He believes Ohio needs continued financial support from the Federal government. He predicts continued financial difficulties in Ohio. He predicts a double dip recession. He advocates increases in local taxes to force citizens in local communities already hammered by the economic downturn to dig deeper to pay for government. Strickland can see no area for cuts in “essential state spending” to balance the Ohio’s budget and must raise taxes. I guess Ohioans should just trust his failed policies for another four years. Yea right!
I just wonder what the federal plan to let taxes go up in 2011 will trigger the very problems he predicts. We learn one thing from Democrats. Government services are essential and tax increases are a civic responsibility, even when those taxes will force business to close, businesses to leave the state, and the citizens who once held those jobs to forced on unemployment. Democrat tax and spend policies always lead to financial disaster and federal, state and local bankruptcy. Democrats never understand their tax and spend policies make it harder for private sector businesses to flourish. There’s lots of areas where the state is wasting money that can be cut. Here’s a couple areas just for starters…
In my small town, there was once a thriving business opportunity for mom and pop stores to rent video tapes and DVDs. These small businesses once employed folk, paid state and local taxes and added to Ohio’s economy. Then state’s public libraries decided they could increase their circulation figures by buying and lending videos and DVDs to the public. They competed for the video rental businesses with state tax dollars and offered the videos for free. One by one, those private businesses stopped renting videos and the stores closed. It’s really hard to compete against public “businesses” who have destroyed your private business.
Public library spending is a sacred cow area in Ohio’s state budget that has escaped scrutiny during many economic downturns. Maybe it time we examine all “essential programs” more closely.
A second spending area for scrutiny is this… Sometimes states decide to create businesses that the private companies can not be run profitably. Governor Ted Strickland has been pushing spending tax money on passenger rail service as one more essential “Infrastructure project” to aid the Ohio cities. Democrat congresswoman Marcy Kaptur inserted $400 million dollars into the Stimulus bill to build passenger rail between Toledo between Chicago and Pittsburgh, including Cleveland and Sandusky. Once the money went to Columbus, legislators from downstate areas redirected the money to their communities. They pushed the idea of light rail traffic along the Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton, Cincinnati corridor. A disappointed Marcy Kaptur plans to expand the new system linking Toledo to Cleveland for future state sponsored rail extensions. All this light rail will require state subsidies in future Ohio budgets and will burden tax payers if Ohio’s economy ever improves.
Ohio passenger rail once thrived in Ohio. In the 1920s, Ohio had a greater number Interurban rail track mileage than any state in the country. Interurban rail once provided passenger service in small cities like Mansfield and Ashland to large cities where passengers could catch main line train and travel around the country. Competition from automobiles coupled with the 1930s depression drove Interurban rail services into bankruptcy. When the economy recovered after WWII in the 1950s. President Eisenhower pushed congress to build the Interstate highway system. People chose to drive passenger cars because cars provided the freedom of movement train service never could. Consumers did not want the slow travel and inconvenience of rail services. Isn’t it odd that during the current Obama depression, we have public officials wanting to revisit another failed idea from the 1930s. Democrats have been telling themselves for generations about the glory days of the FDR era with it’s big government “infrastructure projects” and have never critically evaluated the policies that prolonged the depression.
If Ted Strickland can not find a better way to balance the state budget than raising taxes, maybe a new cost cutter administration needs to be elected which can examine every state spending area and stop wasting money in the Ohio. Ohio needs to stop wasting money in all ways big and small.
The Ohio’s Department Of Development, The Department Lt. Governor Lee Fisher Abandoned To Further His Own Political Career, Has Allowed A Texas Company That Outsources Jobs To Central America To Run An Ohio Government Program Designed To Stimulate Ohio’s Economy After Nearly 400,000 Jobs Lost In The Last Three Years:
A Texas company that administered Ohio’s $11 million appliance rebate program used hundreds of workers in El Salvador to process applications and answer customers’ calls.
Parago Inc. never told state officials that it would handle the rebates from an offshore call center, Lisa Patt-McDaniel, director of the Ohio Department of Development, said.
