties and municipalities temporarily defer 50 percent of the payment due next April into the public employee pension system."

What a great idea: lending money to governments who have frittered away what they had and expect them to get their act straight and repay the loans in future years.

Kentucky is, of course, ahead of the curve on that one.

Meanwhile, we should be watching with great interest any success New York has in dealing with unions.

Kentucky could save $130 million much-needed dollars by ending our prevailing wage practices on public construction projects.

Keeping tabs on Gov. Beshear

We learned a week ago Gov. Steve Beshear is still sorting through the 3600 government efficiency suggestions he got from state employees last December so he can fulfill his promise to do an "efficiency study" he said would save $180 million a year.

As the time passes by -- at just under half a million dollars per day of persistent inefficiencies -- it looks more and more like citizens are going to have to take matters into their own hands.

That's why we pressured Gov. Beshear last summer to get to work setting up a web site showing citizens how our tax dollars are being spent (here and here).

He has said that site will be up in January. Perhaps we should check to see how efficiently he is moving toward that goal.

A stupid idea we will probably emulate

The latest big-government idea out of Cincinnati, a plan to offer "free" health insurance to the working poor will probably be successful.

That would be "successful" in the sense that it will gain positive media coverage for politicians, spend ever-increasing budgets, and cause more dependency as it gets bigger.

It's called CincyCare:

"CincyCare will provide primary care, a prescription drug benefit, and care coordination for 2,000 workers in Cincinnati who need affordable healthcare, but currently are not eligible. Best of all, this program will come free of charge to participating employers. Employees will only pay a standard $10 co-payment for doctor visits, otherwise there are no enrollment or ongoing costs to them."

The city has already committed $1.2 million to the plan for the next two years. There are plans to expand covered services -- which currently don't include hospital stays. Anyone who works in a Cincinnati business, meets income guidelines, and doesn't already qualify for government coverage is eligible for this program. That is the part that will come back to bite them later on.

What say you?

I'm out of pocket this morning in meetings. How about an open thread? What's on your mind?

Does the SAT (and ACT) Matter?

Only if you want to graduate from college

There has been a lot of liberal educator commentary of late about the SAT (and the ACT) college entrance test being an inaccurate measure of college success. Some elite (and liberal-dominated) colleges around the country have discarded use of college entrance tests altogether. The standard story is that high school grade point averages are a much better predictor of college success.

Now, in a New York Times article certain to give liberal educators a good case of indigestion, Peter Salins, former provost of the multi-campus State University of New York, reports on research that says those liberal educators are blowing smoke.

Salins uses a different approach to gauge the value of the SAT by examining how well it relates to graduation success in New York colleges that increased SAT requirements versus those campuses that kept the original, lower SAT admissions requirements.

Salins’ finding – SAT scores are indeed important predictors of success in graduating from college – better than high school GPA.

Fortunately, no-one at the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education is talking about downplaying the role of the ACT in our admissions process, but a number of liberal education people in this state have taken some swipes at the ACT, anyway.

It’s being reported that high school grades in Kentucky have been inflated. The reason is to make students appear more attractive to colleges and to jimmy more KEES scholarship money out of the taxpayer. That grade inflating trend makes the ACT even more important, and it makes it most unlikely that a Salins-style study in the Bluegrass State would turn up anything different from what happened in New York.

Why Kentucky might do well to axe income tax

Rep. Bill Farmer (R-Lexington) announced his plan to repeal the state income tax and replace it by eliminating sales tax exclusions and expanding the sales tax to include services. Farmer spoke today as a guest on the Leland Conway Show.

A new 50-state report suggests one way Kentucky's economy could really benefit: by attracting more entrepreneurs. The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation found Kentucky is the 4th fastest-growing state in the category of entrepreneurial activity. Freeing income from taxation could incentivize more activity in an area which Kentucky shows some life.

The study, which purports to rank states according to their ability to transition to a technology-based economy. Overall, Kentucky ranks 45th in 2008, down from 39th in 1999.

Ready to stop the merry-go-round?

Relief over sharply falling consumer prices in October may be short-lived as industries continue to demand taxpayer-financed "price stability."

One of many overpriced items is big government. As more cities consider bankruptcy, the calls for a federal government bailout of cities and states get louder.

WHAS interviewed University of Louisville economist Paul Coomes and asked him if the proposed auto industry bailout would make a difference. He said doing so would only delay them from renegotiating union contracts.

Same goes for Kentucky. Before Gov. Steve Beshear goes to Washington D.C. for a federal bailout or to the General Assembly for one from Kentucky taxpayers, we need to renegotiate our union contracts. That means repealing prevailing wage and making Kentucky a right to work state.

