AT&T executives gave misleading testimony to a House committee about the impact of a phone deregulation bill that would allow major carriers to drop many land-line phone customers.
A state Earned Income Tax Credit is gaining momentum! During last week's lobby day, members made sure that every legislator got customized information (thank you KCEP!) about how a state EITC would impact the people in their district. Most of this information was part of a larger conversation about the EITC's role within comprehensive tax reform like the Kentucky Forward Plan, and the opportunity in pairing an Earned Income Tax Credit with increasing the minimum wage in Kentucky.
The folks at KFTC's Economic Justice Lobby Day – twenty or so, and lots of great folks we've gotten to know from Women In Transition and Network Center for Community Change, and many first-time lobbyists – met the challenge head-on of working with at least four issues (in many more bills) that would impact Kentuckians' lives. It was a full day!
Senate Bill 99, known as the AT&T bill, is back to Kentucky, along with a big herd of telecommunications lobbyists. The bill was defeated last year largely because of it's impact on Kentucky's rural communities, which would have been essentially written out of landline access.
A major civil rights gathering will take place on March 5 in Frankfort as many people come together to mark the 50th anniversary of a historic civil rights march in 1964 led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Everyone who is proud of Kentucky’s historic role in helping to end segregation in the nation and for being the first state south of the Mason-Dixon Line to have a state Civil Rights Act is enthusiastically invited to participate,” according to a press release from the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights.
The Local Option Sales Tax (LOST, or LIFT as it is now called in Louisville) bills have been filed in Frankfort, HB 399 and SB 135. If approved by the legislature in 2014, these bills would require a state constitutional amendment to allow cities in Kentucky the power to collect sales tax. If passed by state voters, cities would then put it to their voters. LOST/LIFT has been getting a lot of press in Louisville, and Gov. Beshear has indicated his willingness to support it. Louisville’s Mayor Fischer is a proponent, and is advocating for a 1% LOST/LIFT that would be for a specific amount of money for specific capital projects approved by local voters to allow “local” “democratic” control over revenue.
House Bill 1, sponsored by Speaker Greg Stumbo, and House Bill 191, sponsored by Representative Will Coursey, would incrementally raise the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour by 2016, and the tipped-minimum wage from $2.13 to 70 percent of the full minimum wage. Lifting the minimum wage to $10.10 would raise wages for one in four Kentucky workers. It would also benefit 22 percent of the state’s children who have a parent that would be affected, or 228,000 kids.
Senate Bill 99, the AT&T-drafted legislation, is a great deal for the telecommunications giants AT&T, Windstream and Cincinnati Bell. It will allow them to abandon their least profitable customers and service areas as well as public protection obligations. But it is a risky and potentially dangerous bet for Kentuckians. Kentucky House members should turn it down.
KFTC members and allies met today after the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee meeting. The committee heard the Governor’s proposed tax plan, which harkened back to the Blue Ribbon Commission's work in 2012 and 2013, and that he offered last week in the name of tax reform.
The Governor's proposal includes some good policies that are needed in Kentucky. He’s proposed an Earned Income Tax Credit at 7.5% of the federal credit. That’s just half of the EITC included in both the Kentucky Forward Plan (HB 220) and the Blue Ribbon Recommendations, which both call for a 15% EITC. A 7.5% credit would mean that families that qualify for the highest credit (earning just over the minimum wage, and with three or more children), would receive a credit of about $350. The average credit would be $171.6—not necessarily enough to qualify the measure as an anti-poverty tool, but a small step in the right direction.
It’s a long drive from eastern Kentucky to Frankfort; a full day’s work, to say the least. That’s why members of the Letcher County Chapter of KFTC are getting creative to lift their voices around important issues this Legislative Session.
The chapter is wrapping up a solid week of terrific work around Kentucky’s General Assembly, right here at home. Last Wednesday, several members hosted a Mountain Talk program on local community radio station WMMT 88.7 FM. The program’s theme of Voting Rights in Kentucky followed up on a recent radio news piece covering a lobby day and rally at the State Capitol in Frankfort organized by the Kentucky Voting Rights Coalition. The Mountain Talk featured clips from that rally as well as commentary from former felon Kristi Kendall in Floyd County, retired judge Jim Bowling in Bell County, and the father of a former felon/ coal miner, Carl Shoupe in Harlan County.
Besides the too often told story of firsthand disenfranchisement of themselves or family members, Judge Bowling gave powerful testimony of his experience sitting on the bench, forced to hand down harsh felony convictions for offenses that once were misdemeanors.
