The Heartland Institute just published a Right-to-Work focus on the state of Kentucky, and our economic future, with its forced- unionization, does not look bright. In fact, according to the 2014 American Legislative Exchange Council’s annual economic competitiveness study, Rich States, Poor States, Kentucky ranks 28th in economic performance and 39th in economic outlook. Since 1947,…
It’s monumental that Michigan — home to the powerful United Automobile Workers, which has helped fund the nationwide multi-billion dollar Big Labor political machine through dues payments forcibly stripped from paychecks of Michigan workers — became the nation’s 24th right-to-work state in late 2012. The state’s right-to-work policy simply states that in Michigan, no worker can…
The Lexington Herald-Leader rightly calls for more openness in the University of Kentucky’s budget meetings. (They could also have added the need for more openness in the General Assembly’s budget process.) Budget negotiations — whether at the capitol or in a university board room often get complicated and messy, which is precisely the explanation that the university cites…
Murray Energy Corporation, one of the largest employers in the U.S. coal industry, filed a lawsuit this week in the United States Court of Appeals in the D.C. Circuit against the Obama Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency. The lawsuit is intended to challenge the EPA’s devastating cap-and-tax regulations on existing coal-burning power plants that will destroy…
“Right-to-work laws give employees the freedom to choose whether to join a labor union and pay union dues as a condition of employment.” –Alex Monahan, The Heartland Institute
Two recent examples of government secrecy show that Kentucky is a long way from having the kind of transparency in its government institutions that will bring real accountability to taxpayers footing the bill: Not only are the double-and-triple dippers in Kentucky’s public pension system protected from public scrutiny, so are its investment practices. The Kentucky…
“The Kentucky Black Alliance for Educational Options Pastors Coalition…is saddened by this attempt to defraud our people and cheat our students out of a great education.” The Louisville-based group’s response to the closing of Myer’s Middle School was published in an op-ed featured in the Monday edition of the Courier-Journal. In their letter, the pastors…
The state already has spent $1.2 million trying to keep Seven County Services, a mental health agency – from leaving the Kentucky Retirement Systems. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Joan A. Lloyd, who granted the agency’s request to leave the system, summed it up in her 83-page opinion when she said that the agency cannot continue to…
Angelina Jolie once said about then-husband Billy Bob Thornton that if she ever caught him cheating, “I wouldn’t kill him because I love his children and they need a dad. But I would beat him up. I know where all of his sports injuries are.” Based on the cheating epidemic that’s enveloped our society, we…
The Tax Foundation reports that Kentucky’s gas tax is higher than four neighboring states. The Bluegrass Institute wonders why the commonwealth can’t seem to find the money for needed bridges and roads.