From the monthly archives: April 2011
As Speaker Batchelder and other members of the GOP-led House are getting earfuls at town hall meetings across Ohio over the Governor’s unpopular education budget, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Kasich’s budget hurts the Cuyahoga County school districts that Kasich actually carried in the district.
As the House GOP asserts some measure of distance from Kasich’s budget by introducing hundreds of amendments, a real debate is shaping up between the House GOP and the Kasich Administration as to whether the half a billion expected “Strickland surplus” should be used to reduce Kasich’s job-killing cuts or to replenish the State’s “rainy day” fund to please Wall Street.
Full Story... →Recently we did a post about the MANY lies Kasich has told since being elected Governor. Now we can add one more to the list.
According Ohio Public Radio’s Bill Cohen Kasich is running around town telling people that “no school district is being cut by more than 8%” which is an outright lie.
We’ve spent more than our fair share of time covering the huge cuts to school districts across the state. But don’t just take our word for it. The PD has a good piece today that discusses the GIGANTIC cuts to North East Ohio school [...]
Full Story... →According to Fox Business News, Ohio is the 12th best state in the country for making a living.
The study was based on “the average income for each state after taking into account state taxes, unemployment rates and cost of living.”
John Kasich loves to talk down about Ohio, claiming our taxes and unemployment rate are too high. And he loves to talk up Florida as the state after which he wants to model Ohio. But as we’ve discussed before, Florida’s overall taxes can be higher than in Ohio and their unemployment rate is WAY higher – second [...]
Full Story... →Teachers and John Kasich were not friendly during the last gubernatorial campaign. According to Kasich, teachers unions “smeared [his] record and distorted it” and he insisted they take out full page ads in every newspaper to apologize to him. Kasich also promised to “break the back of organized labor in the schools” and he meant it.
He started with Senate Bill 5 which, in military terms, could be considered a series of air strikes intent on destroying his enemy’s defenses. If passed into law, SB5 would seriously impact the effectiveness of teachers to collectively bargain – opening up an [...]
Full Story... →In today’s Columbus Dispatch, the Governor supposedly suggests that Shannon Jones made SB 5 vulnerable to attack by “jumping the gun” and introducing it before he could roll it into his State budget. It’s an odd claim for the Governor to make as it’s not exactly clear what he means by it.
The sequence of events suggests that Kasich, in fact, supported and pushed the legislature to aggressively pass SB 5 as quickly as possible. If Kasich didn’t want the legislature to seriously take up SB 5 before the budget, the recent history of the new Administration suggests countless examples that would suggest the Administration could have persuaded the GOP-led General Assembly to hold off.
Is it kind of telling that as the first signatures are being gathered to put SB 5 on the November ’11 ballot, Governor Kasich is already publicly laying the groundwork to direct the blame to Shannon Jones if SB 5 is defeated?
Full Story... →When Governor Strickland put together his evidence-based funding model for education he issued a 43-page special analysis. It was comprehensive and thorough and, whether you agreed with it or not, you at least understood what he was doing and why.
John Kasich, on the other hand, has so far refused to reveal the formula he used for funding education in his budget. School districts currently have no idea why they ended up with huge or less huge cuts in funding but thanks to a thorough analysis of his budget and existing school district information, school districts can now [...]
Full Story... →So here’s an interesting fact for you: Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel was 2 years old when Ken Blackwell was elected Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Despite the very large age difference, it seems quite possible that the two Ohio politicians could be facing each other in a primary battle next fall.
Blackwell and Mandel have a lot in common. Both started out as somewhat liberal and ended up on the far-right side of politics. Both serve/served as Ohio Treasurer. Both never seem satisfied with their current job. And both have expressed interest in running for Sherrod Brown’s Senate in 2012.
While [...]
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TEA PARTY DISCOVERY #5: Identity Crisis
The Tea Party members should consider reading the Constitution and Federalist Papers to better align their stated mission and values with their guiding documents.
Have pity for these lost souls and kindly direct them to review their core values. I would like to emphasize an excerpt from the Federalist Papers, #85 as evidence.
The judgments of many must unite in the work; Experience must guide their labor; Time must bring it to perfection; . . . ought to put them upon their guard against. . . military despotism of a victorious demagogue . . . I know [...]
Full Story... →At at a press conference today Kasish decided to tell what he called an “interesting story”. The video is included below.
I’m still working on getting the “interesting story” behind the crazy, Ohio-flag-covered jacket Kasich wore to the event (more information hopefully coming soon), but in the mean time, here’s the “story” he told today:
“I ran into a guy who works for the PUCO, he’s involved with trucks and with licensing and everything and so I found out from a couple of the truckers that when they drive down the road and when they get a little mud on [...]
Full Story... →Tea Party Discovery #4: Government Regulation
The stated belief of the Tea Party is to “end burdensome government regulation.”
The Tea Party members in Ohio apparently forgot about their opposition to goals of “less government” and “more economic freedom” as they rallied in support of the following items from Senate Bill 5 that limit the rights of local Boards of Education, elected by local citizens (The People), as they work to employ local citizens (The People) who are educating the children of local citizens (The People):
Prohibits public employees from striking. Expands the list of subjects that are inappropriate for [...]
Full Story... →Head on over to teapartypatriots.org and the first thing you’ll see is this image quoting Thomas Jefferson:
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
Wow! That quote seems to perfectly match up with the Tea Party’s “I ain’t payin’ for no lazy welfare queen” mentality. AND it’s from one of our country’s founding fathers.
Sure Jefferson was rich slave owner, but he is also considered one the greatest U.S. presidents. He purchased the Louisiana Territory, sent Lewis and Clark [...]
Full Story... →Budget Watch
