Kentucky Welfare Society And It's Love Hate Relationship With Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul

The reason why Mitch McConnell continues to serve himself rather than Kentuckians is that he’s actually got them snowed and fooled about what he is really about. He plays the conservative angle which makes him popular in the Commonwealth of Kentucky with about half of the people. The rest of them end up getting bought off because Kentucky largely lives off of largesse from the federal government. Kentuckians don’t realize that their state even though its 47th in the nation in just about every major category would be even worse off without welfare programs.

Mitch McConnell delivers the pork barrel spending and government largesse that keeps Kentucky economically somewhat afloat even though it ranks 47th in personal income, 47th in family income, 47th in median household income, worst ran state by Governing Magazine, worst place to retire, worst state for elders, worst state for child abuse, worst state for health outcomes, 41st in K-12 education, 43rd in universities and 47th in educational achievement.

What Mitch McConnell and Kentucky politicians over the years have been good at going back to Senator John Sherman Cooper, Wendell Ford, etc is getting the welfare bacon for Kentucky in the form of federal aid which props up the derelict Kentucky economy. We’re talking about food stamps, government handouts, farm subsidies, military spending at Fort Knox and Fort Campbell, various other government programs that benefit Kentucky because the state is so broke economically that it pretty much go under without vast federal spending.

The truth about Kentucky is that in many ways its an economic basketcase despite having relatively higher state taxes and cities like Louisville that have very high taxes. Kentucky is so broke that it can’t properly fund its educators pension system along with all the rest of its public employees. Think it about this way, Mitch throws the red meat to his base in so called conservatism yet he can buy votes because Kentucky gets $1.51 for $1 in federal taxes unlike states in the more liberal areas of the country like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Washington, Massachusetts.

What happens in those states is that they are taxed at their higher income levels in a way that it goes to the federal government and they are paying much more in taxes than what they receive in government handouts. So in essence the economic creators in those liberal states are funding Kentucky government and Kentucky society since they are paying $1 dollar in federal taxes yet only getting 65 or 70 cents of it back in government expenditures in their states. Plus they have a much higher income level of averaging much higher salaries so they end up paying very high tax amounts to the federal government which ends up benefiting Kentucky and its economically backwards state.

Not to mention a high percentage of Kentuckians are on Medicaid and Medicare and the state doesn’t have the funding to pay for all of that spending without the Feds giving them huge handouts. The same could be said for federal programs like HUD, Section 8, Rural Development, SNAP, etc. If the Feds cut that out then Kentucky would probably be if not the poorest state maybe 2nd poorest after Mississippi. Just like how Kentucky gets huge grants in money from the Feds every time there is some sort of calamity or the state government bungles its finances.

Kentucky has a road and infrastructure ranked as a “D” level by the American Society of Civil Engineers and billions would have to be spent to get the system up to just being average along the fact that Kentucky has been mismanaged for so long that the system is teetering and would collapse without vast amounts of welfare and federal aid. 900,000 Kentucky residents out of 4.5 million Kentuckians are also functionally illiterate which hinders them in being able to live, hold jobs, keep quality jobs and improve their education, training and livelihoods. So effectively about 20 percent of the people in Kentucky are functionally illiterate and can only do the very minimum which leads to poverty and less quality jobs.

So Kentucky gets the red meat from McConnell for the conservatives while he plays the other side of getting the most pork barrel welfare projects out of many of the states right there in Kentucky. I lived in Kentucky and its easier to qualify for some sort of disability or mental issue there than just about anywhere else because they have hundreds of thousands of Kentucky residents who get welfare assistance and government handouts. It’s easier to get a disability determination for being mentally disabled in Kentucky because a long known statute in Kentucky law allows for the state to pay for incompetents and known idiots and allows them the right to obtain a government check for such. This law has been in effect for the better part of 200 plus years in Kentucky.

This law was crafted early in Kentucky statehood in the late 1700s if not early 1800s I cannot recall the exact date but it allowed for a pauper idiot law where people considered to be stupid would be given an awarded check from the state for being morons going back to about 1792. This is why partially it is easier in Kentucky to get taken care of by the state by claiming mental status illnesses and being a moron.

"Pauper Idiots and Lunatics" in Kentucky

That is the link to the whole story about that law that was printed some 80 years ago by University of Chicago Press.

