Today's Opinions

Spencer County Sheriff Buddy Stump ran on promises of providing 24/7 coverage to Spencer Countians and lately, there’s little evidence of that commitment being fulfilled.

A string of high-profile incidents ranging from a home invasion to a fatal accident have been outsourced to state police. Most recently, Sunday afternoon’s murder in the county saw response from both city and state police, but no one from the Sheriff’s Office was on the scene.

In 2005, legislation was enacted by the United States Congress to beef up national security by adding new requirements for state driver’s licenses and other official ID cards. Ever since then, as states have gone through the process of complying with the new mandates, much opposition has formed to what is often called REAL ID.  However, despite those concerns, the new ID cards will give every Kentuckian the option to obtain a federally approved ID and lift the burden on things like flying and entering military installments.

Getting rid of an unbalanced reliance on the income tax and moving to an approach that taxes consumption instead would brand Kentucky a state of producers rather than a commonwealth of punishers.

After all, what do personal and corporate income taxes accomplish other than funding government services and programs by punishing – and thus discouraging – individuals from producing and businesses from growing?

A proven free-market principle is: policies get more of what they encourage and less of what is discouraged.