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Budget Surplus

Dear Governor Fletcher,

I attended your Town Hall meeting at Northern Kentucky University last night. We greatly appreciate your coming to Northern Kentucky to get input from the citizens of this area on how best to spend the projected $279 million in Budget Surplus. While I had already filled out the on-line survey at your website, I traveled to NKU to deliver my comments in person. I kept raising my hand but, unfortunately, I was not called on to speak. So here are the comments I was trying to deliver:

From what I have learned and was even admitted by Budget Director Brad Cowgill, the anticipated $279 Budget Surplus could even fail to materialize. Of course, as he said, it might even increase. I would wait until I had a deposit slip before I started delivering promises around the State as to how this largesse will be distributed.

As you know, the Budget that you signed last year was a record $18.1 billion. And this Budget obligates taxpayers to $2.4 billion in additional debt. (And how one can claim a surplus with this much debt is puzzling to me.) You have a Legislature that spends like a bunch of drunken sailors and to say that you must rein them in is an understatement. To your credit, you did veto $370 million in bonded projects -- much of which was pork-barrel spending. But this was a modest use of your veto pen and not nearly enough was sliced from the bloated Budget.

I ran in a Republican Primary last Spring for State Representative. Going door to door I encountered many voters who are concerned and disgusted with the profligate spending going on in Frankfort as well as in Washington. Voters are vexed to see outrageous spending in the State Budget. Things like $6 million for a Polar Bear Exhibit at the Louisville Zoo; $200,000 to support Lake Malone State Park miniature golf; $250,000 for barns in Shelby County; $400,000 for County Parks in Pulaski County; $75 million for a government-owned sports arena in Louisville; $9.7 million for a new golf course at Cumberland Falls State Park; and even $250,000 for the Kentucky/Japan "Friendship Garden." As Jay Leno would say: "What’s that about?" Certainly, if these items were so very necessary, the costs would be borne by private business in the free market of supply and demand. You did veto some of these projects last year but, with the "surplus" being advertised, the temptation will now be to fully fund these items.

Governor Fletcher, many Kentuckians are struggling each and every week just to make ends meet. We must stop the Unbridled Spending in Frankfort, especially on items that are NOT legitimate functions of government. Public safety, roads, water, and sewer are legitimate concerns that should be addressed to a greater extent. And since education consumes over half the Budget as it is, we certainly don’t need to have government involved in so very many areas where our tax dollars are siphoned away on non essentials.

We must be more prudent in our spending and borrowing. Kentuckians should not be saddled with long term debt while little is done to protect the State from future economic downturns. As of today, Kentucky’s bonded indebtedness for a family of four is at $7,200. Consider: If a $2 billion dollar project is bonded for a 20-year period at 4% interest each year, taxpayers must pay more than $850 million in future interest payments. This added cost makes a project cost 42% more than if the funds were available today. This is all the more reason to make sure each and every project is absolutely necessary and a legitimate function of government. Common sense tells us that reckless borrowing with the eventual tax and fee increases will never be effective strategy for expanding prosperity.

Now I noticed in your power point presentation that you have many choices as to what is to be done with the surplus funds. You neglected to list the most logical and the one I already recommended on line at your website, which is to pay down the debt. We all know that the borrowed money must be repaid - with interest - by taxpayers in the future. Basically, Kentucky Legislators are spending today while asking tomorrow’s taxpayers to foot the bill. High levels of debt are as dangerous for the State as they are for Kentucky’s families. This practice of hiding behind bond schemes to conceal an addiction to overspending has been going on for way too long. We can, and must, control the spending. And this task can be accomplished by cutting down the size, cost, reach, and power of BIG STATE GOVERNMENT. I pray that you will work hard to rein in our overspending Legislature.

Sincerely,

Bernard J. Kunkel

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