An Open Letter to Kentucky Legislators from the Bluegrass Institute: Dear Legislators, Twenty years ago, a group of community leaders met and wondered how they could make the biggest difference in poor children’s lives in the inner city of Louisville. Their passion resulted in School Choice Scholarships and was based on the founders’ vision that children…
Interest in the administration costs associated with Kentucky’s public education system increased recently, so I decided to explore some available data. Several days ago, I wrote about “Are Kentucky’s education administration costs out of line?” That blog looked at education funding breakdowns from the US Census Bureau’s annually issued Public Education Finances series and found…
Editor’s note: The Bluegrass Beacon column is a weekly syndicated statewide newspaper column posted on the Bluegrass Institute website after being released to and published by newspapers statewide. This edition of “Liberty Boosters and Busters” is brought to you by reasonable Kentuckians who reject racism, bigotry and censorship with every fiber of their freedom-loving…
“We’re not for tax increases.” –Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown
Getting rid of an unbalanced reliance on the income tax and moving to an approach that taxes consumption instead would brand Kentucky a state of producers rather than a commonwealth of punishers. After all, what do personal and corporate income taxes accomplish other than funding government services and programs by punishing – and thus discouraging…
Paducah Sun executive editor Steve Wilson’s recent missive in favor of raising Kentucky’s cigarette tax by a Cuban cigar-sized 40 percent was in response to my recent column calling on policymakers to leave “any and all” tobacco-tax increases out of Frankfort’s tax-reform conversation altogether and instead focus on pro-growth opportunities. Wilson offers arguments filled with…
The new wrinkle in anti-smoking crusaders’ annual demand to raise Kentucky’s cigarette tax is that hiking taxes to fund the Medicaid expansion is somehow a better approach than moving able-bodied adults from government dependency to the fulfillment offered by work and independence. Ironic, isn’t it, that these devotees are willing to raise a tax that…
All taxpayers and restaurant owners of Shelbyville and Madisonville wanted this Christmas was to be left alone by pro-tax politicians and bureaucrats. Nearly 3,000 of them even went to the trouble of signing Kentucky’s biggest Christmas list – a petition opposing Shelbyville’s planned super-sized restaurant tax, which the state allows what previously were considered fourth…
The more we hear from experts on Kentucky’s pension crisis, the clearer it becomes: no Black-Friday-type-of-deal exists to bail out the state’s retirement systems, which face a nearly $40 billion unfunded liability. But Santa made an early visit this year to Kentucky Retirement Systems’ executive director Bill Thielen, whose board paid $38,500 to a Colorado…
For Immediate Release: Thursday, Dec. 3, 2015 Contact: Jim Waters @ 270.320.4376 (SHELBYVILLE, Ky.) — Despite strong opposition by taxpayers and local business owners, the Shelbyville City Council plans to bring a proposed 3-percent restaurant tax back up tonight at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 315 S. Washington St. 40065. The politicians and bureaucrats…