Frankfort won't eat own foot when it can eat yours

Apparently, the Lexington Herald Leader editorial board is never going to understand what is really going on with the public employee fringe benefits disaster.

Today, as the shortfall in the state's employee benefits plans approaches $30 billion, an editorial bemoans one small effort to chip away at that mountain of debt.

The legislature has already decided to end the official double-dipping program within the judicial system and just as they are finally getting around to ending it in the rest of state government, the Herald Leader wants it back for the judges.

"What happens when a good program goes bad?

If it's as potentially useful to the public as the senior judge program, it should be rehabilitated."

The editorial suggests tinkering with the program will somehow make it better. But the editors are ignoring a basic fact: even in the freest nation on earth, government seeks to survive by growing. The only way for the citizenry to maintain their freedoms is to continuously fight to shrink government.

Perhaps after the fringe benefits black hole drowns all it's own resources and starts sucking in money from social services, the editors will start to understand the need for radical public benefits reform.