From the monthly archives: December 2011
On Oct 19, 2011 the Kasich-appointed members of the Ohio Casino Control Commission voted to have the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) provide security for the first two casinos to open in Ohio.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) had also been lobbying for the job even though the Patrol is currently limited to investigating and providing security on state property. The casinos are private property so choosing the patrol would have been a big expansion of their power. BCI makes a lot more sense as the option and the Commission realized that and made the logical choice.
So imagine [...]
Full Story... →It’s widely known that the state budget contained major cuts to local governments by slashing the Local Government Fund – a revenue-sharing arrangement that sends a portion of tax receipts to counties, cities and townships.
What has been less widely reported is that, in a separate piece of legislation, the administration reduced funding for the state’s “major new” construction program – funds for new highway and bridge construction – versus the previous transportation budget. Compared to $317 million in fiscal year 2011 (the last year of the prior administration), the Kasich budget appropriates just $60 million in Fiscal [...]
Full Story... →Multiple reports citing a Sears official’s testimony to the Illinois legislature states that Ohio has offered $400 million in incentives to try to lure Sears to Ohio from Illinois. If accepted, the result would be 6,100 jobs being transplanted from Illinois to Ohio. That works out to be over $65,000 per job.
That’s an ironic figure since some conservatives tried to defend Kasich’s unwillingness to do more to prevent Chiquita from leaving, as well, here’s what they said:
For those interested in the math, that’s almost $60,000 of incentives per job, which is A LOT, bordering on near [...]
Full Story... →This video cracked me up. Thought I’d share. Keep laughing about: “I want to be on the Fox News”
My only issue with this video: the virtual Josh Mandel is pretty unrealistic i.e. he doesn’t look like a teenager.
Full Story... →We get A LOT of press releases sent to us. And we don’t typically post them in full. But I thought this letter sent to Bill Batchelder by 38 Boards of Elections Members was worth making an exception.
As you may have heard, Republicans in the state legislature are planning to hold two primaries next year at a cost of $15 million each!
The first primary, in March, will be for state legislative candidates, based on the districts approved by the apportionment board. And the second primary, in June, will be for congressional candidates and the presidential primary. [...]
Full Story... →In the heat of the moment, with tempers flaring and anger unchecked, people can often reveal things they wouldn’t otherwise say out loud. Recent comments from Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine appear to provide a perfect example.
With the well-known rift between DeWine and John Kasich continuing to get nastier and more public by the day, and with more and more pressure on DeWine coming from Kasich, Batchelder and their newly-rich lobbyist friends, the ORP chairman finally came forward on Friday and admitted something Plunderbund has been saying since John first expressed interest in running for Governor: Kasich [...]
Full Story... →As you may have heard, John Kasich proudly declared last week that he doesn’t read any of Ohio’s newspapers because they don’t give him “an uplifting experience.”
In a Dispatch article the very next day he discussed reading something in, yes, The Dispatch. He later corrected this, saying he’d just seen the headline somewhere – not actually in the newspaper.
It turns out this isn’t the first time Kasich has discussed reading newspapers.
Back in August, 2010 the Dispatch asked all the candidates a series of questions ranging from favorite drinks to favorite sports heroes. They also [...]
Full Story... →Are John Kasich and his devotees the first people you think of when we say “financial wizards?” What about when we say “educational reformers?” Still no? Well they would vehemently disagree with you while taking extreme measures to try to make their point, Ohio’s future be damned. This is our 4th post in a series in which we are dissecting the new school ranking system imposed by the Ohio GOP as a part of this year’s budget bill. You can find our first three entries at the following links:
Full Story... →This is our third in a series exploring the new school ranking system created by Governor John Kasich and the Republican legislature. In our first post, we explained how Kasich cut funding to the Ohio Department of Education while adding major new requirements to the agency, a decision that undercuts the likelihood of the ranking system ever being implemented. We also detailed the simplistic ignorance in pretending to use the Performance Index Scores in an objective ranking system. Our second post broke down Kasich’s choice to include value-added data, highlighting the inequity across schools and cost-prohibitive nature [...]
Full Story... →Budget Watch