CATS Perspectives on Accuracy and Usability

Here is a PowerPoint presentation that shows the inflation in our CATS assessments compared to the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the new tests from the ACT, Incorporated that all our 8th and 10th graders now take.

This was presented today to the “2014 Committee,” an alternate “education task force” which has been formed to look at how we can make intelligent changes to our assessment program that will improve student learning.

Who is being prohibited from doing what?

The Legislative Research Commission (LRC) posts General Assembly bills on its web site and provides summaries of them so readers can better follow state government. It usually does a very good job.

But the importance of word choice can be critical to the meaning in a bill summary. And sometimes the wrong word can lead to confusion about what a new law would do.

Take, for instance, this description of HB 46, pre-filed for the 2009 session:

A reader depending on the bill summary above may be led to believe that what is being prohibited is the use of a communications device (cell phone or pager) on a motor vehicle that is not almost an antique. The problem is the word "that," which isn't usually used to refer to a person.

Therefore a minor on a moped may find himself, if this bill were passed, subject to a fine for talking while riding even though he thought he was in the clear by virtue of operating, say, a twenty year-old vehicle.

In addition to the imprecise language, there are several elements of the proposed law that are missing from the LRC's bill summary. Youthful drivers in the state might be better served by reading the following instead from KentuckyVotes.org:

KentuckyVotes is a free service provided by the Bluegrass Institute.

Time to toss the union albatross

University of Kentucky economist Ken Troske nailed it in the Lexington Herald Leader today when talking about the proposed auto bailout:

"But the long-term situation is completely different, he said."

"A bankruptcy would allow them to “break promises they made in the past," Troske said. "That's clearly going to hurt workers ... but they've got to get out of those promises.""

The "promises" he mentions are the outlandish union contracts that have played a major role in bringing the domestic automakers down.

And as Kentucky politicians mull how to get their own federal bailout, they should turn their attention instead to repealing prevailing wage laws that make school construction projects too expensive.

Before the bailouts, transparency

Starting to look like 2009 will be the year of the bailout. Sure, we broke the seal in 2008, but next year is certain to be a gusher.

President Bush will leave $350 billion of the magic $700 billion to President-elect Obama. And the cities and states are arranging Washington D.C. junkets to parade their empty pockets and last year's clothes in front of Congress.

Fully two months before taking office, Obama has already shed any pretense of fiscal conservatism.

Kentucky taxpayers has long-endured the boom-and-bust cycles in government spending. The tail end of this latest one is already awash in red ink.

We know there will be much clamoring for tax increases in Frankfort, but they just don't have the votes.

The watchdogs must be ever vigilant, of course, lest the good old boys and girls work out some kind of deal to produce more photo ops and talk of bipartisan love for themselves, and higher costs for the rest of us.

The key to protecting ourselves is to push hard for every state agency, county, city, library, and school board in Kentucky to document the spending of every single penny on searchable web sites for all to see. The time for fooling around waiting for current technology to be applied to the protection of those of paying the bills is over.

CATS Deficiencies – More and More Legislators Get It

The Bluegrass Institute – from its earliest days – has sharply criticized Kentucky’s CATS school assessments and their underlying standards. While CATS has been telling Kentucky that our school system is doing just fine, more trustworthy evidence shows otherwise.

Now, with mediocre test results piling up, especially for Kentucky’s racial minorities, it looks like more and more legislators on both sides of the aisle are starting to ‘get it.’

This was particularly evident during today’s (November 17, 2008) meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Education. The Kentucky Department of Education presented the latest results from CATS and No Child Left Behind, and legislators were quick to cite unsatisfactory performance gaps for whites and other racial groups, which persist today despite nearly 19 years of education reform.

The bad news triggered the following comments about general flaws in CATS from Representative Derrick Graham of Frankfort. Said Graham about a primary need to revise the underlying standards and curriculum driving CATS,

“Number one is when we talk to our universities and our colleges and our technical people that we get their input as to say what is it that you all want our kids – where do you want the kids to be by the time they graduate from high school? We need to get their input in terms of development of a curriculum, not that’s based on the CATS testing and evaluation of the CATS testing, but is based upon preparing these kids for the next level. And, I don’t think we’ve done that.”

Right on, Representative Graham. The high proportion of college freshmen who need remedial courses makes it abundantly clear that the CATS isn’t related to what kids need next. But, it needs to be.

As legislators in the meeting reacted in dismay to more data in the department’s report, including results from ACT testing that show very few kids are on track to be ready for college, sentiment certainly seems to be growing that after all the time we’ve been doing reform, making few if any changes in CATS for another six years simply isn’t going to pass muster.

