[Hoot Gibson]

I don’t really see how building proper roads that make the rest of the state as well as East Tennessee more accessible and having quality internet in the 21st century is a liberal handout or entitlement.

Why haven’t we seen more of a push from KY Republicans for an authentic conservative challenger in the primary against Mitch? This kind of goes back to my original question. It seems like a lot of Republicans dislike Mitch and think that he is serving himself rather than KY or conservative values but yet he always coasts to re-election every cycle.

Because the Republican Party has become the Democrat-lite Party. The destination of the two parties is the same. The only difference is the speed that the two parties are getting us there.

Good roads are important for economic development. In eastern Kentucky's case, you should be thanking mostly now defunct coal companies for the tax revenues that built those roads. Politicians love to take credit for building roads and other popular projects, but we should never forget that not one dime of the money that they allocate for public works is their own.

As for internet access, the federal government has no business reallocating income to provide luxuries to sparsely populated areas of the country. There are advantages and disadvantages to living in most areas of the country. Mountains and a sparse population make good cell phone and internet service very expensive but why should citizens of Lexington pay the bill for eastern Kentucky's internet service infrastructure?

Likewise, I consider that dispersal of coal severance funds to Kentucky's Golden Triangle area of Lexington, Louisville, and northern Kentucky to have been outright theft. Had those funds been spent where fairness dictated that they have been spent, eastern Kentucky could have enjoyed good, affordable internet and cell phone services without taxing other areas to pay for the services.

Taxes should be imposed and spent as closely as possible in the same location. That belief is a core conservative principle and one in which few in the Republican Party now seem to subscribe.