Jim Waters was the special guest on Evangel World Prayer’s latest television program. He was there promoting a school “choice” plan backed by Frank Simon and the American Family Association of Kentucky. See it here for yourself. And here’s Jim’s one sheet on school choice, hosted by Frank Simon.

During the discussion on school choice the issue of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation came up. And boy, were they fired up. An older, obviously gay gentleman called in who claimed to be “cured” of the gay. His father was allegedly a school teacher (convenient, eh?) who raped him along with other students when he was younger. This turned him gay, led to his alcoholism and landed him in prison. Imagine that. “Pastor” Bob Rogers, the host of the show, then used the story to scare the bejeezus out of folks re: the gays as teachers in schools. He provided the telephone number for Frank Simon’s office and proceeded to not-so-overtly spread the homophobia.

Jim tried to distance himself in his weekly column published yesterday on Page One and in LEO. But this just takes the cake. Promoting school choice or a voucher program is one thing. But combining it with religious hatred and homophobia is beyond offensive.

As a result we’ll no longer be publishing Jim Waters’ weekly column, Bluegrass Beacon. We’ll leave that up to LEO. That is, if they want to promote ignorance disguised as progress in the form of the Bluegrass Institute. And we doubt they’ll want to do that even in the name of offering an alternative point-of-view.
We’re disappointed and wish Jim the best. But we won’t be publishing anyone promoting Frank Simon’s tripe. Especially not a man who is a member of an alleged think tank that was established to prevent government waste while supporting education.

To Jim: Complaints aren’t filed because of fear of bigots like Frank Simon– whose hate group was responsible for the phone calls Jefferson County’s Board of Education received– and those within the public school system who are known for retaliation. Dig a little deeper or next time give us a call if you have questions.

And you’re anti-public education for wanting things like school vouchers. You’re anti-public education for your desire to stop teacher’s unions and to use public dollars for private or religious schooling. Not because you report the bad news about public education or the corruption that exists.  Even people like Jake chime in to support you when you’re revealing legitimate mistakes in education.

This whole “special rights” and “special protections” crap has got to stop. It’s bogus. Tell us– what is special about being treated as equals of the majority?

By Jim Waters

Some school-board members exhibit more passion for what happens in a teacher’s bedroom than in the teacher’s classroom.

If they focused more on improving Kentucky schools, parents would sleep a lot better.

An example: The Jefferson County Board of Education voted 4-3 on Nov. 26 to add special protection for gay and lesbian employees to its harassment and employment policies.

The problem: Teachers aren’t being harassed because of their sexual preferences.

At least they aren’t filing official complaints with in Jefferson County, the state’s largest school district. And judging from the often-heard protests from some gays and those who claim to speak for them, there’s not a chance in Hades they wouldn’t complain if harassment occurred.

Ironically, now that the board remodeled its priorities by moving the bedroom into the boardroom, students might very well pay for this unwarranted intrusion – in more ways than one.

“Say you’ve got a big, male teacher and a 10-year-old boy makes some smart-aleck comment about how he dresses or the way he acts,” said Stacy Grimm, whose son attends a Jefferson County high school. “Is that student going to be suspended or worse, charged with harassment under this new rule?”

An equally sobering question is: Will the student even be able to read the front-page stories about the issue? Test scores indicate many could not.

It would be different if current policies allowed homosexuals to be harassed. No one should be discriminated against, least of all the parents who have a vested interest in their children’s education.

Yet, Louisville’s school bureaucrats dedicated an enormous amount of time toward satisfying a small minority while ignoring the enormous number of voice messages and e-mails they received opposing this policy.

But that won’t stop some from charging me and conscientious parents like Grimm with being homophobic or bigoted. That stereotype should be ignored – just as the Jefferson County board ignored a multitude of parents.

Grimm’s daughter attends Sacred Heart Academy.

“But we haven’t ruled out that we would send her to a public school in the future,” Grimm said.

That doesn’t sound like a bigoted, anti-public education redneck to me.