So McConnell if though he is not well liked by many Kentuckians has a definite advantage of consolidating the Republican and conservative base as well as bringing home the bacon which is why he keeps getting re-elected by the fools of Kentucky. Furthermore, when a state is 47th in educational attainment they aren’t always going to be voting in their best interests.

Louisville Sucks Part II......French For Louisville Suce Deuxième Partie

Since Louisville was named after King Louie I think a little bit of French would be most appropriate for the Possibility City that should called Possum Billy City and increasingly sucks for most of the residents of Louisville. Here is part two of Louisville Sucks or as some of the local even write that Louisville Sux. 

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Along with the urban infrastructure debacle of 2009 until present, the city despite being the 4th largest taxed city in the nation is also a chronic waste of economic resources despite the high tax burden it places on its resident and business community.

Dixie Highway isn't the only place in Louisville that is a problem when it comes to infrastructure and issues with falling apart infrastructure. You can pretty much circle most streets in downtown Louisville, KY as being bombed out cratered streets because of the lack of care and maintaining such roadwork.

Instead, Louisville's liberal leaning mayor has all of these mentally unhinged ideas about sustainability and how he's going to make Louisville into a sustainable city despite the fact that his city is falling apart at the seams and with a weak economy and unsustainable debt issues not only with the city but the publicly controlled Louisville Water Company and Metropolitan Sewer District respectively LWC and MSD for abbreviation.

LWC can barely function being a mayor appointed public corporation where the mayor of Louisville appoints those who run the government office. Same with MSD being appointees and none too efficient seeing that they've been running a debt of over 4 billion dollars. All for a city and a service area of perhaps less than 800,000 people.

Former Louisville Mayor and Lt. Governor Jerry Abramson oversaw MSD and LWC during the years prior to current Mayor Greg Fischer got his hands involved in the mess and has done nothing to really help anything. Add in the fact that MSD spends and screws the ratepayers into the ground every chance they get adds to the angst that many in the community has towards the MSD.

Another reason why Louisville sucks is the mamby pamby work done by the Police Chief Steve Conrad and Mayor Greg Fischer to law and order issues. Instead of cracking down on crime and going after those enablers and criminals that are terrorizing the community, they choose to ignore the problem or try to approach it with a politically correct angle. Therefore, this politically correct nonsense is further reason why in the last several years the crime problems in Louisville, KY have spiked including a spike in murders to where murders are at least 1.5 to 2 times more than they were only a very few years ago. The 2016 Murder Count for Louisville, KY was 123 and the 2017 count today November 1, 2017 is 141 with two months remaining in the year.

Louisville sucks also because of the unsustainable low wage economy that has been created in the city over the past several decades. Louisville used to have a higher wage structure economy than just about anywhere that a person could get a good job and own a home and nice vehicle. However, that is and has been going away for some time now since those manufacturing jobs have been sent off to Mexico, China, and other Third World sweatshops.

The Louisville Solution: Have more service jobs and low wage employers flipping boxes at part time hours and part time pay. Then maybe these people might go full time although they'll entice you with the Metroversity program, etc. If not, you can find one of the low wage 8.50 an hour or 9 dollar an hour job working at one of the fine warehouses around the city that have been springing up for the past couple of decades. All with extra tax breaks and economic incentives while the taxpayer continues to get screwed into the ground.

If that doesn't work for you, then Louisville has plenty of temporary jobs working for maybe 2 or 3 months a year until you are unemployed all over again or laid off like so many people go through at various low wage employers.

Louisville, Kentucky: Bomb Cratered Streets Part Two

In my first installment, I discussed the Louisville issue of bomb cratered streets and infrastructure issues including that of the public screwing the the taxpayers of Louisville, Kentucky, and Southern Indiana are getting via increased tolls on the Kennedy and Lincoln bridges as well as the East End Bridge.

Now I think its time to pay attention to various Louisville streets that might as well be pockmarked like the moon with the various road issues and lack of attention that has been paid to the Louisville streets over the years.

Dixie Highway comes to mind of being the biggest clusterf--k around when it comes to Louisville roadways. Bumpy through about 20 miles of its existence from downtown all the way to the Jefferson Hardin County line. For years this road was a main thoroughfare from Louisville across the southern states. Yet after the interstate system was built in the 1960s and 1970s, it entered a rapid period of decline.

