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.
1 comment:
The area to make spending cuts should be obvious. Approximately $270 a year is spent incarcerating non-violent marijuana users. The Kentucky General Assembly (KGA) needs to pass a resolution urging the Governor to pardon all non-violent marijuana users.
Recently, Massachusetts and Michigan voters sent a signal that it's time for this country to take a hard look at our current marijuana policies.
Massachusetts voters approved a marijuana decriminalization initiative by a 65% to 35% margin, Michigan voters enacted the nation's 13th medical marijuana law by a 63% to 37% margin, and voters approved at least nine local reform measures across the county, including Hawaii and Arkansas.
In Massachusetts, criminal penalties for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana will be replaced by a fine of $100, similar to a speeding ticket.
In Michigan, patients with serious diseases like HIV/AIDS, cancer, and multiple sclerosis will no longer have to fear arrest if they use marijuana pursuant to the recommendation of a doctor and have a state-issued I.D. card. One in four Americans now live in a state with such protections.
President-elect Barack Obama has said he would end federal raids on patients and caregivers obeying state medical marijuana laws.
The KGA should introduce sensible, compassionate, and humane marijuana legislation.
The KGA should also include decriminalizing/legalizing the growing, processing and manufacturing of industrial hemp. It shouldn't matter if the hemp is used for biofuels, hemp hurds for animal bedding to replace straw, fibers for building materials, hempcrete for roads and bridges that could last 1,000 years and foods that could end world hunger and malnutrition. Hemp foods is one of the most nutritional foods on the planet.
The KGA can make the argument that if the federal government is calling off raids of medical marijuana users in states that have medical marijuana laws, then the same courtesy should be extended to states that have industrial hemp laws.
Doing that would solve nearly all if not all of Kentucky's budgetary problems and give a real boost to our national economy. It would create thousand of new jobs in Kentucky, many of the jobs in the agricultural growing areas of Kentucky.
Many new high-paying tech jobs would be created to help develop over 50,000 products that can be made from hemp.
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