Those who would condemn Grimm are the same geniuses who accuse anyone pointing out failure in Kentucky’s public schools, as incontestably opposed to public education. I’ve got the e-mails to prove it.

But am I “anti-public education” for reporting that 38 percent of students who were freshmen in Jefferson County’s high schools in 1999 didn’t graduate in 2003?

I bet the parents of special-needs students don’t consider me opposed to public education for noting that average student achievement gaps in CATS scores worsens as these children get pushed from one grade to another.

“In Louisville’s elementary schools, the learning-disabled kids trail in proficiency by 22 points in reading and 23 points in math, but by middle school, they trail by an alarming 41 points in reading and 32 points in math,” said noted education expert Richard Innes.

Innes has closely followed developments in our state’s education system, particularly since the Kentucky Education Reform Act passed 17 years ago. No one I know – not even bureaucrats frustrated with his passion for truth and ability to discover it – consider this stellar and intellectually honest researcher as a bigot or opposed to public schools.

This isn’t about parents’ moral beliefs, either. Groups like the Family Foundation and members of the clergy are doing a good job of addressing those issues. This is about a school bureaucracy exercising unneeded government intrusion and increasingly ignoring parents’ wishes and students’ needs in favor of a small minority of adults.

“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments,” said 20th-century politician Sen. William Borah.

The good news: Kentucky’s parents are losing patience with a monopolistic, one-size-fits-all system that gives them little choice, creates lots of strife and serves up large helpings of mediocrity with side orders of failure.

Updated: Jim has updated his story to include information about Draud.

The good faces of education shouldn’t get a nose job

By Jim Waters

The Kentucky Board of Education thumbed its nose at Gov.-elect Steve Beshear, who wanted to slow down the selection process for a new education commissioner.

Beshear said he thought some good candidates didn’t apply because of the contentious gubernatorial campaign. But he overestimates the involvement of politics and underestimates the obstacles to attracting quality candidates created by an education bureaucracy so bloated it can’t bend over and touch its toes – a body part unseen for decades.

But the cloud of neglect the board cast on Beshear comes with a silver lining: the clearly diminished power of Kentucky’s governor.

Some of the old timers at Al Smith’s final “Comment on Kentucky” program, which I attended the other night, bemoan that. They shouldn’t.

Back in the day, thumbing your nose at the governor – as a legislator or board member – meant a “perp walk” to the emperor’s office, and not to see his new clothes. Rather, it was the political equivalent of a trip to the principal’s office.

Kentuckians should relish that the people’s representatives no longer have to bow and curtsey to all-powerful governors.

So it’s good that the board displayed some independent thinking. But it would have been more commendable had it not also thumbed its collective nose at qualified commissioner candidates.

Updated Section

In the end, the board made a safe pick, choosing Rep. Jon Draud, R-Edgewood, a longtime legislator and former educator.

Draud talks a good talk. For example, he told the Bluegrass Policy Blog that he would consider scrapping the state’s incompetent CATS assessment for a better testing program.

Still, by foregoing a wider search for proven candidates, the board missed many opportunities to get a bold leader.

END UPDATE

In my book, that’s a much-bigger deal than ignoring a politician. The stakes – the reform of our education system and the future of young Kentuckians – are much higher than any politician’s fleeting tenure.

Thankfully, some – such as Pikeville lawyer Larry Webster – know that.

In a refreshingly blunt article in the Lexington Herald-Leader recently, Webster charged the board with intellectual malfeasance for ignoring Penney Sanders, former director of Kentucky’s Office of Education Accountability and commissioner applicant par excellence.

“Every day that goes by without her as commissioner of education is a bad day,” he wrote. “The education system of eastern Kentucky, providing mediocre students for our mediocre colleges, is crookeder than a shepherd’s stick. But there was one bright time, and that was when Sanders watchdogged the schools.”

“She made school administrators follow the rules, something amazing and encouraging to the country people up here,” he wrote. “School officials had not obeyed the law before her and haven’t since she left.”