State officials never asked, either. The state’s application doesn’t specifically require companies to say where call centers are situated.
State officials learned of the El Salvador arrangement on the day the program began, after a customer asked a call center employee where he was and then complained to the state.
NBC4 covered the multiple problems the program has experienced:
I’m incredibly disappointed. Determined to never let it happen again. It shouldn’t have happened. We were unaware that this company would outsource these jobs. Perhaps we could have done a better job of vetting the company.
Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher – former head of the Department of Development – has yet to respond.
The Internet is a large-scale version of the “Committees of Correspondence” that led to the first American Revolution — and with Washington’s failings now so obvious and awful, it may lead to another.
People are asking, “Is the government doing us more harm than good? Should we change what it does and the way it does it?”
Pruning the power of government begins with the imperial presidency.
Too many overreaching laws give the president too much discretion to make too many open-ended rules controlling too many aspects of our lives. There’s no end to the harm an out-of-control president can do.
Bill Clinton lowered the culture, moral tone and strength of the nation — and left America vulnerable to attack. When it came, George W. Bush stood up for America, albeit sometimes clumsily.
Barack Obama, however, has pulled off the ultimate switcheroo: He’s diminishing America from within — so far, successfully.
Canton, OH—In the wake of revelations last week that a House investigatory panel has charged Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y) with ethics violations, many House Democrats continue to distance themselves from the corrupt Congressman and purge their campaign coffers of his tainted donations. The decision by Democrats to dump or donate Rangel’s money began months ago as a string of corruption allegations, ranging from improper use of taxpayer dollars to filing fraudulent financial disclosures, began to surface. While dozens of House Democrats have returned or donated Rangel’s contributions, including Ohio members Zack Space and Mary Jo Kilroy, Rep. John Boccieri has remained defiant, refusing to part with the $53,200 he has taken from Rangel.
Boccieri’s refusal to rid his campaign coffers of Rangel’s contributions directly contradicts the position he took in the state legislature when he verbally chastised Ohio Republicans over campaign contributions they received from political fundraiser Tom Noe, who at the time was facing a federal investigation into violations of FEC law. Despite the fact that Republicans in the Ohio Statehouse had already committed Noe’s tainted donations to charity, Boccieri insisted that ridding their campaign accounts of Noe’s money didn’t go far enough and he demanded that Republicans be stripped of committee chairmanships and recuse themselves from legislative matters for having accepted the contributions in the first place. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on June 2, 2005, “Rep. John Boccieri, a Mahoning County Democrat, asked that Rep. Stephen Buehrer step down as Chairman of the State Government Committee because of $8,000 in contributions (from Noe).”
After accepting tens of thousands of dollars from Rangel in 2007 and 2008, Boccieri neither stepped down from committee assignments nor recused himself from a vote to strip Rangel of his Chairmanship of the Ways & Means committee in 2009 (H.R. 805). In fact, Boccieri not only participated in the vote on H.R. 805, but voted against stripping Rangel of his Chairmanship.
“By desperately clinging to Charlie Rangel’s dirty campaign cash, John Boccieri has already demonstrated a clear lack of ethical integrity—but now it appears he is also guilty of blatant hypocrisy. Although John Boccieri has a long record of breaking his promises to the voters of the 16th district, he may salvage whatever remains of his shattered reputation by sparing his constituents any further embarrassment over their Congressman’s involvement in Charlie Rangel’s corrupt campaign contributions,” Renacci spokesman James Slepian said.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) recently sent around a memo focusing on “Democratic Senate candidates have become more competitive in four key races.” Critical battleground state Ohio was left off the list. Maybe this news report helps explain why:
Focusing on Ohio’s economic development , Meet Dem. Lt. Governor Lee Fischer, tells Fox News Toledo he is running against the Democrat administration in Washington. He attributes Ohio’s failed economy on Washington policies of the Bush administration, while ignoring the small detail that the Democrat party controlled the congress since 2006 and the Presidency since 2008.
Even MSNBC is critical of Lee Fischer’s prospects in Ohio
