Kentucky Democratic-Controlled House Plays Politics with Minimum Wage Bill

source: creamcityradio

The usual politics surrounding the minimum wage increases was played by Kentucky Democrats in the House, which passed an outrageous bill that would boost the minimum wage in the state from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour.

Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers rightly blasted the bill for focusing on the low end of an approach to helping the state create jobs. The idea that increasing the minimum wage would help is a fallacy that Federal increases prove have resulted in the loss of jobs.

"Our goal is ... how we create good-paying jobs," Stivers told reporters. "And if they want to keep a very narrow approach of how are we just going to keep minimum-wage jobs around there, that's their prerogative. We want to look at a much broader, more optimistic picture."

The fact is minimum wage jobs are entry level positions, and are there for the purpose of helping people learn to work while preparing for higher level opportunities. To think raising the minimum wage in Kentucky would help lower income earnings is dishonest, as it would only raise the cost of doing business, as well as increase the costs associated with government jobs.

Democrat House Speaker Greg Stumbo is only playing politics before the elections later this year in order to make it look like the Republican Party opposes helping the poor. It's the usual thuggish politics and tactics of the Democratic Party.

There is no doubt it's an attempt to increase the chances of Alison Lundergan Grimes in her race to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Grimes is also calling for a increase of the minimum wage at the federal level, even though it hurts the changes of young people to get hired.

Kentucky Republicans and Democrats with integrity and understanding need to totally reject this bill. What we need is less taxes and state employees starting to pay more into their own pension plans, which is what is causing the state to operate with budget shortfalls.

Democrat Redistricting Plan Illegal Says Senate President Stivers

Robert Stivers

An outrageous bid by Democrats to take Kentucky more liberal through shenanigans involving using numbers different than the census numbers is sparking a battle, as confirmed by a number of Republicans, including Senate President Robert Stivers, who called the charade "illegal."

That hasn't stopped House Speaker Greg Stumbo, a Democrat, from acting like he and other Democrats have done nothing wrong, and like liberals and a growing number of Democrats, are attempting to fast-track the bill in order to keep the public from knowing what is happening by not allowing debate and comment on the proposed legislation.

These are Obama's Chicago tactics which don't belong in Kentucky.

“One of the things in the case law that we have read is you have to be consistent in your application of those numbers,” Stivers said, referring to his statement that the bill is illegal.

What the Democrats are trying to do is make the House districts so in their favor that it would be difficult to unseat them in the future. In other words, they want to bypass Democracy in favor of using tactics and bills to make the districts line up heavily in their favor.

For Republicans, that would mean 13 incumbents would be placed in six new House Districts, which would create seven new districts they would have to square off against one another in. The Republicans in the Kentucky Senate would have to be politically suicidal to agree to this nonsense.

Stivers said it's unlikely they will.

“It would be somewhat difficult since we had a redistricting plan that was based on the congressional level with one set of numbers and the House has now changed to use another set of numbers.

I think this is being put forward because the people of Kentucky are going to vent their wrath on Democrats in the next election cycle for the destructive polices of Obama and the Democratic Party at the national level.

They don't want to lose the House, and possibly more, by letting things remain as they are. Republicans should smell the blood in the water and refuse to cooperate. The public is on their side, and it makes the Democrats look dishonest, thuggish, and desperate.

It's as it should be when you see where they have taken this country over the last several years.

Kentucky Hemp Bill Clears Committee

With the goal of being among the first states to grow industrial hemp, a bill to that end easily passed a legislative committee today.

Sponsored by Sen. Paul Hornback, R-Shelbyville and supported by Agriculture Commissioner James Comer and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, Senate Bill 50 passed the House Agriculture and Small Business Committee, with only one vote against it; that from Republican Tommy Turner.

The idea is that if Kentucky gets in early it'll be positioned to produce a potentially significant number of jobs, including farmers, processing plants and transporting the product.

Democrat Speaker Greg Stumbo has yet to agree to allowing the bill to be put to a floor vote.

About the only opposition is coming from Kentucky law enforcement, which has concerns over the similarity in look of industrial hemp and marijuana.

While hemp looks like marijuana, it has very little THC in it - 0.3 percent - which is the active ingredient in marijuana that produces the high. Marijuana has anywhere from 3 percent to 15 percent THC in it.

Hemp growers would be required to obtain an annual license and get a background check by the Agriculture Department. Buyers of hemp would have to be provided by growers, who would also have to keep sales contract records for three years. Anyone transporting hemp would also be regulated.

On the federal level, U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul had introduced legislation that would make a distinction between hemp and marijuana. That's so an existing Kentucky law which says the hemp policy of Kentucky should be the same as that of the federal government. At this time the federal government lumps hemp and marijuana together.