And as long as we’re fondly recalling the salad days of education, let’s recall the good ole days when quality teachers and dedicated principals were backed up by bosses at the central office and parents at home. It’s not that way anymore, at least not in Lexington.

The home-office types have pushed out overachieving and underappreciated principal Peggy Petrilli at Booker T. Washington Elementary School, a school created by merging two of the city’s worst-performing schools filled with students from low-income families.

Despite leading an academic turnaround, including a meteoric 76-percent rise in math test scores during her short time at the school, she apparently drew the ire of some who preferred the status quo. On top of that, she’s received little heartfelt public support from superintendent Stu Silberman about her performance at Booker T.

In her former gig at Lexington’s Northern Elementary School, Petrilli demonstrated innovative leadership and determination, which resulted in math scores rising from 39 in 2000 – the year before she took over – to 73.2 in 2005, her final year. The school’s CATS Overall Academic Index went from 51.3 in 2000 to 80.2 in 2005.

This turnaround didn’t happen at a school with wealthy families and a windfall of resources. Seventy percent of North Elementary’s students are either black or Hispanic; 63 percent can get free or reduced-price lunches.

Improving schools mirrors sausage-making. The end result works out, but watching the process can become gut wrenching. Petrilli must have stepped on some toes to get the job done. But that’s the point: she gets the job done everywhere she goes.

The reward for Petrilli, Sanders and anyone else daring enough to push for excellence in Kentucky’s mediocre education system?

The “mediocrats,” as attorney Webster opines, thumb their long – and snooty – noses at them.

Get a grip, people! Call this “search” off and start fresh. This Barbara Erwin clustercrap has to stop.

By Jim Waters

Al Smith, longtime host of “Comment on Kentucky,” is right in urging the Kentucky Board of Education to wait and conduct a national search for a new education commissioner – like other states do.

But his plea falls on deaf ears.

The board’s haste – along with the insipid candidates it has attracted – confirms Solomon’s reckoning that: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be.”

The board’s most recent search process offered the same secretive proceedings that resulted in an embarrassing fiasco earlier this year that led to a superintendent from Illinois, Barbara Erwin, getting hired. She quit before working a single day because the media reported on her faulty resume, which led to an uproar.

But the board got a new chairman – and a rare second chance to get it right.

I (naively) hoped the board’s new chairman, Joe Brothers, an Elizabethtown plant manager, really meant what he said to reporters: “I have no agenda, other than the kids of Kentucky.”

Not a single aspect of the board’s second opportunity to do some good offers any evidence that a new day awaits “the kids of Kentucky.” In fact, Kentuckians have again been left largely in the dark throughout much of the process. The finalists became known only recently.

Yet, Brothers told reporters “the board wants the public and the media to help vet the candidates to avoid the problems it had with the last search.”

But it’s not just “the problems with the last search” that demand this board’s attention. Rather, what’s needed is what this board seems determined to avoid: a proven tough leader determined to put students first by changing Kentucky’s education system.

We need someone willing to accept whatever collateral damage to the bureaucracy such an approach causes. I don’t see any evidence of such commitment in the current crop of candidates.

Kentucky’s taxpayers and parents should be outraged that this board spent $50,000 on a search firm that gave us a commissioner that doesn’t even know how to use spell-check. But they should be even more incensed that the board entrusted with the leadership of our education system continues to place the self-interests of bureaucrats and politicians in Frankfort above the future of our children.

Instead of commissioner candidates with proven courage to fight for aggressive change, go-along, get-along legislators and other non-descript bureaucrats applied for the job.

Bureaucrat Susan Weston described Rep. Jon Draud, one of the leading candidates, as “a collaborative person.”

Inspiring, isn’t it?

Another candidate, Kentucky-native-turned-Florida education bureaucrat Jim Warford, told reporters he would consider it “a professional honor” and that he wanted to “continue the education reforms under way in Kentucky.”

Warford apparently doesn’t see the need to radically change a system that even the pro-establishment Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center reports dwells among the bottom third of states in academic achievement.

