Frankfort's next target: your job or your kids?

The New York Times picked up on Kentucky's deteriorating unemployment insurance fund today:

""It is something that we are concerned about," said Kim Brannock, a spokeswoman for the Office of Employment and Training in Kentucky, where the unemployment trust fund balance now sits at $133 million, compared with $250 million a year ago. The fund has not borrowed money from the federal government since the 1980s. "At this point we are solvent," she said, "but we are monitoring the situation.""

Borrowing from the federal government is the first option when these funds run out. Raising taxes is the second.

The message Frankfort needs to get loud and clear is that the gravy train days of big government in Kentucky must end immediately. Tightening spending controls, paying realistic employee compensation, and setting policies that spur economic growth should have been done years ago.

So while Frankfort looks in the months ahead to either borrow or tax its way out of this unemployment mess, citizens need to push for smaller, less expensive government. Otherwise, the current cycle will only get worse. And then so will the next one and the next one...