A quasi-government group’s response to Gov. Andy Beshear’s signature of legislation creating a separate board for the County Employees Retirement System (CERS) – which covers local government workers and classified school personnel – illustrates the wrong-headed mindset at the heart of all of Kentucky pension woes. “House Bill 484 creates a nine-member CERS Board of…
We’re reminded during COVID-19 that the beauty of this un-commonwealth isn’t limited to its majestic mountains, picturesque horse farms and flowing rivers. The threat posed by the coronavirus to our commonwealth’s social and economic fabric is being answered with unselfish acts of kindness on full display against a backdrop of the generosity and big-heartedness which…
Some politically leftist groups and their enablers in Congress and the Kentucky legislature are seizing upon former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s advice to “never let a serious crisis go to waste” offered during last decade’s Great Recession to push for costly policies that will outlast the coronavirus and hinder economic recovery across…
Editor’s note: The Bluegrass Beacon is a weekly syndicated newspaper column posted on the Bluegrass Institute’s website after being published by newspapers statewide. This column was originally published on April 1, 2020. COVID-19’s spread, which doesn’t stop for anyone or anything – including for legislators’ constitutional duty to pass a budget determining how state revenues…
Legislation passed by the Kentucky House of Representatives intended to provide long-term relief from steep increases in pension payments faced by quasi-government agencies like regional universities, health departments and rape crisis centers represents small steps in the right direction. However, the Kentucky Senate, which now will consider House Bill 171 (HB 171), could turn this…
Every direction you turn at the Capitol these days the discussion centers on what rocks need overturning to find more revenue under the unproven – and categorically untrue – assumption that the 22 billion of Kentucky taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars collected during the current budget biennium fail to provide sufficient funding for necessary services citizens expect…
Our commonwealth’s founders wisely set a high bar for changing Kentucky’s Constitution. The process requires support of two-thirds of the members of both the Kentucky House and Senate to place a proposed amendment on the ballot.ens And just in case a steamroll gets started in the legislature on bad policy, the Constitution gives voters the…
With spring training just around the corner, I’ve got baseball and boards on my mind. Expectations are high along the river in Cincinnati Redsland at Great American Ball Park – visible from Northern Kentucky – where owner Bob Castellini has dug deep into his pocket to shell out $166 million for five free-agent studs. $166…
Both projects at the heart of this legislative edition of Liberty Boosters and Busters offer reminders of the costly, if unintended, consequences of government involvement in undertakings better left to the private sector. However, there’s at least an attempt to limit one project’s ability to undercut private-sector competition with a publicly subsidized product while costly…
Republican legislators representing rural districts across Kentucky who want to support school choice but fear possible backlash from bureaucrats who run local schools back home received some stout political cover from President Trump in his State of the Union speech last month. While calling on Congress to pass legislation creating federal tax-credit scholarships, Trump noted…