Warford’s intention to “continue the education reforms under way in Kentucky” sounds like “more of the same” to me. It sounds like miniscule improvement, grading on big curves and placating labor bosses at the plush teachers-union building near Frankfort’s Capitol.

He’s also made it known that he opposes school choice. Warford told the St. Petersburg Times that he blamed vouchers and charter schools for “undermining our public schools” in Florida.

Why is the board even considering a leader who believes that giving parents choices “undermines” public schools?

Kentucky’s taxpayers and parents shell out $4 billion to support our state’s schools each year. They more than anyone have a vested interest in seeing schools succeed. And they understand that competition works.

As was the case with the first round of searching for a new commissioner, Kentuckians have heard very little from “Commish Search II: The Sequel” candidates about important issues.

For example, why have commissioner candidates ducked the issue of the widening achievement gap between black and white students?

Why aren’t we hearing from them about offering plans for merit pay to provide sorely needed incentives to keep and hire good teachers, while weeding out poorly performing ones?

Why aren’t these candidates offering specific plans for improving Kentucky’s graduation rates, which now are lower than when “education reform” began in 1990?

Solomon knows why.

If you oppose unnecessary spending on children’s health-care programs, Hollenbach and his political siblings probably consider you “anti-children” or “anti-family.” If you support offering parents a choice – any kind of choice – on where their children attend school, then they call you “anti-public education.”

Way to use Republican spin, Jim! Unnecessary spending on children’s health care? What? Yeah, the zillion children in this country don’t deserve care. That’s the ticket.

Providing taxpayer-funded vouchers for children to go to private religious institutions is hardly being anti-choice. It’s about avoiding the real problem and not making public education work. It’s about the separation of church and state. It’s not a black & white issue and painting it as such is closed-minded and uneducated.

And using Todd Hollenbach as a poster child for Democratic ideology was just hilarious.

By Jim Waters

A chasm exists between anti-government zealots and those who believe in limited government.

One believes in anarchy. The other holds to the principle offered in a statement attributed most often to Thomas Jefferson: “government governs best which governs least.”

Again, that’s “governs least,” not “governs not at all.”

Most big-spending politicians would rather chase skunks than endorse the slightest leaning toward limiting the scope of government. So they employ the “blurring-lines” tactic to make it impossible to distinguish between the very different positions of governing “least” and “not at all.”

Todd Hollenbach offered an example of that during this year’s primary race for state treasurer.

Hollenbach accused his opponent, Melinda Wheeler, who built her campaign around the idea of eliminating the state Treasurer’s Office, of trying to pull rabbits out of a hat while trailing in the primary race.

If you read this after the Nov. 6 election, either Hollenbach or Wheeler has been elected state treasurer. So this column does not serve as an endorsement of either candidate. It does represent a stand against Hollenbach’s mischaracterization of people who salivate with Pavlov dog-like enthusiasm when someone suggests shrinking government. It happens so rarely.

Reporters quoted Hollenbach accusing Wheeler of staking out a position “designed to appeal to the anti-government crowd” in order to win the Republican primary, a race in which she trailed when she pulled her get-rid-of-the-office rabbit out of a hat.

Hmmmm. So does that mean that since Wheeler won her primary that not all Kentuckians who favor less government rank as kooks on the level of separatists holed up somewhere in the wild planning attacks on government installations?

Does it mean that policymakers and voters in 14 other states that abolished the elected position of state treasurer – while still ensuring that the few important tasks of the office get done – don’t represent extremists?

No one I know would characterize Georgetown’s Sen. Damon Thayer as “anti-government.” Yet, Thayer, a senator for four years, recently filed a bill to get rid of the treasurer’s office and its $3.2-million budget.
Of course, characterizing as “anti” whatever those who stand up to Frankfort’s status quo and offer new ideas comes easy.

If you oppose unnecessary spending on children’s health-care programs, Hollenbach and his political siblings probably consider you “anti-children” or “anti-family.” If you support offering parents a choice – any kind of choice – on where their children attend school, then they call you “anti-public education.”

