Kentucky has borrowed nearly $474 million from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits this year and the total will likely reach $1 billion before the state’s economy improves.

A Billion dollars is a lot of money for the average Kentuckian. It all becomes play money in the halls of Frankfort, though.

Union leaders want the task force to recommend increasing the unemployment tax for employers. Business leaders prefer a wait-and-see approach on any tax increase and perhaps a reduction in benefits.

With a Democratic governor, I couldn’t guess who is going to win this struggle.

Currently, the state pays out 79 weeks of benefits, although Beshear announced Tuesday the state is working to quickly implement a new federal law that allows 20 additional weeks of payments to those who have already exhausted their benefits. In addition, Beshear recently signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor to temporarily increase the weekly payout by $25.

Sigh… Why do I bother depositing my check at all? The Democrats might lose the next election cycle but does that mean anyone learned why we have the problems we do?

Unfortunately, I think Kentucky is headed toward higher taxes and a very poor job environment. Both of which advance President Obama’s goals of putting more people on welfare. I would say Kentucky needs to learn from California’s experience and not go down that road but those Democrats know exactly what they are doing. The whole country is being methodically bankrupted by our own leaders for a very specific purpose.

It’s so bad in California that even the State Treasurer has come out and spoken the obvious.

Kentucky voters need to listen up. Your elected leaders aren’t stupid they do what they do deliberately.