The strategic take away from the 2015 Fancy Farm Picnic is that the Era of Big Federal funds flowing into Kentucky is drawing to a close. Most of the 20 speeches made on the picnic stage Saturday were in the vein of either "I hate you for being a progressive Obama stooge" or "With your conservative thinking you know nothing of Kentucky problems or how to fix them."

Through the smoke of barbecue sandwiches and the heat on the stage, a errant breeze brought the strange sensation that "a moment in time where one crosses over to another dimension was taking place'" A new awareness seems to be forming from the shadows that big government will, in the future, be forced to take on partners for public projects and services. Washington is running on empty.

From Senator Mitch McConnell on down the Republican ticket, unified voices called for massive government budget cuts, paying down the public debt, agency elimination or harsh reorganization. Their anger is directed at the EPA, HUD, USDA, VA, Commerce, Transportation, Immigration, and others.

Even as Kentucky state government is building two massive bridges across Kentucky Lake and Barkley Lake, it's hard to recall that these two projects were on the drawing boards for over a decade. The bridges are some of the last President Obama's money pouring into local and regional public infrastructure building. These two bridges will be remembered as two examples of the end of federalism. After this, new funding sources will have to be built around public and private money resources.

Age of Federalism

Richard Nixon gave birth to the concept of federalism when he created the notion of revenue sharing among federal, state, and local governments in the 1970s. Massive federal funds were directed toward urban and rural areas on a scale never seen before.
Across the nation, approximately 1200 federal grants impacted the operations of state and local governments.

With the money came rules on how it was to be spent. Big government was born.

Age of Retrenchment

Fast forward to the 21st century.

The public good times are over. We are rapidly moving into the hard times. Public decisions and allocation of tax monies will become much harder as there will be more deserving projects with less money to fund them. Roads are falling apart. Bridges are falling down. Airports are too crowded. Trains are missing from mass transit. Hospitals are failing. From this point on, public pain will be a part of the equation for determining who, and which project is to be funded.

Retrenchment will be a code word for downsizing the American Dream. The rich will get much richer. The poor will get much worse. The middle class will struggle to maintain the illusion of being well off.

The American economy is grounded in the belief that the people will shop forever at a funding 70% of the gross national product. This worked before trillions of dollars were wasted in the Middle East Wars. Now, it is the morning after the spending party.

Ninety four days after the political clashes at Fancy Farm, Kentucky will have a new Governor and Lt. Governor. The state will also have selected a Secretary of State, Public Auditor, Attorney General, Treasurer, and Commissioner of Agriculture.

At this point, two fast tracks kick in: (1) Transition Planning for new state government and (2) Building a two year state budget.

Election will be on November 3, 2015. On the morning of November 4th, all winners will start two levels of thought. One level of thought will be the political side of who is owed favors; who is needed in critical sections of government; what media message to build; and what political network to maintain contact with the people.

On election night, the budget clock starts ticking. The Governor and his team must start the next day on preparing a two year $18 billion dollar state budget. They will have 72 days to complete this task. Luckily for most new governors, they can work closely with The Office of Policy and Management (OPM) in the Administration Cabinet. This is where the budget first starts to take shape.

At this crossroads of time and space, we the people become spectators. It will fall to these elected men and women to undertake the process of governing Kentucky for the next four years.

Question is: How well will they perform their duties in the Age of Retrenchment?