Narrow-minded politicians and bureaucrats continue to employ these tired tactics out of convenience. It’s more convenient to place vague labels on anyone with new ideas on how to make government leaner (which, if enacted, might force some of them to look for work) and more responsive. They cave when facing the tough work of prioritizing spending so that the greatest number of taxpayers get the most bang for their hard-earned buck.

Thayer wants to do this – at least on one issue. In his statement announcing his pre-filed bill to eliminate the state Treasurer’s Office, he said: “The money can be better spent on education, infrastructure or better services.”

Whether you agree with Thayer, my point is: It’s an attempt to establish some priorities.

Determining that money could be “better” spent on “better” services suggests that Thayer gave some thought to which projects deserve attention immediately, which can wait and which should get scratched from the list altogether.

That’s what most Kentucky families have to do when they put together their budget. Frankfort should try it, too. Doing so would result in leaner and “better” government.

Call me an “extremist” if you like, but that appeals to me.

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Kentucky Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher should have been a shoe-in for re-election this year. Four years ago he won the governorship in a walk, after serving six years as a popular congressman. He’s an ex-fighter pilot, ex-Baptist minister and a very strong campaigner.

But as voters prepare to head to the polls in a little more than two weeks, there is a political horse race underway here in Kentucky. And thanks to a nagging political scandal, it’s Gov. Fletcher who is trailing. One recent poll found him behind Democrat Steve Beshear by 16 points.

Enjoy!

Give ‘NC-LBJ’ an ‘F’

By Jim Waters

When President George W. Bush signed into law “No Child Left Behind” six years ago, I thought we were finally on track to improve education.

Boy, was I wrong. How did I get snookered into believing that a massive government-spawned education program could result in meaningful change in public schools? Common sense went on vacation that day.

Meanwhile, the debate rages as to whether the framers of the Constitution intended for the government to force education policies – like NCLB – on the people.

Some say the Constitution’s references to “the general welfare” of the nation could include government running public schools. I don’t buy it.

The word “education” never appears in the Constitution, and for good reason: The founders didn’t consider it the purview of the government. Period. Education fell to the states and local government.

Better yet, philosopher John Locke believed parental control would work best. And our founders held Locke and his views in high regard when they wrote the Constitution.

“The well educating of their children is so much the duty and concern of parents, and the welfare and prosperity of the nation so much depends on it,” Locke wrote.

Labor bosses at the “anti-choice” Kentucky teachers union probably don’t much care for Locke’s views. He believed “the welfare and prosperity of the nation” depends on the “well educating” of children. But, he said, that assignment belongs to parents, not government.

If the founders considered public education an important role for the federal government, they would have made it crystal clear. We’re not left to guess about other important roles for government – such as if it should defend us against foreign invaders. The Constitution clearly states it must.

Certainly if the founders wanted government micromanaging public education, the Constitution would state it. It doesn’t.

Complicating matters is the failure of states to improve education, except in small amounts. But in Kentucky, such miniscule improvements get billed by bureaucrats as great achievements.

In contrast, the National Assessment of Educational Progress reports only 30 percent of Kentucky’s students meet proficiency standards, meaning they do quality work at grade level. The story is similar throughout the United States.

Kentucky’s CATS assessment offers a much rosier picture than the national measurement. But I get suspicious when the rose patch lacks thorns. It makes me think those roses might be fake.

Kentuckians who don’t understand that government cannot solve all – or even most – of our problems hear the depressing news about the state’s progress on improving education and yell, “If Frankfort’s not going to do it, then Washington should. Government should do something!”

After getting an earful from unhappy parents and taxpayers throughout the country, government did something, all right. It created another failed attempt to fix education. It’s an expensive “fix,” too.

To understand this, remember the “No Child” law actually was a reauthorization of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Education and Secondary Education Act of 1965. That bill gave the federal government a historically huge – and unprecedented – amount of control over education money. It also made up part of LBJ’s “Great Society” program.