Ohio think tank: charter schools save us money

Kentucky's House Education Committee has killed every effort to open up charter schools in Kentucky.

Ohio, meanwhile, has charter schools and has found that teachers union efforts to close them would require taxes to go up or spending per student to go down because charter schools are more efficient with their money than the regular public schools are.

Kentucky probably will have a charter school bill in the 2009 General Assembly. Let's hope the legislature pays attention to Ohio's findings.

Courier Journal political team falls hard

The Louisville Courier Journal dispatched three Frankfort reporters to take the temperature of the state Senate on what seems to be the paper's last big idea:

"Health advocates are gearing up to persuade lawmakers of the need to approve a hike of at least 70 cents to discourage smoking, particularly among youths, and also to bring in desperately needed revenue."

This dual purpose (cutting smoking and raising revenue) is pretty silly as far as empty promises go. But the hilarious part is the leap the reporters took from the tepid response they got to the conclusion they drew:

"But a Courier-Journal survey found substantial support for an increase to offset a potentially huge budget shortfall that would force more cuts in state agencies already slashed in the 2008 budget."

The "substantial" support includes twenty Senators who said they would either vote for, consider, or not rule out a cigarette tax increase.

In other words, there is insufficient support in the Senate for a cigarette tax increase.

My favorite part of the article came when Sen. Tom Buford told the reporters he could potentially support a tax increase of up to $3 a pack.

Though it would be nice if the Republican Senators explained that they oppose cigarette tax increases because they don't support terrorism, I'm sure they had a good time putting on a team of harried reporters.

Where is GM's burden of proof?

As Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear is cajoling Congress to write blank taxpayer checks to the auto industry, troubling questions mount about how good an idea that is.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

""There is no Plan B being discussed beyond a government bailout," one top GM adviser said Friday."

Granted, that is a statement from an anonymous source, but I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe GM does have a Plan B. They should have to explain all their contingency plans to us.

Could Illinois sneezing give Kentucky a cold?

Years of overspending on social services are catching up to taxpayers in Illinois just as Kentucky gears up for a pep rally on Tuesday to sign people up for government healthcare faster and, potentially, fraudulently.

So with all this talk about economic Armageddon, is anyone the least bit concerned about what might happen if Illinois is forced to cut back on social services just as neighboring Kentucky is flashing a neon "Come and Get It!" sign?

Just a friendly reminder

As Frankfort continues to look for ways to cut spending, some of our elected representatives might do well to be reminded that they had a chance to shut down the Treasurer's office.

Maybe they could put him to work sweeping floors or something.

Tracking Students Is One Thing – But Tracking Your Entire Household?

What is the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) really tracking? We have written before such as here and here about the teething problems with the KDE’s new student tracking system – at least we thought it was a STUDENT tracking system.

Now, a news report hints that the KDE’s new “Infinite Campus” computer database system may be something more – a household tracking system!

Why is the department of education setting up a system that tracks students not as individuals, but only as members of households? Does the department of education have legitimate reasons to track anything organized by households?

Certainly, the Times Tribune article raises lots more questions than answers about a computerized tracking system so involved that some educators say it’s “scary” just to implement the thing. Could there be even more to be scared of than anyone in the public knows?

Beshear Admin: Efficiency Study "proceeding"

The Beshear Administration tells me now that they are proceeding with the Efficiency Study.

Good.

They are currently sorting through 3600 efficiency suggestions from employees solicited when Gov. Steve Beshear took office almost a year ago. I was asked to report on efforts to reduce the number of employees and the promised government spending web site, which I did one and five months ago, respectively.

Also learned the Beshear Administration has roughly 460 fewer non-merit employees than the Fletcher Administration had. Certainly a step in the right direction.

And Gov. Beshear says more cuts are on the way.

What to do with Beshear's tax increases

In his weekly column, the Bluegrass Institute's always-edgy Jim Waters chases Gov. Steve Beshear's latest big idea up a tree:

"While campaigning for office, Gov. Steve Beshear promised to consider tax increases “only as a last resort.”"
"Yet, Beshear now plans to waste costly fuel traveling around the state to try and soften opposition toward raising taxes and manipulating the hardworking residents of Kentucky into approving the distasteful idea of expanding casino gambling.
“As a last resort” means after exhausting all other options."
"However, the governor offers no suggestions for meaningful reform of the state workers’ pension system. So far, Kentucky’s “tax-islature” has avoided tough, cost saving choices, including addressing elements of the pension system that line their pockets."

Jim concludes that eliminating prevailing wage and corporate welfare would be far better solutions than merely raising taxes again. Good stuff.

