Given Kentucky’s Budget Downpour, State Should Use Rainy Day Fund
The budget the Senate passed on Thursday would not use any of the $122 million sitting in the state’s rainy...
Promoting Long-Term Investment in Appalachian Kentucky: A Permanent Coal Severance Tax Fund
Forecasts predict dramatic declines in eastern Kentucky coal production in future years, heightening the need for a strategy to transition the region’s economy. A permanent coal severance tax fund, as...
Tax Expenditures Big Cause of Budget Problems, but Some Legislators Want More
There are three main reasons that the budget the legislature is now considering includes so many cuts. First, the economy is still struggling. Second, federal recovery-related financial assistance to the...
Tax Expenditures Big Cause of Budget Problems, but Some Legislators Want More
There are three main reasons that the budget the legislature is now considering includes so many cuts. First, the economy is still struggling. Second, federal recovery-related financial assistance to the...
Faster Job Growth is Encouraging, but Kentucky Still Has Long Way to Go
Job growth in Kentucky picked up in the last three months of 2011, as the state added 15,800 jobs. At the depths of the recession, Kentucky had lost 117,700 jobs....
Budget Would Further Reduce College Affordability
The barriers to affordable higher education--especially for low-income Kentuckians--will continue to grow under a budget that cuts funding to postsecondary institutions and limits need-based financial aid. Budget Would Further Reduce...
Inadequate Tax System Has Big Role in Austere Budget
While the still-weak economy and the end of federal recovery-related assistance are important factors in the tight budget now being considered in Frankfort, long-term structural problems with Kentucky’s tax system...
Governor’s Budget Proposes Deep Cuts on Top of Past Reductions
The Governor’s budget proposes cuts of up to 8.4 percent to many state services that have already been slashed deeply over the last few years. The cuts would leave even...
Unemployment Insurance Important to Economy but Limited for Workers
The loss of over 100,000 Kentucky jobs during the severe economic downturn of the last few years would have been even worse for the economy—and Kentucky families—if it wasn’t for...
Kentucky Should Re-Enact Surcharge to Pay Unemployment Interest
Kentucky owes interest payments on the nearly one billion dollars borrowed from the federal government to pay unemployment insurance benefits during the economic downturn. The next interest payment, due September...