Why is it that its taken the better part of a generation of 20 years to figure out how to configure Dixie Highway to be a safe, efficient, and high traffic thoroughfare through the populated areas of Southwestern Louisville including Shively, Pleasure Ridge Park, Valley Station, and Kosmosdale, etc. All the while the road has been bumpy and uneven for years due to lack of maintenance and lack of engineering standards to keep the road as a major roadway safe and efficient. Add in the fact that the drivers of Dixie make it more dangerous with their lack of driving skills and lack of common sense. That should be strictly enforced by Louisville Metro and the Kentucky State Police but they are too busy solving other crimes and problems in the city nowadays to do much traffic enforcement.

However, they used to regularly hand out tickets on Dixie Highway back in the 90s and 2000s era on a regular basis and didn't shy away from pulling people over. The only place you might find them sitting now is south of the Gene Snyder Freeway because their traffic enforcement is lax between Valley Station and downtown at best. All the while residents are regularly in accidents because of lane switching, tailgaters, stop light running and various other bad driving practices.

Add in the fact that the road is poorly lit and poorly maintained as well as tremendously bumpy in many sections with the roadway having raised surfaces and falling apart lends to the problems as well. Too many businesses and entry ways to cause issues as well and an overbearing traffic load on the highway system.

Why Louisville can't get its public works system correct to get that road fixed properly is beyond me despite years of planning and community discussions that even though some work has been done, not much progress has been made. It shouldn't take an act of Congress or a military action to get something done to fix a roadway that carries so much of the traffic load for the Southwest Louisville area.

Why the people of Louisville continue to put up with this crap?

There are plenty of downtown surface streets in Louisville that could use some TLC as well especially in the Downtown and Old Louisville as well as Butchertown and Smoketown areas. Too numerous to mention here I would love to video all of the bombed out streets of Louisville and show the public what a mess they truly are. Maybe that might get the attention of the Metro Government that instead of polishing their nails and having a manicure could actually do some work and get roads fixed which is an essential function of government.

Also, who in the hell is the idiot in Louisville in charge of the traffic light system? They should be fired and forced to dig ditches for the rest of their days instead of trying to unsuccessfully manage traffic lights so that people aren't spending an eternity sitting at lights because of lack of synchronization.

I remember back in 2009 that there was to be total sychronization of the traffic signals in Louisville, KY since the city under Jerry Abramson was supposed to be fixing that problem. Yet its 8 years later and that still hasn't occurred under the Greg Fischer administration. They've did nothing except waste the last eight years in getting someone to do their job and fix the problems that cause people to have to sit wastefully for hours at the lights every year when there is no traffic or very little traffic running. Its mind bogglingly stupid to have such a system that could be used to save on gas costs, wear and tear on cars, and time and yet not use it efficiently.

You're telling me that Louisville Public Works can't do its job and actually commit to fix the traffic light issues. Despite the fact that in 2009, the Mayor of Louisville, Jerry Abramson chose to take over the maintenance of the system from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet which included maintenance on all state roads and numbered roads within the jurisdiction of Louisville Metro. Of which now the city of Louisville ie Louisville Metro now is responsible for the upkeep, snow removal, and roadway improvements on all former state routes.

Yet under the incompetent and clueless Greg Fischer administration, the road network has been increasingly falling into disrepair and lack of upkeep despite the promises of a clueless and incompetent mayor that refuses to take public safety seriously by fixing roadways. Instead he's more worried about liberal agenda items such as having more bike lanes and more sustainability ideas which add very little to the city other than more waste and more inefficiency rather than fixing what needs to be fixed.

Louisville, thinks as itself as a world class city, but its a delusion with the political and business leaders in Louisville being largely ineffectual and incompetent to promoting change, progress and improvement. All the while playing the usual constituent games to get re-elected while the overglorified trailer park burns down around them. With crime and murders spiking through the roof, these political games are jeopardizing the future of the region and taxpayers. Too bad most people are too ignorant or self absorbed to actually know or care about anything that doesn't hit them in the face.

Louisville Again Passed Up By Other US Cities (Louisville Is A Laughingstock)

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2018/01/18/louisville-excluded-amazon-hq/1043548001/

Louisville again proves what an inept metropolitan area that it truly is when other cities around Louisville make the first cut for Amazon's new 50,000 employee eastern hub. Indianapolis, Columbus, and Nashville. 