Where does it say that in the Constitution?

Gov. Steve Beshear's Chief of Staff Adam Edelen made an odd statement today in favor of a proposed bailout of three domestic auto manufacturers.

Edelen told WHAS' Mark Hebert: "What the Governor has expressed to our Congressional delegation is that it is our top priority to protect the 80,000 people in Kentucky who are employed in automobile manufacturing or related industries."

Really? What about the other four million of us? Do we rate top priority without working for or running businesses that fail? And how specifically does the Governor know that making those 80,000 his top priority for an unspecified amount of time is the best thing for them in the long run? Or is that even the goal? Why or why not?

Several unanswered questions remain for those who usually claim to have a lot of answers.

Private sector groups try to do a "Kentucky"

Over the last quarter of a century, Kentucky has underfunded its public employee benefits plans to the point that they have nearly a $30 billion liability that will hit taxpayers hard.

Now some private organizations that have also mismanaged their defined benefit pension plans are petitioning Congress to allow them to put taxpayers on the hook for their actions.

We opened this door when we started the bailout binge. Someone is going to have to stop it. Any volunteers?

"I find your lack of faith disturbing"

Aren't you at least a little surprised Gov. Steve Beshear hasn't had a press conference to take credit for gas prices coming down recently? After all, he probably doubled his carbon footprint with his heated gas price rhetoric this summer.

In this new season of government delusions of market manipulation grandeur, it might be a good idea to start seriously questioning the power we grant our politicians in hopes they will smooth out all the rough edges of our lives.

Their track record on this front doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Making it sound more like jail

A coalition of advocacy groups got a lot of media attention Wednesday for pledging to help kids by changing the law that forces them to stay in school until age sixteen so that it forces them to stay in school until age eighteen.

Maybe someone could suggest they might let the kids who want to drop out just pay a fine and do community service instead.

Seriously, Kentucky's dropout problem isn't going anywhere until we raise standards in middle school to keep kids engaged in the process at the point when too many of them get behind.

Not Getting Enough Kids Ready for College –

More Kentuckians ‘Get’ It!

“The CATS scores in many districts are good, so we are giving parents and kids the impression that they are doing quite well, when in reality they are not.” “I’m continually amazed at the lack of uproar about this issue.”

---Hancock County board of education member Dale Gray, as quoted in the November 2008 Kentucky School Advocate.

Why is Gray so upset?

He just heard these statistics, also found in the Advocate, which is published by the Kentucky School Boards Association.

• For every 100 Kentucky ninth-graders, only 12 successfully obtain a four-year college degree – in six years.

• Eight in 10 students enrolled in the two-year Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) are underprepared to do postsecondary studies.

• By 2009, KCTCS estimates that 43,000 of its enrollees will need remedial English help, 57,000 will be assigned to developmental reading classes and a whopping 77,500 will be in math prep courses.

Problems with getting more Kentucky public school students ready for college are no secret to our readers. We’ve been talking about this for a long time, such as, here, here, and here.

Sadly, the public school system has experienced a lot of difficulty in coming to grips with these “frustrating statistics,” as Floyd County Superintendent Henry Webb labels them.

Now, it looks like members of the Kentucky School Boards Association are waking up to what the Bluegrass Institute has pointed out for years – Kentucky’s school system isn’t getting kids ready for what needs to come next, and the CATS assessments aren’t telling us there is a problem.

No, not everything, Senator

In a Louisville Courier Journal news article about premature births in Kentucky, Sen. Denise Harper Angel said the following:

"Everything we can do to invest in healthy babies results in healthy adults and less cost to health care," she said.

This is demonstrably false.

The article was inspired by a March of Dimes study finding one-third of pregnant women in Kentucky smoke cigarettes. Recommendations included expanding government-run health insurance and paying for smoking cessation programs.

Let's say we were to expand state-run health insurance for pregnant women who smoke. The increased taxpayer liability is certain to cost us more than it does now.

A real-world example is illustrative: according to ehealthinsurance.com, not one health insurer in Kentucky's individual health insurance market offers maternity coverage for women who smoke. If the big insurers -- whose job it is to assess and price risk -- don't want to play that game, why should taxpayers?

Maybe we should invest in U-Haul trucks and road maps to New York and send our pregnant smokers out of the state. That would certainly be cheaper.

How we wind up electing nannies-in-chief

Cato Institute Senior VP Gene Healy was in Lexington at Thiel Audio this morning discussing his book "The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power."

The book is about federal power but is applicable as well to the state level, where we elect governors who promise to provide jobs, healthcare, and a level playing field for the little guy.

