BOWLING GREEN- It’s not even December but Gov. Matt Bevin, R-Kentucky, is already taking shots at potential opponents in 2019.
While speaking with hosts Chad Young and Al Arbogast on WCKT’s The Morning Show, Bevin took time to dismiss the two announced Democratic gubernatorial candidates, House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins, D-Sandy Hook, and Attorney General Andy Beshear, D-Kentucky.
The first shot came at the House Minority Leader, after Kentucky’s troubled pension system was discussed.
“How does he run on this issue?” asked host Chad Young.
“By being as disingenuous and hypocritical as he’s always been the last 30 or some odd years,” Bevin responded. “Maybe more than that. I don’t know it’s been a long time.”
Bevin went on to assert Adkins as the top Democrat in the House in part created the crisis by not fully funding the pension system for years.
“Now, he comes out with a straight face and says he’s going to be the defenders of such things, it is an absolute farce,” Bevin said. “But, so too has been his political career with rare exception, if he wants to make the case as to why it’s not. Then that’s his right and it’s going to be fun to watch him to do it.”
Rep. Adkins responded attacking the governor and Republican’s for Senate Bill 151.
“If there’s been anybody who’s disingenuous and hypocritical to the people of Kentucky, it’s Gov. Matt Bevin. His and his party’s radical ‘solution’ this year to address pension liabilities will cost taxpayers about $5 billion more over the next several decades if upheld in court and make it incredibly difficult to hire new teachers. The retirement systems’ liabilities are due to two steep downturns in the stock market and the worst recession in most of our lifetimes,” a statement from him read. “The General Assembly and past governors of both parties have worked in a bipartisan way over the last 15 years to counter the impact of this economic downturn, so it is disingenuous to claim the pension liabilities are somehow the responsibility of one party. All Gov. Bevin has to offer is insults, while I have been and always will be fighting to protect taxpayers and the pensions of teachers and public employees across Kentucky.”