Louisville didn't even make the cut from 237 cities to 20 which is laughable because Louisville again proves that its ill suited and position to have good paying jobs that would pay an average of 100,000 a year. Louisville will have to settle again for being the box flipping capital of the Ohio Valley with more minimum wage and part time jobs like its skill level indicates. Same goes for the Kentucky educational system being crap and something that it has been for decades. Which is why Louisville never gets much of anything outside of lower wage jobs and positions that don't pay much. Oops, looks like your city laid another goose egg just like it has been doing for the last few decades. 

Louisville can't even pave its own streets and keep up its own rotten infrastructure. Give it a few years with all of the corruption, nepotism and good boy culture of Louisville and its government and you'll be moving towards being the next Flint, MI or Detroit, MI because its obvious that you are rapidly falling into your own fecal matter. 

Louisville Metropolitan Sewer District is 4.3 billion dollars into the hole in debt right now which is up from about 2 billion only a few years ago. Guess what? That means your sewer rates are probably going to go up another 10 percent. All because former MSD Chief Bud Schardein and Jerry Abramson along with the handjobs of Greg Fischer allowed this fiasco to go on again. This nice piece from the LMPD news talks about that issue. Enjoy the screwing you're going to be getting again because you're too busy sucking up to career criminals and morons. Way to go Louisville, you're well on the way to being another Flint or Detroit. 

https://www.lmpd.com/news/comments.php?sid=744&cid=158659

This blog below is very dated but it tells and speaks volumes to why Louisville is falling behind and is turning into a joke. A true Detroit of the Ohio Valley.

http://anotheropinionblog.com/2007/06/decline-taxes.html?m=0

Eat up Louisville, you're being fed a crap sandwich and you get the full effect of it coming soon.

Louisville, Kentucky: Impossibility City Part 3 (Louisville You're Getting Screwed)

Louisville likes to brag about how much of an economic progressive and improving place that it truly is. Nothing could be farther from the truth about Louisville which is why companies in the know such as Amazon are staying away from places like Louisville which is economically backwards and suffering from lack of investment in quality education and quality job opportunities. So now after decades of this rot and stupidity, Louisville's so called leadership is going to get on the ball and start doing something about it. The only problem though is that they've had decades to try to reform Louisville in their image and they've failed. All because they didn't want to give up the reins of power to people with more talent and ambition and less old world monetary influence. 

Which is why over the last 100 years or so, Louisville has went from being probably the predominant city of the Southern United States along with New Orleans to an economic basketcase with little to offer its remaining citizens and keep them there. At one time Louisville was a much larger city than other Southern cities like Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, etc. The leadership of Louisville or what was called leadership never wanted the city to progress beyond the 600k to 700k level that it is currently at because that would have meant that they would have had to share power with the citizens and others in the community that wanted equality and an equal piece of the pie. 

The old world money folks of Louisville and you can guess the longstanding community names and icons of the community wanted it to remain under their ownership and control that way they could remain the prominent and prestigious families in the city despite any wishes of new money and smaller people to attain economic and political control. So over the years, the money people in Louisville desperate to retain their status decided that it would be best to control and stymie economic growth to some extent that otherwise Louisville would grow too large and outside of their control. It explains a lot of ways why Louisville, Kentucky is behind the times as well the as the fact that the old money Louisvillians didn't want change and a prime example of that was the Ohio River Bridges Project. Which was originally started during the 1960s when the Interstate system was being built through Louisville. 

The amazing thing is that they spent decades holding back economic and social progress in Louisville to hold control over the community. Same with how the West End and the Chestnut Street black business district was allowed to be red lined into poverty and turning what used to be a functional part of Louisville in the West End prior to the 1970s into a black ghetto. They succeeded in that quest because the well to do owned the land and was able to force the closure of those black businesses which were middle class but didn't own the land in Louisville's downtown area. So the message was sent out and then over a period of years the black business district ceased to exist and poverty increased greatly. Following the push of the upper crust to force blacks into the formerly White West End, the whites eventually left the West End and settled in Shively, PRP, Valley Station and the like. 

Meanwhile, the former residents of Smoketown and Chestnut Streets and other black corridors were forced and red lined into getting housing in the former West End white controlled areas which were promptly abandoned by whites due to white flight and racial issues. 

This has been repeated in Louisvlle over the decades including for years when the East End upper crust did everything in their power to keep jobs and economics from growing in Louisville including other businesses wanting to come in. One prime example is their opposition to the East End bridge which would finally link the area together when it opened in 2016. Despite the fact that the Interstate System in Louisville including I-265 was to have had a East End bridge planned as early as the 1960s and 1970s. 