And we wonder why our government officials effectively mortgage our futures by borrowing long-term money to finance unaffordable, but immediate, public desires:

Help us find Beshear's missing efficiency study

Yesterday, an employee in Gov. Steve Beshear's press office promised to send me email copies of Gov. Beshear's public statements on his promised efficiency study and to have Beshear's spokesman call me with further information about when the study might be made available.

I'm still waiting.

While waiting, I decided to check the Governor's own press page on his web site. This is what I found just now:

Gov. Beshear is now openly proclaiming his campaign promise to avoid tax increases was nothing more than words to entertain the voters. Was his promise to save the state $180 million a year in expenditures the same kind of talk.

I think we need to hear from the Governor on this one, don't you?

More proof state overspending is the problem

October state tax receipt numbers out Monday showed revenues increased $17 million over the same month in 2007. The problem remains, from the taxpayer's perspective, that revenues aren't increasing fast enough to keep up with the increased rate of spending mandated in Frankfort.

As this same scenario continues to play out over the current budget year, it seems that spending cuts, rather than tax increases, would be the preferred prescription to restoring government's fiscal health.

In other news, state lottery revenues continued their upward climb after this year's cuts in advertising expenses for the Kentucky Lottery Corporation. The state's take is up $2.5 million since July.

Well, there's $180 million down the drain

A year ago, Gov. Steve Beshear was pretty sure that his promised "government efficiency study" was going to pave the way to annual savings of up to $180 million dollars.

His press office reports this afternoon the study has not been completed.

Perhaps it's just easier to raise taxes, right Governor?

CATS Task Force Ends 2008 With Little Accomplished

The Kentucky Department of Education’s “Assessment and Accountability Task Force” (often called the CATS Task Force) appears to have ended its 2008 session with little accomplished.

On the most heavily discussed item – writing portfolios – the group remained hopelessly deadlocked following discussions rich in agendas and assertions – but short on examination of real data.

Five meetings after task force member Steve Stevens requested discussions on how Kentucky performed on the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ eighth grade writing exams, that revealing information still has not been discussed (Thanks to two Bluegrass Institute YouTube programs comparing writing performance in Kentucky to California and Tennessee, this blog’s readers can learn more in less than five minutes about how Kentucky really stacks up in writing instruction than most task force members know).

In addition, a promised discussion of the 2007-08 writing portfolio audit was never presented. Of course, the discussion of the 2006-07 portfolio audit at meeting 3 provided compelling evidence that portfolio scoring is hopelessly inflated (after the meeting Kentucky Department of Education personnel indicated to me that the new audit continues to show the same thing).

Thus, perhaps the most unreliable element in the entire CATS program festers on without any recommendation from the task force.

Sadly, thanks to the time expended on the portfolio back and forth, many other important agenda items never got any real consideration. Find those overlooked items listed along with a general discussion of other matters from meeting 7 in the Bluegrass Institute’s new policy Wiki.

The Wiki also lists the task force’s four recommendations. Considering the limited amount of discussion most of those items received, and considering the very large number of unanswered technical questions on each recommendation (things like how much they will cost, for example), I won’t use space here talking about them – except to say that I don’t see how the Kentucky Board of Education or the legislature will get much of use from them.

In fact, one of the best judgments on this task force has been the absence of reporters at any of the meetings. Clearly, the major media in this state were not impressed by this effort.

Something that needs discussion is the fundamental problem with this task force. Because the legislature used this task force as an excuse not to conduct its own hearings on CATS during the legislative interim, the task force needed to be unbiased. It should never have been convened under the control of the Kentucky Department of Education.

The department of education has a lot of earnest people, but it also has too many pride of authorship issues to conduct a fully objective and open discussion of CATS. The problem was clear from the outset, when Commissioner Jon Draud stated that he didn’t want the task force to recommend any major changes to CATS. That position cast a shadow over what followed.

Certainly, the department’s position that major changes should wait until after 2104 was hotly disputed by some task force members like Senator Dan Kelly (good job, Dan) and a number of very honest educators on the committee, too. However, the overall makeup of this group virtually guaranteed it would be unable to reach consensus on important issues.

So, here are some suggestions to move us forward.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the legislature, not the Kentucky Department of Education, is ultimately responsible for education in the commonwealth. Our legislators need to acknowledge that and take over management of the task force, reconstituting it to get results, not inaction.

It’s also time to stop ignoring uncomfortable data about CATS. The results of writing portfolio audits have always told us the same thing – portfolio scoring is inherently unreliable and inflated. Failure to look at the strong evidence about Kentucky’s writing performance from the National Assessment of Educational Progress is simply inexcusable and was an unacceptable snub of Steve Stevens, as well.