Johnson did some commendable work in other areas like civil rights. But he was a profligate spender. And he opened the floodgates for Washington to spend on education like a crook with someone else’s credit card.

The Digest of Education Statistics shows that real federal spending on K-12 education proliferated like nuclear weapons – $9 million in 1965 to nearly $68 billion in 2005. Bush’s spending requests for the education bureaucracy increased more than 70 percent between 2002 and 2005.

Just call this “NC-LBJ!”

Incredulously, big-spending politicians and education bureaucrats – including some in Kentucky – claim spending on Bush’s boondoggle isn’t enough! But here’s what you must understand: For them, government funding of education or social programs will never be enough.

Plus, these big spenders don’t acknowledge the need for parental choice, merit pay for teachers and accurate assessments of academic performance. For them, it’s about money, power and protecting the status quo.

Meanwhile, 70 percent of our students get left behind. Anyone else had enough of that?

We live in a new day and everyone winning on November 6 second should take note. The people of the Commonwealth are finally paying attention.

The people, not government, need to sort out the truth

By Jim Waters

If, as Augustine said, “one never errs more safely than when one errs by too much loving the truth and too much rejecting of falsehood,” this column might go down as the most “erroneous” I’ve ever written.

And a recent case ruled on by the state of Washington’s Supreme Court is one of the most frustrating those justices ever faced.

The case involved a 2002 state Senate race. Green Party candidate Marilou Rickert sent out campaign brochures stating that longtime Democratic incumbent Tim Sheldon “voted to close a facility for the developmentally challenged.”

In fact, Sheldon twice voted against a budget that would have closed the facility.

Sheldon easily won the election but filed a complaint with his state’s Public Disclosure Commission. The commission sided with him and fined Rickert. It ruled she acted with “reckless disregard” for the truth.

But an appeals court overturned the commission’s decision. Washington’s Supreme Court agreed. It ruled that a 1999 state law prohibiting candidates from not telling the truth was unconstitutional.

It hurts to write this, but the court made the right decision. But understanding why is more important.

The court didn’t condone Rickert’s action. Rather, it recognized the limits of government to ensure people behave honestly.

Governments can collect taxes, make laws and drop bombs. But it cannot make people honest. It certainly cannot make political candidates tell the truth in campaign ads. Voters must sort out the whole truth.

Fortunately, a large majority of voters in Washington paid attention, saw through Rickert’s campaign ad and used the ballot box to punish her.

But will enough Kentuckians see through the haze of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear’s recent campaign charge?

The Associated Press reported that Beshear said Gov. Ernie Fletcher had “shortchanged education.” Yes, big-spending Beshear accused the Fletcher administration of not spending enough on education. This despite the fact that Kentucky is spending more than $4 billion this year – nearly half the state budget – on elementary and secondary education.

There are many things Fletcher has failed to do when it comes to education. But spending our hard-earned tax dollars is not one of them. If Kentucky had the equivalent of Washington’s public disclosure commission, it might also conclude that Beshear’s latest campaign charge deserves a fine.

But the responsibility for straightening out such campaign smack does not belong to some government commission. It’s our responsibility – Mr. and Mrs. Kentucky citizen – to make campaign spin tactics politically unpopular and to demand honest answers from policymakers.

Why do we come down hard on athletes who wouldn’t admit they used steroids to win medals or break home-run records, but ignore politicians who use subterfuge to get high-paying government jobs, amass power and spend our money like drunken sailors?

We must place a higher premium on the truth.

A “USA Today” poll several years ago indicated that only 56 percent of Americans teach honesty to their children. It’s no wonder that the Josephson Institute in Los Angeles discovered in a survey of 36,000 students in 2006 that more than 70 percent of American high-schoolers responding admitted to cheating on a test. Yet, 92 percent of the same respondents said they’re “satisfied” with their personal ethics and character.

Our individual actions hold much greater consequences than any government “truth commission.”

