There’s been a lot of discussion about what Ohio’s House Republicans changed in John Kasich’s budget: removing Medicaid expansion, dumping the sales tax proposal and lowering the income tax cut, while inserting a bunch of right-wing, anti-woman provisions like defunding Planned Parenthood.
But it’s worth pointing out that our self-proclaimed fiscal conservative Governor and GOP legislators both produced versions of a budget that increases state spending by billions over previous budgets.
While the new GOP version of the budget is somewhat smaller than the budget Kasich originally proposed, it still increases General Revenue Fund (GRF) spending by $7.5 Billion over Kasich’s [...]
Full Story... →Last year’s battle for control of the Ohio Republican Party divided Republicans throughout the state. Ultimately, Kasich was able to gather enough votes on the Central Committee to oust then-Chairman Kevin DeWine, partially with the support of the Tea Party. He pissed off quite a few Republicans in the process, and the way he’s chosen to lead the party is likely to anger a heck of a lot more.
While power and control of party resources was clearly the reason for the coup, Kasich supporters gave many other reasons for wanting DeWine out. The Kasich cheerleaders over at ThirdBasePolitics [...]
Full Story... →The Cincinnati Enquirer is reporting that there are rumblings to put the Medicaid expansion on the ballot as a constitutional amendment.
Yes, please! I’ve been overly optimistic about the GOP going ahead with the Medicaid expansion, mainly because this referendum would be a bigger political disaster for them than SB 5.
I’d say “it’ll be a bloodbath”, but that’s wrong. It’ll be a landslide. The bloodbath would be to deny health care to 350,000 Ohioans, leading to hundreds of preventable deaths every year.
The language will be stronger and surer than anything the GOP passes. To satisfy the sadists in their [...]
Full Story... →Ed FitzGerald wrapped up his “three-C tour” at the Hamilton County Democratic Party Executive Committee meeting, where he announced his candidacy for governor.
After some warm-up parliamentary procedure*, FitzGerald took the stage with his family. He spent a good deal of time attacking Kasich’s record.
I was worried that FitzGerald wouldn’t get to a positive vision for his governorship. He allayed those fears.
A big test for FitzGerald is to take activists who don’t know him and get them more fired up to elect him than they are to unseat Kasich. Last night was a very good start.
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Full Story... →Teachers in Strongsville, Ohio have been on strike for over seven weeks now, facing down a school board that seems more focused on breaking the union than on getting teachers back in the classroom. According to the Strongsville Education Association (SEA), the group representing the teachers, the Strongsville School Board is also refusing to accept arbitration.
On April 2nd, SEA made an offer for binding interest arbitration that would have immediately reunited teachers with their students. The board has so far refused to accept the offer, instead complaining that arbitration would put taxpayer dollars in the hands of an “outsider”.
Democrat Ed FitzGerald officially announced his campaign to unseat John Kasich today. Below is the text of his announcement:
As I’ve traveled across our state these past few months, I’ve listened to what people are saying. I’ve found that everywhere I go, from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, in cities, suburbs, and small towns- people are frustrated. They’re struggling. Too many are barely hanging on by their fingernails to the middle class. And when you talk to the workers, the small business owners, the parents, the cops, the nurses, the firefighters, and the teachers who make up the [...]
Full Story... →After a year of speculation, Ed FitzGerald made it official today, launching his campaign to unseat John Kasich as Governor of Ohio.
FitzGerald, the former mayor of Lakewood and current Cuyahoga County Executive, came out swinging, accusing Kasich of using counties, towns and cities like an ATM to balance his own budget.
The impacts of Kasich’s cuts to local government have been widely felt around the state, resulting in police, fire and teacher layoffs. Ohioans have also seen an explosion of new levies and taxes as local governments try cope with the loss of state funds while [...]
Full Story... →OK. let’s try it this way: The Grand Old Party has become the Grand Old Put-ons. Pretenders, all. It has talked for years about broadening its base, possibly even into Antarctica and the Fiji Islands. (Bad choices since ice is melting and Fiji could be swept under by rising sea water.) But the Put-Ons never give up. As Rand Paul, one of the current soul-fathers of the Put-Ons, has said:
“The GOP of old has grown stale and moss covered” and then went on to describe the new gang of ideological frontiersmen as having “need to embrace liberty in both the economic and [...]
Full Story... →According to Policy Matters Ohio, local governments lost nearly $800 Million in Kasich’s first budget. And his 2014/2015 budget deepens those cuts, with locals seeing a loss of an additional $1.4 Billion compared to 2010/2011.
In Fairfield County, Policy Matters puts the total loss at $18.5 Million, with county operations losing $3.9 million.
To compensate for the loss of revenue, Fairfield County commissioners have opted to adopt a permanent 0.25 percent sales tax. The Lancaster Eagle Gazette estimates the tax would bring in between $3.5 and $4 Million per year, money county commissioners say is [...]
Full Story... →Every Republican voted to pass a state budget that won’t add jobs, but will add to the infant mortality rate. It’s simply too Orwellian to call it a “Jobs Budget” when they’re spending a billion dollars to shut down 27,000 jobs.
In 2009, the state government issued a 7-point plan to reduce Ohio’s infant mortality rate. On Thursday, the Ohio House passed a budget which specifically undermines each of those 7 points. If they don’t expand Medicaid, the Pregnancy and Parenting Program will increase Ohio’s infant mortality rate–particularly if family planning is defunded.
Infant Mortality in Ohio
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Full Story... →The relentless assault on reproductive health care
by Gary Dougherty
Almost exactly one year ago, I was invited to write a Plunderbund guest post related to the proliferation of anti-choice legislation, particularly the proposed defunding of Planned Parenthood. I re-read that post recently and couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that we are still embroiled in an assault on reproductive health care rights – only, believe it or not, it has gotten worse.
Whereas the pace of this session has not matched that of last session (when seven anti-choice bills had already been introduced and the [...]
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