KyKurmudgeon

Today’s column:

FRANKFORT — Gov. Steve Beshear has gone tone-deaf in a big way about his 13-stop listening tour of the state (after which he hopes to hear that his lowly approval ratings have risen).

At a time when state services are being slashed and state workers face the prospect of potential layoffs, blowing thousands of tax dollars to fly key administration personnel to various stops on the tour creates a public-perception disaster for him.

At a time of high fuel costs, flying those aides around wastes even more tax dollars than usual.

And at a time when he and state lawmakers are stepping on one another’s toes trying to position themselves as the greenest politician in Kentucky, particularly in regard to energy conservation, sucking up the extra fuel that flying requires makes him look like a hypocrite of the first order.

While a defensible argument can be made for flying the governor to some tour stops (and filling up that one plane with some members of his staff), no such argument justifies piling everyone into three planes for these trips.

But Beshear insists that he will continue flying his staff to some cities. And he defends that decision with rationalizations that miss the point on multiple levels.

“I guarantee you this: The cost is a lot less to take them with me than it costs to take 400 Pike Countians down to Frankfort and back,” Beshear said in a speech this week.

Well, duh, yeah. But excuse me, Governor, that comparison is lame, bogus and just plain irrelevant.

The proper comparison is the cost of taking government to the people of Pike County in three planes (one of which was chartered for $4,474) versus the cost of taking government to the people of Pike County in, say, three state-owned vans.

Does anyone need a calculator to figure out which of those two options is cheaper?

(If the vans don’t appeal to this administration, well, past occupants of Beshear’s office took government to the people by loading everyone on a bus.)

A statement issued by the governor’s office offered a different defense of the Pikeville airlift, saying it “saved 100 hours of work time, if not more” for Beshear and the 15 aides who accompanied him.

Uh, excuse me again, but not!

In the first place, the Pikeville tour stop began at 6 p.m. That’s an 1½ hours after the normal close of business for state government.

So, at most, driving would have cost Beshear and his aides a couple of hours each of normal office time. And since the planes took off from Capitol Airport between 4:09 and 4:44 p.m., some of them missed a bit of normal office time anyway.

But that’s beside the point because there really is no reason for van-pooling to cause lost work time.

Being away from the office doesn’t equate to being away from the job in this wireless world. So, Beshear and his people could be taking care of business during a van ride. And if they hit a couple of dead zones along the way, well, a bit of paperwork carried along in briefcases could keep everyone gainfully occupied.

Bottom line: Beshear promised better than this same old, same old waste of tax dollars. He hasn’t delivered. Until he does, Kentuckians are going to be scratching their heads and wondering how they managed to re-elect Ernie Fletcher.

Wasting tax dollars in this fashion is no way for Beshear to lift his approval ratings. On the contrary, if he continues his multi-plane flyovers of Kentucky, his approval ratings could easily worsen.

Instead of stubbornly insisting on these wasteful flights, Beshear should admit his mistake and move on. His predecessor had trouble learning that lesson and became a one-term governor as a result.