Cauldron of wasteful spending continues to churn

By David E. Williams

Like ghouls hungrily stirring a pot of stew, the Kentucky general assembly has already begun its 2006 chant. Soon the freshly boiled batch of pork will be thoroughly sliced, diced and distributed at the expense of every taxpayer across Kentucky.

The 2005 batch tasted pretty bad. In conjunction with Citizens Against Government Waste, the Bluegrass Institute recently unveiled "Kentucky: Unbridled Pork" to expose the ugly truth behind the state's spending policies.

From structural problems like runaway Medicaid spending and a prevailing-wage law that inflates the cost of state-funded construction, to the ridiculous such as $2.7 million for shrimp farming, it's obvious that Kentucky politicians have forgotten to be good stewards of tax dollars.

To remedy the problem of excessive spending and bloated government, Kentucky should immediately institute a commission such as the one undertaken by South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to address the following serious spending issues highlighted in the "Piglet Book":

Medicaid

Medicaid originally was designed to provide basic health-care services to Kentucky's poorest citizens. But like many other well-intentioned efforts, the program has ballooned into an extremely costly service, providing virtually every health-care need for many people who are not destitute.

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