It’s time to listen to our teachers, who courageously and emphatically stated in task force meetings that having writing portfolios in the assessment program actually interferes with their ability to teach writing. The national assessment data shows that – but this CATS Task Force doesn’t know that.

Anyway, with another year passed, CATS remains no better than it was – unless the legislature moves on its own without paying much, if any attention, to the task force. Of course, in the end, there really isn’t much from this task force to pay attention to, anyway.

What about school choice now?

John Locke Foundation's Terry Stoops asks the question: will President Barack Obama walk his talk on schools?

Obama's campaign rhetoric stirred up hope for some Kentucky school choicers. It will be interesting to see where he goes on this one.

Smaller government isn't dreadful

The Lexington Herald Leader is at it again:

"Short term, the outlook is grim. Beshear may call a special session and propose an increase in the cigarette tax to help bridge the anticipated $294 million shortfall this year. This makes sense, both to raise revenue and to discourage young people from taking up the deadly habit."

"Kentucky's Republicans could be good election winners and support an increase to help get us through these hard times. But that's unlikely and Beshear may find himself alone in the governor's mansion making those dreadful cuts."

I can't imagine why they continue to insist that a cigarette tax increase is going to both raise revenue and cut smoking. States who continue to raise cigarette taxes accomplish little more than funding black market terrorists.

Let's get over this already.

The bellyaching about "dreadful" spending cuts is just another sloppy sample of bad attempts at rationalizing Kentucky's bloated government. Again, if we repeal prevailing wage laws and stop doling out unaccountable corporate welfare schemes, we would be well on our way to running a government we can afford.

That would actually be nice for a change.

Playing chicken with Harlan Sanders' bidness

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to quickly raise the federal minimum wage and to expand labor unions' reach by eliminating secret ballot union elections.

These initiatives could combine to have a devastating impact on Louisville-based Yum! Brands, a 50,000 employee company that owns Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Consumers will probably have little patience for paying union wages for their junk food.

Assuming this happens, how long would it be before the fast food industry makes tracks to Washington D.C. to ask for a bailout of their own?

Don't we have bigger fish to fry?

A pre-filed bill for the 2009 General Assembly would allow police to fine drivers up to $100 for using a cell phone while driving.

Seems like we have some real issues that need to be addressed in next year's short session. I'm not sure we have time for stuff like this. Shouldn't they instead be doing something to prevent the state from going bankrupt?

We subsidized you; now sell some cars!!!

As intellectually satisfying as it is to note that bank bailout recipients are getting flack from the government for not lending out their taxpayer-provided funds, it is sickening as well.

At the Bluegrass Institute we feel similarly about Kentucky's recently announced $180 million subsidy to dead-carmaker-walking Ford. Out of necessity, that money will go into a black hole made wider and deeper by union abuses like those Kentucky needs desperately to get away from.

Kentucky nose-wiping service coming soon

The Lexington Herald Leader's editorial page today extolled the virtues of a state-run prescription drug service taxpayers are paying $1 million over the next two years. The same service is available online here, here, and here.

The program, of course, will grow like gangbusters:

"The state will put a trained person and the necessary technology in each county to help elderly and low-income Kentuckians navigate the complicated process of finding and applying for drug-industry programs that provide free or reduced-cost medications."

In a sane world, this would be considered a fine example of government waste. It will surely be a "success" and deemed worthy of rapid expansion in future years. How are we ever going to fix Kentucky's overspending problem until we stop creating programs out of nice ideas that already exist?

Oh yeah, a little good news

The Boone County parks tax, supported by way too many Boone county officials who should have known better, failed on election day 31,228 to 15,303.

We love to see tax increases on the ballot!

A warning to Kentucky price-fixers

Ohio voters just decided Tuesday what price payday lenders must set for the money they lend. As a result, the lenders are starting to close shop and the borrowers will just have to do without.

Perhaps Ohio can afford to lose payday lending jobs. Can Kentucky?

Something like the 2008 Kentucky payday lending bill will be back in 2009. By then we should have a great example of government regulating an industry out of business.

Putting ACORN on the board of elections

In a Lexington debate between Kentucky Club for Growth Chairman Warren Rogers and AFL-CIO of Kentucky President Bill Londrigan about card check legislation this morning, Bluegrass Institute founder Chris Derry asked about Londrigan's opinion of doing away with secret ballots in public elections.

Londrigan drew an analogy to widespread use of mail-in ballots and asked "is that undermining the democracy?"

How much would you pay government workers?

One almost-overlooked ballot initiative that passed in California on Tuesday could provide food for thought -- and respite from out-of-control public employee benefits. It's Measure J.

