President Obama's weekly address

President Obama explains how the budget he sent to Congress will fulfill the promises he made as a candidate, and assures special interests that he is ready for the fight.

Gov Beshear's weekly address

The party of 'No'

While President Obama acted, Republicans in Congress said NO. Tell Republicans that Americans won't take NO for an answer.

Republicans get fact-checked

One of the most pervasive Republican talking points is that Obama's tax plan will hurt small businesses. The Associated Press today points out that it's not true:

Obama is proposing to raise taxes on households earning over $250,000 by increasing the rate on the top two tax brackets and limiting deductions, starting in 2011.

Republicans and other critics, knowing they will get little mileage from defending the rich, instead are casting the plan as a tax hit on people who run industrious little companies driving job growth.

That's not likely, according to one in-depth analysis, which found that more than 95 percent of small business owners would be off the hook.

Beshear releases plan for stimulus dollars

Governor Beshear issued this press release today:

LOUISVILLE, Ky.— Gov. Steve Beshear today unveiled the “Kentucky at Work” initiative – the details of an estimated $3 billion in stimulus funding from the federal government that will be invested in Kentucky over the next 28 months.

“Kentucky At Work,” the commonwealth’s plan to implement American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars signed into law last week by President Barack Obama, will provide a much-needed, one-time infusion of dollars for two primary purposes: to maintain jobs and quality of life through investments in education, health care and public safety; and to make strategic investments now to position Kentucky for the future.

“Both of these principles recognize that we cannot retreat in our commitment to vital areas like education, health care, economic development and public safety,” Gov. Beshear said. “The bipartisan, mid-year budget initiative that the General Assembly passed and I just signed into law preserves these priorities.

“At the same time, building roads, bridges and water and sewer lines, as well as new energy programs and health initiatives, not only create jobs but also enhance the infrastructure that makes expanded development possible. The ‘Kentucky at Work’ initiative helps to stimulate the economy in both the short and long term.”

Beshear, who recently returned from a weekend conference of the National Governors Association (NGA) in Washington, D.C. where he met with President Obama, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, said the President’s recovery plan recognizes that states are hurting.

The NGA estimates that between 2009 and 2011, states will face shortfalls totaling $250 billion. Kentucky cut spending over the last year by $432 million and just reached agreement on a bipartisan plan to address an additional $456 million hole in this fiscal year.

At a briefing today in Louisville with Mayor Jerry Abramson, Gov. Beshear presented a breakdown of major areas of funding under the “Kentucky at Work” plan:

Medicaid: Kentucky’s Medicaid program will receive about $990 million over the next two years. The program currently faces a $232 million deficit this year, while demand for services is increasing by about 3,000 people a month due to the economy.

Health and welfare: Kentucky will receive about $272 million for areas like public housing, weatherization, child care, child support enforcement and homelessness prevention.

Education: Kentucky will receive about $924 million in stimulus money. Approximately $535 million will be used to preserve existing commitments to K-12 and higher education, as well as to continue efforts to hold down the cost of tuition. The remaining $389 million, administered through the Kentucky Department of Education, will go to Title 1, Head Start, technology and school lunch programs and other programs that help families in crisis.

General Fund: Kentucky will receive nearly $120 million to help address critical shortfalls in priority areas and mitigate against even deeper cuts over the next two fiscal years.

Job training and public safety: The commonwealth will receive $66 million in job training and workforce development dollars. In the area of public safety, Kentucky will receive about $30 million to combat violence against women and to support criminal justice efforts at both the state and local levels.

Roads and Bridges: Kentucky will receive $421 million for highways and bridges. Gov. Beshear and legislative leaders have been working together on a road plan that contains projects that meet the federal government’s requirement that 50 percent of those funds be obligated within 120 days. Projects must be shovel-ready.

Transit: About $50 million will be allocated for transit.

Water and Sewer lines: Kentucky will receive about $71 million for water and sewer infrastructure.

Community Development: The state will be allocated some $12 million for local community development block grants.

Energy Projects: About $63 million will be allocated to Kentucky for energy initiatives.

The governor has put together an interagency work group – led by Cabinet Secretary Larry Hayes – to help guide planning for the Kentucky at Work initiative.

Two areas not accounted for in this $3 billion of direct investment include opportunities for states to compete for several billion in grants in the areas of health technology, education, public safety, transportation, energy research and the expansion of broad-band networks, among others.