“It doesn’t bode well for the future that so many kids are entering the workforce to become the next generation of corporate executives and cops, politicians and parents, journalists, teachers and coaches, with the dispositions and skills of liars, cheats and thieves,” said institute founder Michael Josephson.

There are some Kentuckians – I occasionally hear from them – who don’t care for this kind of straight talk. They’re slothful and don’t want responsibility. They want some law or commission or agency or program to do all the work for them, including teaching future generations about honesty.
If enough of us act this way, watch out. We’ll become a historical footnote.
Author Edith Hamilton said of the Athenians: “When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

– Jim Waters is the director of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free-market think tank. You can reach him at jwaters@bipps.org. You can read previously published columns at www.bipps.org.

Is this the best we can do?

By Jim Waters

As this year’s gubernatorial campaign unfolds in all of its benign beauty, I keep coming back to the same question: “Is this the best Kentucky can do?”

One political hack – this one a Republican from Meade County – thinks so. She called me last week and sprung this gusher: The incumbent and former physician-pilot-preacher-turned-politician Ernie Fletcher is “the greatest governor we’ve ever had.”

I suspected she based her opinion on reasons beyond political success, leadership, competent advisers or charisma – all of which remain glaringly absent from the current administration.

So I asked: “Why? Why is it, exactly, that you think this is the ‘greatest governor we’ve ever had?’”

My skeptical tone must have oozed out like her gusher. She nearly coded when digesting the idea that a columnist for a nonpartisan public-policy institute would actually seek an explanation for her seemingly odd opinion.

With Gomer Pyle-like aplomb, she offered this: “Welllllll – he took us from a state with little smiley faced license plates to having unbridled spirit!”

Unbridle me, I beg you, from the shackles of such partisan logic.

It gets worse.

She then experienced a Clinton moment: “Fletcher cares about our community.” I thought she was going to start sobbing.

I felt her pain, but could she feel mine when I discovered how she defined “caring?” She meant that Fletcher toted big chunks of pork to towns – funded by our tax dollars – throughout Kentucky in a blatant political pandering exercise.

Truth is, I prefer the smiley faces. They give an appearance that things are looking up.

And Kentucky surely looks up – from near the bottom – at many other states when it comes to things such as our high tax rates.

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates lower taxes and less regulation on small businesses, ranked Kentucky below 35 other states as possessing more “love” for small businesses.

Look “across” and “down,” and you’ll see neighboring states, primarily Indiana and Tennessee – ranked No. 12 and 13 respectively – by the council.

How could anyone come to conclusion offered by Fletcher’s political apologist in Meade County? Four years ago, this administration campaigned on becoming more competitive, yet we continue to lag behind – way behind.

While the index looks at many categories, the set that distinctly separates the top states from the bottom involves tax rates.

The index factors taxes on personal and corporate income, property, capital gains, gas, unemployment and the Internet. It reveals that only eight states and Washington, D.C. have more stifling tax policies than Kentucky.

Indeed, Kentucky suffers from a double-whammy: high personal-income tax rates, which discourage individual investment, and high corporate tax rates, which poison the entrepreneurial atmosphere and keep residents dependent on Frankfort to bribe companies via outrageous incentives to expand or open new facilities.

While a few states have as high or higher corporate tax rates as Kentucky, they apparently embrace enough economic sense to lower taxes in other areas. But Kentucky continues to maintain high corporate and personal tax rates.

For example, Indiana serves up a high 8.5-percent corporate income-tax rate. But it does not tax S-Corporations and keeps its top personal-income and capital-gains taxes at a relatively low 3.4 percent.

On the other hand, Kentucky offers a lower top corporate tax rate at 7 percent but also taxes S-corps at 7 percent, while forcing a 6-percent rate on an individual’s personal income and capital gains.

It’s no wonder that Kentucky gets passed over by Nissan, Hyundai and even Dollar General.

In 1939, J. L. Turner opened his first little store in Scottsville. You don’t get any more Kentucky than that. Dollar General grew into a Fortune 500 company in 1999. The following year, it left “My Old Kentucky Home” and moved to its “new” Tennessee corporate home.