So now, its 2018 and the Louisville so called leaders and power brokers are at it again proving they are still clueless about Louisville and what the city needs to move forward. They no longer hold all the levers of power but they still have great clout especially in the political machine, business community, and the like. Which is why this is even more laughable that they have formed their own steering committees for the power brokers and their pawns in city government, local business, and other organizations. All the while the people are again being ignored or are in some cases so chronically stupid that they enjoy being screwed over time and time again. This nice piece in the Courier Journal talks about the power brokers and their unannounced and planned committees. 

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2018/02/08/scala-louisville-powerbrokers-secrecy/310710002/

As usual, Louisville ends up proving that its not a major US city even though it probably does have the potential to be such. Its just that the local yokels end up finding ways to stub their toe and remain economically and educationally backwards. Almost to the point that Louisville and its residents and its resident power brokers aren't capable of maintaining some level of competence that would allow Louisville to advance from being now the 11th poorest city in the nation. A city that is economically backwards and increasingly unable to be competitive not only on in the world but also within its region in the United States. Add in a regressive tax structure in Kentucky which makes Louisville and the rest of the state suffer from 1950s era tax laws and the fact that many laws in Kentucky haven't been changed since the 1970s. 

However, the real blame goes to the so called upper crust of Louisville which has spent a generation mismanaging a city that should be a crown jewel in a state that really needs a lot of help economically, educationally and socially. They've spent years trying to keep Louisville backwards and the rot and disrepair is finally showing in the last several years. Especially considering that Louisville hasn't kept up with the times. Louisville in many areas looks like a post industrial economic apocalypse hit somewhere in the past few decades. As one well traveled gentleman told me once, he couldn't believe how bombed out Louisville actually looked and he had been to dozens of other cities that looked a whole lot better than Louisville. 

Louisville's so called leaders have spent decades keeping Louisville and the region from fulfilling its true potential which should be a massive economic jewel in the region. All because they couldn't get past their egotistical ways and lack of gumption to make the city and general area a much better place. Nowadays the rot is starting to be very evident as one can see the declining quality of life in the region and city as a whole. Evidence of this could be just going through the various neighborhoods of Louisville and looking at the degradation of the quality of life and economic conditions. Not only that but the increasingly rotting infrastructure and lack of development that is evident in Louisville. 

All the while the city tries to dress itself up for the famous May horse race it spends the other 10 months of the year not giving a single solitary damn about making its city look better. Trashy roadways, garbage everywhere, one of the highest rat infestation problems among US cities, bedbugs galore which indicates nasty conditions, etc. Add in the general disrepair of many areas of Louisville and the general economic disincentives such as high taxes and being the 4th highest taxed city in the nation. All the while remaining to be one of the poorest cities in the country now coming in at 11th place in the United States. 

Meanwhile, the power brokers continue to do what they've done for the past 100 years in Louisville which is why what used to be one of the largest cities in the South has been passed greatly by over the last 100 years by other regional cities as far as Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and other former Confederate states. Louisville has continually went backwards compared even to other cities in its local regions of the United States. At one time, Louisville was larger than Atlanta which now is the largest metro area in the whole Southeast. Louisville continued to go backwards because of the lack of intellect in its general population as well as the fact that the powers that be conspired to keep Louisville smaller and without other amenities and businesses that a thriving metro area would have. Add in the fact, that jobs in Louisville pay about 20 percent less than the US average and its not hard to see why Louisville now has so many economic and social problems despite the lower cost of living. 

Look at all of the other cities in the Southeastern US that used to be smaller than Louisville and have less opportunities and now are larger and more prosperous than Louisville. Not to mention those in the Ohio Valley like Pittsburgh and Cincinnati which are now much larger than Louisville. Or how other regional cities like Columbus, Nashville, Indianapolis, and Kansas City have long outpaced Louisville. Decades ago, Louisville was far the superior size of many of those cities but the backwards mentality of the local yokels and the political and economic kingmakers kept Louisville backwards and that way they could have an economically captive population. 

You would think that the citizens of Louisville would get tired of this shtick but they seem to be dumbed down to the point they can't mount an effective resistance to the power brokers control over their community. Its like they've lost all sense of right and desire to stand up for right. However, that somehow doesn't surprise me being that it is Louisville where mediocrity and being low mentality is readily acceptable.