From the monthly archives: March 2011
Here’s another fun fact about Kasich’s budget: the cuts in Governor’s office spending are not only much, much lower than in any other are of the budget, but they are most likely not coming out of his staff’s salaries. As a matter of fact, spending on salaries has actually GONE UP since Kasich took office.
We looked at a weekly comparison of salaries associated with the Governor’s office for the second part of February 2011 and compared them to the salaries from the same period in 2010 under Strickland and found that they went up nearly 10% from $83,547 [...]
Full Story... →John Kasich loves to talk about “the kids”. He mentioned “kids” 16 times in his state of the state speech. And “babies” 7 times.
John Kasich said he wants to “stand up for our kids” and “make things a little bit better for the families and the kids.” He said he wants to help “mothers and their babies” by giving them “the prenatal care they need”.
Funny story: John Kasich’s budget makes HUGE cuts to programs that help kids and babies, while his own office gets only minor cuts – none of which impact the salary of his staff.
[...]
Full Story... →Prepare to be surprised.
Today the free-market/conservative think tank Buckeye Institute released their analysis of Kasich’s budget. And while it had the praise you’d expect, it also unflinchingly refused to whistle past the graveyard that Kasich is hoping the Tea Party activists don’t realize: Kasich’s budget doesn’t lower the “cost of government,” like he claimed all week. In fact, State government spending will never be higher (except for local governments, K-12, and higher education.)
When it comes to keeping government spending in line with changes in population and inflation, Governor Ted Strickland is the only Governor to [...]
Full Story... →Since introducing his budget, Governor Kasich has already been traveling the State claiming that this budget is necessary to “put us on a path to economic growth.” (Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer) Implied in that statement is that Ohio isn’t already on a path for economic growth.
In order to draft a budget, one of the first things you’ve got to figure out is how much revenue you’re going to have. For government, that means you need to make some economic assumptions as to what is going to happen in the economy since your revenues are derived from income [...]
Full Story... →The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel is a state office that is statutorily designated to represent Ohio consumers before various rating boards such as the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO.) It uses its office of lawyers and economists to try to make the case to such agencies why proposed utility rate hikes are not really necessary and harmful for the consumers.
The PUCO is an entity that approves rate increases. It’s also where energy lobbyists and senior utility executives go when they want a change of scenery. That’s been true under both Republican and Democratic Governors, by the way. Take for [...]
Full Story... →During his budget unveiling, Governor Kasich boasted that there was “no smoke and mirrors” in the budget that purportedly solved a projected $8 billion budget deficit without raising taxes in a budget which promises more spending than ever in the history of Ohio (just not for schools, colleges, or local governments, and multiple health care programs for the poor and uninsured.)
But, that’s not how the Columbus Dispatch sees it:
Budget uses accounting maneuvers
State Budget Director Tim Keen wasn’t dressed like a magician, but state lawmakers wanted to know yesterday how he made an $8 billion shortfall disappear, [...]
Full Story... →Ed Schultz apparently not a big fan of Kasich’s budget….
Full Story... →Twenty-fours hours later and we’ve yet to see a single Republican publicly embrace Kasich’s “Jobs” budget. Seriously, this is odd. Ted Strickland would get some response from the Republican leadership by now.
Go over to the Ohio Republican Party website… nothing. Nothing on their Twitter account, either. (The Ohio GOP website does show more opposition by its users than support for SB 5, btw.) Nothing about the budget on its Facebook site. No press release from ORP Chairman Kevin DeWine.
House Republican caucus? Same thing. Nothing. Speaker Batchelder? Nada. Senate Republican caucus? [...]
Full Story... →Last week FOP Lodge #9 in Franklin County withdrew its endorsement of Senator Bacon because of his support for Senate Bill 5.
We sat down with the President of FOP Lodge #9 Jim Gilbert to discuss the decision to withdraw the endorsement and about SB5 in general. Jim was fired up about the issue and shared a great deal of information and insight with us. This post covers the first part of the interview.
We started off the conversation talking about Senator Bacon and Jim reiterated the fact that during the interview process for their endorsement Senator Bacon [...]
Full Story... →Public Policy Polling, a Democratic, but well respected polling organization, today released additional numbers from their Ohio poll. Their last poll in December showed freshman Senator Sherrod Brown in potentially deep trouble, running virtually neck and neck with a cast of potential challengers.
Brown, who in December was polling at 40%-43% given the GOP challenger, is now polling at the more comfortable 48%-49% range. In addition, instead of the tied to eight point lead against the tested GOP challengers, Brown now sits on a comfortable and consistent fifteen to nineteen point lead.
The biggest casualty for [...]
Full Story... →Budget Watch