As a result, Kentucky is missing out on the economic impact of having a company where sales have more than doubled – to $9 billion – since 2000.

Don’t tell me that we can’t do better in “My Old Kentucky Home.”

– Jim Waters is the director of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free-market think tank. You can reach him at jwaters@bipps.org. You can read previously published columns at www.bipps.org.

We’ll spare the commentary this week in exchange for reader analysis.

Let’s bag Big Brother, smoke out rights stealers and stay fat and happy

By Jim Waters

I wonder what some local politicians have put in their pipes and smoked.

I nearly drove off the road the other day when I heard Brian Nash, Bowling Green city commissioner, say during a radio newscast that the health benefits reaped by citizens from a proposed smoking ban in his city “outweigh” the Constitution’s personal-property rights.

“I agree that personal property rights, in many cases, are paramount,” Nash said. “I think in this particular case – and I don’t want to be painted into a corner, so – in this particular case, I believe that the health consequences, uh, outweigh that.”

Fortunately, a majority of his fellow commissioners disagreed and squashed the proposed ban.

For populists – like Nash – and the health nannies egging them on (many supported by taxpayer-funded grants), the Constitution with its protection of personal property rights presents an inconvenience.

In fact, with so many different agendas competing for politicians’ support, the Constitution is inconvenient more often than convenient.

That’s a good thing.

It’s good the constitutionally guaranteed rights of private property owners are inconvenient for Louisville Metro Council member Dan Johnson as he tries to impose a prohibition of trans fats in certain foods prepared in his city’s restaurants.

It’s good the constitutionally guaranteed rights of private property owners are not convenient for Johnson’s fellow councilman, Jim King, in his attempt to use government edicts to prohibit storeowners from using traditional plastic bags.

I’m not saying smoking and trans fats are good for your health, or that plastic bags are better for the environment’s health. But they are legal.

If Nash can somehow get smoking declared illegal – anywhere and everywhere – then property owners should comply. If King and Johnson can get trans fats and plastic bags declared illegal, that’s a different story.

Government, propped up by our tax dollars, must quit denying property owners the right to allow legal activity – and use legal products – in their businesses – even if the majority doesn’t agree.

If we lived in a true rule-by-majority democracy – like in ancient Greece – the majority’s wishes would trample individual rights every time. Any and all civil-rights legislation protecting minorities would have come to rest alongside ancient Greek government models on the ash heap of history. Every minority group or individual would fear the majority.

But we have been given a constitutional republic, a representative form of government created primarily to control the majority and protect individual rights, including those of restaurant owners, grocers and retailers.

It’s true the Constitution does not specifically say, “Thou shalt not trample on personal property rights of restaurant, bar and grocery-store owners.” But not all personal rights – including property rights – could be enumerated in the document.

The framers were so concerned that this not be interpreted as giving carte blanche to assault Americans’ individual liberties that they added the Ninth Amendment, which covers even unlisted rights held in high esteem by the founders and consistently upheld by the Supreme Court.

In “Federalist #54,” founder James Madison declared: “Government is instituted no less for the protection of the property than of the persons of individuals.”

Some reason that banning smoking, trans fat and plastic bans doesn’t make pulp out of individual rights. They simply restrict unwelcome activity.

There’s no difference, said former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice William Graves.

“Use is an essential attribute of ownership,” Graves said in a ruling a couple of years ago about Lexington’s smoking ban, which he called “arbitrary” and “oppressive.”

The “we-know-better-than-you” government types creeping into our lives from every corner of this commonwealth seem emboldened and want to intrude on our most cherished rights. It needs to stop.

We have a stalwart Constitution that works. Nash, King, Johnson and hundreds of other local officials “solemnly” swore to “support” that document at during swearing-in ceremonies. They should start doing it.

Enthusiastically. All of the time.

– Jim Waters is the director of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free-market think tank. You can reach him at jwaters@bipps.org. You can read previously published columns at www.bipps.org.