Two dead bills in the 2009 General Assembly, SB 145 and SB 146, would have cut costs in state government by trimming back the heavy burden prevailing wages put on public construction projects.
The Bluegrass Institute has endorsed dropping policies and programs that require expenditures of public money with little or no discernible public benefit. Prevailing wage is a big one. At a time in which healthcare spending in a front-burner issue, certificate of need repeal is another. And after dragging the circus into Frankfort last summer to "reform" public employee fringe benefits and its $30 billion and growing disaster in the making, House Speaker Greg Stumbo and Senate President David Williams are now making noises about reneging on the improved funding schedule of which they were once so proud.
Rep. Bill Farmer warned last June that this would happen:
"But Rep. Bill Farmer, R-Lexington, said future General Assemblies will be free to ignore what really amounts to a funding suggestion. Farmer sees an ulterior motive in the hesitancy to address exploding health-care spending for government employees.
"If they decide not to make those payments in a future General Assembly, they just won’t make them and there is nothing anyone can do about it," Farmer said."
Kind of makes you wonder why Gov. Steve Beshear, Williams, and Stumbo are now slapping each other on the back and congratulating themselves on a "productive session."
1 comment:
"The Bluegrass Institute has endorsed dropping policies and programs that require expenditures of public money with little or no discernible public benefit."
This is a bogus claim on your part.
One of the most failed policies and programs requiring the expenditures of public money with little or no discernible public benefit is the $270 million a year Kentucky spends to incarcerate non-violent marijuana users.
End arresting and incarcerating non-violent marijuana users, and pardon all those currently incarcerated for such dubious charges. That would immediately free up $270 million a year to meet budgetary requirements.
Yet Bluegrass Institute has never advocated dropping such a failed policy and program.
Prevailing wage laws are not burdensome on public construction. The higher the wages, the more profit that comes to companies. Why? Easy.
Those who receive higher wages have more discretionary income to spend on conveniences.
Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, argued for wages that were sufficient to pay for a family's "necessaries and conveniences."
That today would be called a "living family wage."
But conservatives don't like capitalism. They are in bondage to their ideological feudal lords and barrons of the past.
Sens. Corker (R-TN), Shelby (R-AL), GRAHAM (R-SC), McConnell (R-KY) and Bunning (R-KY) are all feudalists--conservatives--if you will, preaching their ideology of feudalism, which they call "conservatism."
No wonder John Stuart Mill said of conservatives: "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
Listening to those "solons," it's no wonder Mark Twain wrote:
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot…and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
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