Measure J will require public employee benefits contracts in Orange County to be approved by voters in the voting booth.

Kentucky officials have mostly shifted from ignoring Kentucky's $27 billion underfunding of public employee benefits to insisting -- in the absence of any supporting evidence -- that they have fixed the problem.

NCLB Requires 100 Percent Proficiency in 2014 – Right?

‘Betcha’ think that No Child Left Behind sets impossible targets of 100 percent proficiency for schools to reach in 2014 with all their kids, even their learning disabled kids – Right?

Well, guess again. Thanks to an extensive set of loopholes, it is quite possible for schools to escape any trouble with NCLB in 2014 with proficiency rates well below 100 percent, possibly as low as only 50 or 60 percent.

Don’t believe it? Better read “Kentucky's No Child Left Behind Loopholes” in the new Bluegrass Institute Wiki.

Spinning new government debt like a pro

Complaints about Kentucky lawmakers heaping $1.5 billion in bonded debt onto future taxpayers have been pretty much limited to this site. It appears Kentucky has a lot of company as 41 states offered up ballot initiatives yesterday to add on tens of billions of dollars in new debt and nearly all of them were approved.
Here's the spin:

""It shows a level of optimism and confidence by voters that's surprising and very positive," said Matt Fabian, managing director and senior analyst at Concord, Massachusetts-based research firm Municipal Market Advisors."

Gov. Steve Beshear shares this rosy view -- a fact he made clear a month ago when he went on a media tour after Kentucky bonded an extra $400 million for our children to repay.

President Obama, follow through on schools

It became clear a couple of weeks ago that promoting school choice was considered important by both presidential candidates. Giving parents greater educational options for their children has long been a major issue for the Bluegrass Institute.

We look forward to quick progress on this issue from the incoming Obama administration.

Silly season isn't nearly over

Election 2008 has passed, but a Kentucky race whose importance isn't widely recognized now looms quite large.

That's the race for Speaker in the Kentucky House of Representatives and it could change the shape of government in the state before the start of the new General Assembly.

Speaker Jody Richards and Rep. Greg Stumbo are both vying for the top spot. Speaker Richards has surrounded himself with members of the Democratic caucus who are more in favor of higher taxes and more spending than Rep. Stumbo has.

That matters because a shift in leadership would certainly result in sweeping changes to committee chairmanships. Committee chairs have a lot of latitude in determining which legislative bills get a hearing.

While Kentucky voters didn't make many changes yesterday, the possibility still exists for some serious change in Frankfort pretty soon.

We coulda had a constitutional amendment!

Kentucky's neighbors in Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia all have ballot initiatives to decide on today in addition to voting for candidates. No such luck in Kentucky, though it is easy to forget how much discussion we had about it earlier this year.

Of course, the casino issue took up a lot of time and discussion for something that got nowhere. Shutting down the Treasurer's office at least got through the Senate. Another one that certainly could use more discussion was a bill to cut the 60-day legislative sessions down to thirty days.

Kentucky law prohibits more that two amendment questions from appearing on the ballot in the same year.

What's a policy blog to do on election day?

This election season has been a rough time for a state-based policy blog such as this one. Real policy discussions fell out of favor with most of the reading public some time ago, only to be replaced by symbols and slogans of highly questionable value.

Tomorrow we lick our wounds, cart off our dead, and reorient our compasses toward making America work regardless of who prevails in today's elections. Here in our commonwealth, the need to set things right quickly can't be sacrificied in favor of political expediency much longer. We just can't afford it.

The resources of the Bluegrass Institute include an increasingly potent voice for fiscal responsibility and growth-oriented economic policies, non-biased education policies, and sustainable government management strategies.

Our regular readers and commenters have been great. Increasing numbers of Kentuckians are discovering the Bluegrass Institute, Freedom Kentucky wiki, and Kentucky Votes and are learning that we stand up for policies that encourage commonsense, data-driven solutions to vexing problems.

Whether you have found us through the recommendation of a friend or by accident, you can help us expand the influence of those who desire smaller, more efficient government by adding your own ideas and helping spread the word.

The fight continues...

Crowding out big Kentucky government

Someone look at the chart below and tell me Kentucky is going to be able to compete with the U.S. government for borrowed funds to pay for expanded government health insurance for the middle class, decades of underfunding in public employee fringe benefits, and politically expedient corporate welfare projects from Pikeville to Paducah.

We already know we don't have the money. Further, we know tax increases are not going to fly politically. And the casino economy in other states seems to have often made their problems worse just as our own lottery hasn't made education any more affordable.

At some point, small government is going to win out in Kentucky. The only question remaining -- and it's not so much a question as just another warning -- is whether we do it the smart way with massive spending cuts or wait until the house of cards comes crashing down.

