Steve Beshear presents his budget, and we wonder what happened to Fletcher's $700 million "surplus". Where's Houdini when you need him?

After listening to Governor Steve Beshear's state of the state address on January 14th, comparing it to Fletcher's of February last year, and listening to Beshear's budget speech tonight, you can say that inquiring minds like me, want to know the mystery behind the vanishing "surplus" of $657 million -- (click on the image above to enlarge it and read what I'm talking about) -- that appear to have vanished into thin air.

Did we get "hood-winked" as that "Wascally Wabbitt", Bugs Bunny, will say, or did we get "slickered", as that fictional HillBilly, Jed Clampett -- yep, the same one "who barely kept his family fed" -- will say?

Where, oh where, is Harry Houdini when you need him, to help us figure out this "illusion"?


For additional reading on the topic, check out this nugget from Governor Steve Beshear's state of the state address:

"We are facing nothing short of a budgetary crisis for the coming biennium," a BIG "... shortfall [of] approximately $434 million."

Listen to the audio; watch the video of Beshear addressing the "shortfall"; read the Medicaid "surplus" which "Whistled" away; the it was all "hocus pocus"; and the budget speech referred to above.

If anyone can figure all of this out, please let the rest of us know.

Meanwhile, we are encouraged by, and are "banking" on, these words from Governor Steve Beshear in his state of the state address:

"Although the construction and evolution of this problem occurred before I was elected, it is my job to solve it. We’re setting about to do exactly that."