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Brian Richmond slugs lawmakers for negotiating the Kentucky state budget in secret (again).

The Heritage Foundation has an ugly chart on how quickly federal spending increased versus revenues for the last several presidential administrations. Notice anything?

I believe they’re doing it again. The General Assembly is violating the state constitution before our very own eyes and they’re doing it by passing an unconstitutional budget. Not surprisingly, 84 members of Kentucky’s House voted for it. Here’s the key phrase, which actually describes the budget:

AN ACT relating to appropriations and revenue measures

You might be surprised to learn that the state constitution actually prohibits the comingling of appropriation measures and revenue measures. Here’s a key phrase that every lawmaker swears to support when he or she is sworn in:

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose amendments thereto: Provided, No new matter shall be introduced, under color of amendment, which does not relate to raising revenue.

Emphasis mine. In layman’s terms, it means that bills to raise revenue can’t do anything else. They have to raise revenue only. That means, in translation, that a bill that spends state money may not also raise money, since a bill to raise money can’t also spend money. But the state constitution goes further:

No law enacted by the General Assembly shall relate to more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title, and no law shall be revised, amended, or the provisions thereof extended or conferred by reference to its title only, but so much thereof as is revised, amended, extended or conferred, shall be reenacted and published at length.

What does that mean? It actually, in part, restates the restriction I quoted earlier. Bills may not relate to more than one subject. Revenue is a subject. Appropriation is a subject. They may not comingle.

And yet, the state constitution makes this idea even more clear, but I won’t quote the whole section:

… The Governor shall have the power to disapprove any part or parts of appropriation bills embracing distinct items, and the part or parts disapproved shall not become a law unless reconsidered and passed, as in case of a bill.

Emphasis mine. Kentucky’s governor, like many governors, has the right to veto distinct portions of appropriation bills. This bill, as stated by the general assembly, relates to raising revenue. So it’s either unconstitutional or the title of the bill is wrong.

You’d think Harry Moberly would have been more careful in crafting this budget.

I wrote on this subject for the Bluegrass Institute a few years ago.

The Corbin Times-Tribune finds some interesting info about a tourism tax in Whitley County that may be illegal:

 Since 1999, Whitley County has allocated its transient room tax revenues to the Williamsburg-Whitley County Airport — but an informal opinion from the state attorney general’s office states the tax is improperly instituted because the county has no tourism commission.

According to the county ordinance established Feb. 11, 1999, a commission was not formed because “the transient room tax revenues are not large enough to justify retaining any portion of the revenues for administration by a tourism and convention commission.”

However, a tourism commission does not require paid board members or a salaried director to operate.

In the ordinance, the county assigned all transient room tax revenues, past and future, to the Williamsburg-Whitley County Airport Board Inc. “for the purpose of financing the cost of acquisition, construction, operation and maintenance of an airport in Whitley County.”

The 4-percent transient room tax is paid by the usage of hotel rooms in the county. Cumberland Falls State Resort Park accounts for nearly all of the county’s transient room tax revenues. According to park records, Cumberland Falls paid the county $50,995.15 in transient room taxes in the calendar year 2007. The only other contributing entity in the county is Sheltowee Trace Outfitters, which offers rafting and canoe experiences and has several on-site cabins. Other hotels located within Whitley County are in Williamsburg and Corbin city limits, and their tax revenues are given to each city’s tourism commission.

County officials contend there was nothing wrong with how they used the revenue from the tax. They gave the money to the Williamsburg-Whitley County Airport Board, an entity that is not associated with tourism. However, the Whitley County airport manager thinks the airport could be a fine tourism attraction:

“We get quite a few people who come into the airport for tourism,” he said. “I couldn’t give you a solid number on that. We’re not tracking that, but it does play a part in tourism.”

 The airport board’s president basically sums up how having an airport in Whitley county is not feasible:

“I think we need the airport for the area to help it grow and develop,” said airport board president Bob Moses. “It’s been a hard sell for the local people because they felt the money could be used for something else, something more profitable. The airport will probably never make money for the county, but neither does the interstate.”

Thousands of cars use the interstate every day, but how many planes take off from the Whitley County airport each day? This is another example of another government pork project propped up by tax dollars, illegally.

Brian Richmond at the Kentucky Club for Growth gets some coverage from Pat Crowley on Kentucky’s wished-for projects:

Though resolution is still a long way off, at this point it appears there are two ways to pay for the project - tolls or higher gas taxes.

I don’t like either, and I hope another solution emerges. But given those two evils, I’d rather pay more for gas than a toll on the bridge.