Frankfort pickpockets go Hollywood, again

Starstruck Kentucky legislators are going to try again in 2009 to subsidize movie-making in the Bluegrass state. A very similar bill failed in the 2008 session.

It won't get that far, but it would be great if these tax incentive bills spurred a real debate about why state officials feel the need to take tax money from some people and give it to others.

With news that most states are facing economic difficulty, now would be a great time to see them give up on the idea that they can create and run a bureaucracy that is better suited to picking winners and losers in the economy than market forces.

Get ready for this Thanksgiving turkey

Actuaries for the Kentucky Retirement Systems will release the latest public employee benefits taxpayer liability numbers on November 20.

It won't be pretty.

It also isn't likely to get sufficient attention. Sort of like the $35.7 million taxpayer liability found in the KAPT program last month.

The KRS numbers are much larger, but the public has shown little interest in grasping the implications. Just stick it on the state's credit card and worry about it later.

It will be interesting to see how much longer that strategy works. Guess we could ask California.

ABC News says Kentucky in recession

If Kentucky is already in a recession, can't we all agree now may not be such a great time to be raising taxes?

The antidote for a recession's shrinking economic activity is policy that encourages more activity. Lower taxes and more economic freedom for taxpayers would be more sensible, don't you agree?

David Hawpe finds safety in distortion

Louisville Courier Journal columnist David Hawpe's Sunday column about workplace safety somehow shifted into a plug for allowing union bosses to intimidate workers into paying union dues with the proposed card check law:

"What is the voice of business saying in this election? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is using its stash of cash for nationwide airing of YouTube footage, depicting an encounter between Kentucky AFL-CIO president Bill Londrigan and an unidentified videographer at a Paducah Labor Day parade. The Chamber bills this as illustrative of how "union bosses are pressuring Congress" to approve the Employee Free Choice Act. Passed overwhelmingly by the House earlier this year, it would eliminate secret-ballot elections and permit unions to organize by signing cards instead. While overwhelmingly endorsed by the House earlier this year, the legislation stalled in the McConnell-controlled Senate."

Perhaps you noticed the word "overwhelmingly" used twice to describe how the House approved of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would take away the freedom of secret-ballot union elections. Hawpe can click his heels together three times and whisper "card check has overwhelming support" if he wants to, but that won't make it true. Thirteen union-state Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the bill in what more accurately might be described as nearly a party line vote.

Labor unions have caused enough damage to Kentucky's economy by keeping potential employers out. Avoiding card check, making Kentucky a right to work state, and repealing prevailing wage would provide more work opportunities for our citizens. We need that much more than we need to prop up union bosses.

Kentucky’s Portfolio Shortcomings Well Known – Outside Kentucky

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times by Lance T. Izumi, a senior fellow in California studies and the senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, shows that vague grading of writing portfolios in Kentucky is no secret elsewhere.

Per Izumi, the scoring is inflated and grading from student to student is inconsistent. A similar problem existed with Vermont’s writing portfolio program (at least until that state dropped this element of its accountability system).

So, what do people in California and Vermont know about writing portfolios that our CATS Task Force crowd just can’t agree about?

Will Tuesday's election be about taxes?

The tax code in Kentucky and on the federal level is a potent weapon for governments to use to manipulate, coerce, to punish, and to reward selectively.

In Frankfort, Rep. Bill Farmer is just about ready to release a bill that would dramatically reduce the state's ability to abuse citizens.

Federal taxation has been a big issue in the presidential race, but not nearly big enough. An upcoming movie, An Inconvenient Tax, may help. Here is the trailer:

What does "move the state forward" mean?

As Frankfort moves closer to a showdown on spending and taxes, everyone claims to want to move the state forward.

But it seems we need more in-depth discussions about what that means in order to really make progress. Speaker Jody Richards and House Budget Chairman Harry Moberly, for example, promote higher and higher education spending as the major key to "moving the state forward." Senate President David Williams and Senate Majority Floor Leader Dan Kelly have repeatedly pushed for holding schools more accountable for the funds they receive.

Unfortunately, powerful teachers union officials' political leanings play an unmistakable role in what is the largest piece of the Kentucky budget pie.

The Bluegrass Institute has been a long-time supporter of holding state and local education officials more accountable for the dollars with which they are entrusted. Rather than call special sessions of the legislature to paper over public pension mismanagement or to raise taxes, or hold pretend school assessment study groups, we need to do more to make the most of the resources we already have.

Of course, this would force the powerful teachers union to admit that at least part of their game has run its course. But it has, really, hasn't it?