Kentuckians will also benefit from various tax cuts, tax credits and other incentives included in the President’s plan. These include those for low-income families, first-time homebuyers, incentives for the purchase of new vehicles and tuition assistance for college.

As investments are made, Gov. Beshear stressed the need for openness and accountability of the “Kentucky at Work” plan.

“The federal government has created a Web site to track the dollars and how they are spent, and we will have something similar available here in Kentucky,” Gov. Beshear said. “These are tax dollars and public deserves to know how their money is being spent.”

Download the Kentucky At Work Program fact sheet

Obama's Address to Joint Session of Congress

Did you miss President Obama's speech last night? You can watch it here:

Bunning's gaffe

Kentucky's newspapers have sounded off on Jim Bunning's recent outrageous comments. Here's what the Courier-Journal had to say:

Kentuckians know that Jim Bunning was a terrific Hall of Fame pitcher. Practically all of them know that (on his best days) he is a mediocre senator. But who knew he was an oncologist?

Yet, there stood the state's intrepid junior senator the other night at a Lincoln Day Dinner in Hardin County, telling fellow Republicans that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months.

...Republicans should think hard about whether Sen. Bunning should carry their banner in next year's Senate race. Or will they demand an alternative?

The Herald-Leader added this:

Bunning, a former major-league pitcher who makes his living representing us and selling autographed baseballs, told a Republican dinner in Elizabethtown Saturday night, that Ginsburg probably won't live out the year because she has pancreatic cancer, the "kind that you don't get better from." Bunning reportedly mentioned this as an opportunity because Ginsburg is liberal and he'd like a conservative justice in her place. Twisted? Appalling? Disgusting? Yes.

Bunning's shocking insensitivity

Jim Bunning showed a shocking lack of sensitivity in Elizabethtown this weekend. The Courier-Journal has the story:

U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning predicted over the weekend that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months.

During a wide-ranging, 30-minute speech on Saturday at the Hardin County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner, Bunning, of Kentucky, said he supports conservative judges "and that's going to be in place very shortly because Ruth Bader Ginsburg... has cancer."

..."Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live after (being diagnosed) with pancreatic cancer," he said.

Bunning has since apologized for his comments. But according to The Arena, he managed to embarrass himself further in the process:

This afternoon, Bunning's office issued a statement in which the senator said: "I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsberg." He spelled her name with an "e" instead of a "u." The mistake was repeated in the headline on the press release.

Mitch distorts facts on CNN

Media Matters catches Mitch McConnell spreading falsehoods yesterday on CNN:

During the February 22 edition of CNN's State of the Union, host John King allowed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to revive the debunked claim that letting the Bush tax cuts expire for Americans making more than $250,000 would affect a large percentage of small businesses. After King stated that "the Obama administration says it will, as he promised during the campaign, let the Bush tax cuts go away for Americans who make more than $250,000 a year," McConnell replied, "[W]hen the -- our good friends on the other side of the aisle say raising the taxes on the wealthy, what they're really talking about is small business. A vast majority of American small businesses pay taxes as individual taxpayers. So, we've got to ask ourselves whether increasing capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, and taxes on small business is a great thing to do in the middle of a deep recession."

Likewise, a February 22 Hill article reported: "McConnell said that tax hikes on the wealthy, which [President] Obama is expected to propose in his first budget, would hit small businesses."

McConnell's assertion is a revival of a false talking point made by Sen. John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign. As Media Matters for America documented, McCain falsely claimed that "[i]f you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator Obama is going to raise your tax rates." In fact, according to the Tax Policy Center's table of 2007 tax returns that reported small business income, 481,000 of those returns -- about 2 percent -- are in the top two income tax brackets, which include all filers with taxable incomes of more than $250,000.

Mitch's shameful legacy

Today's Courier-Journal chastises Mitch McConnell for his irresponsibility:

Why do so many Kentucky politicians -- especially Republicans -- shun taxes like some combination of Plague, Ebola and Necrotizing Fasciitis? Because it's the easy way to please voters, and because the state's most powerful pol, Mitch McConnell, has advised them to do it.

...Remember last year's weeks of McConnell campaign ads lambasting Bruce Lunsford for once having pushed (as a gubernatorial staffer) a gas tax system tied to the price at the pump -- a formula that had raised the tax just over 12 cents in the ensuing 28 years?

When the McConnell biography is written, it should devote a chapter to his singular achievement -- perfecting an anti-tax culture that dooms Kentucky to remain a backward state.