The mere fact that the federal government is shifting its responsibility to the state is an uncanny development. It’s not like the feds don’t have the money.

As Brian Richmond, executive director of the fiscally conservative Kentucky Club for Growth, points out, if Congress could wean itself from budget earmarks, there would be more money for highway projects.

“It’s not a revenue problem,” said Richmond, a Fort Mitchell resident. “It’s a spending problem. If the federal government would prioritize, we could easily pay for that bridge.”

The Lexington Herald-Leader has a preview of Gov. Steve Beshear’s first State of the Commonwealth address. Even though Beshear is continually complaining about how the state budget is in terrible shape it sounds like his proposed “fix” for the state employee pension shortfall will be throwing more money at it without changing or cutting benefits:

Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, said he hopes Beshear will use the statewide televised bully pulpit to at least touch on a plan to reform the state employee retirement system, which has been underfunded and must cope with bloating health care bills for retired workers.

Beshear has said he intends to offer such proposals during the 2008 General Assembly.

He says he’s considering selling bonds to raise money to cover part or all of the multi-billion deficit in the public employee pension system. However, he said he was cautioned by the bond-rating agencies in New York that some governments, such as the state of New Jersey and the city of Pittsburgh, Pa., got themselves in more financial trouble by doing so.

Bad idea if this all there is to his pension “solution.” You think it’d be a no brainer to convert all future state employee hires to a 401 k style defined contribution retirement plan, but current state employees seem to raise cain when anyone suggests this notion. Get with the program. Almost everyone in the private sector has this plan and you don’t hear them complaining. Plus, the proposals I have seen do not tinker with any type of current state employees’ benefits.

I expect tomorrow to be a depressing and bleak picture of the state budget. Beshear will probably tell everyone that he will have to cut all kinds of state programs and education funding… that is… unless the legislature passes a ballot initiative to let the public vote on allowing expanding gambling. If the public approves this measure it’ll mean more funding, more programs and no spending cuts… at least that’ll be how I predict Beshear will sell his gambling plan. If the people pass expanded gambling what will happen when the Legislature finds ways to spend all that “new revenue?”

It’ll also be interesting to see if Beshear will support an increase in Kentucky’s cigarette tax. Seems like Jody Richards is backpedaling, as usual, and now would support a cigarette tax increase. Just a couple of weeks ago Beshear was saying he did not support an increase in taxes “at this time.”

The speech airs on KET Monday at 7 PM EST.

I am the newest author here at catallaxy.net. Read my short bio here.

I describe myself as a conservative. I am often told that I am a libertarian. [Editor’s Note: She’s a libertarian.] To which my response is an old Reagan quote explaining that, “I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” I got my political start in the Republican Party, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that today’s Republican Party is no safe place for any true conservative.

If you’re a small-government gal like me, there are countless reasons to be disenfranchised from the current Republican Party; e.g. wiretaps, the drug war, the ‘terror’ war, massive government spending, suspension of habeas corpus, unprecedented debt, and on and on…

The fact of the matter is that the Republican Party, as it is now comprised, stands for massive government (whereas, of course, the Democratic Party stands for gargantuan government.).

So, you may be asking, where do disgruntled former Republicans go from here? I am not sure yet. I’m still trying to figure that one out.

In the meantime, I look forward to writing here at catallaxy.net.

… for young people who think like this:

I am a conservative. I value truly limited government, the rule of law, fiscal responsibility, free markets, civil liberties, and a humble, no-nation-building foreign policy, and I first assumed, as many still do, that the Republican Party best fit my convictions. But I’ve discovered that there’s no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties.

The GOP enacts liberal policies and today is composed of big-government sell-outs, progressive imperialists, militant Christians and far left neo-cons who have hijacked the party, Washington and the media.

Emphasis mine. And this …

Perhaps, like me, you voted for George W. Bush because you wanted to shrink government, not triple its size. Maybe you supported George W. Bush because you believed in a foreign policy of non-intervention, only to be told that we must “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.” This is a far cry from George Washington’s warning about entangling ourselves in the affairs with other nations.

The GOP today is not conservative.Thus, true conservatives have but two options: reform our party or leave it.

Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo are the only GOP presidential hopefuls who haven’t sold out. And Paul is the only candidate who is pro-life, a strict constitutionalist who is a proven advocate of slashing the size of government. He’s also against the Iraq war, and has been since the beginning. But if genuine conservatives fail to succeed in electing Ron Paul, our only option will be to leave the GOP and form our own party, one that will truly stand by our conservative principles.