BuckeyeBlog

The news is out - we may have a new budget by the constitutionally mandated June 30th deadline!  While that could be good news, the fact that legislators are hoping to complete negotiations on Saturday, expect the bill to be written on Sunday and have a vote on Monday - well, that’s not so good.

Candidate Barack Obama campaigned on the need for openness, especially with funding bills.  He’s completely ignored that campaign promise.  Ohio legislators can and should do better.  While House Bill 420 from last session was a beginning, members and the public need more than a day or less to read 1,000+ pages.  The Governor is talking about changes like increasing gaming to pay the bills and eliminating entire programs (many of which never should have been created at taxpayer expense) to cut the pork.  The need for openness is even more urgent under these circumstances.

Missing the June 30th deadline and having to put a temporary budget in place is a small price to pay for transparent and accountable government.

The Ohio State Supreme Court yesterday helped save taxpayers a little money when it limited the scope of the state’s prevailing wage law. The prevailing wage law mandates higher-than-market wages for work on most state construction projects, which leads to the government (i.e., you, the taxpayer) paying 5% to 15% more for these projects. It can also lead to reduced competition for government construction contracts, which hits nonunion contractors especially hard. For a detailed look at the pernicious effects of prevailing wage laws, it’s hard to find a better source than the Mackinac Center’s booklet on Michigan’s law. Most of what author Paul Kersey says about our neighbor to the north also applies to Ohio.

The Buckeye Institute has done some work on Ohio’s prevailing wage law in Ohio’s Prevailing Wage Law a Costly Burden, Prevailing Wage Law Costs Ohio Millions, Prevailing Wage Exemption Provides Schools with Lower Costs, Higher Quality Construction, and Hamilton County Jail Needs to Escape Prevailing Wage.

Once upon a time, success was rewarded in America. Now, success often meets with punishment. It’s a common misunderstanding that taxing the wealthy at higher rates will bring greater revenue to our federal government, but Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute sets the record straight in this enlightening video, showing that such action is actually detrimental to the health of the American economy.

That would certainly be a first!  On their website, the Ohio Education Association is declaring the need to “put our kids ahead of politics”.  Oh the irony!

I can still hear Albert Shanker’s famous words ringing in my ears.  It’s burned in my memory, because it’s the most honest statement I’ve ever heard from the teachers’ unions:  ”I’ll start representing kids when kids start paying union dues.” 

Most teachers support their students, but teachers’ unions do not.  They support the Strickland/Democrat House plan because it’s tens of thousands of more dollars in their pockets from the $1 billion increase in education funding focused on increasing the number of teachers!  All the research proving that throwing more money at education doesn’t improve academics is irrelevant to them.  All the evidence that we’re in a severe economic slump, and Ohio is hurting more than most, does not concern the OEA.  The fact that more and more Ohio taxpayers are finding themselves out of work, over 10% now, doesn’t change the union’s tune one bit.  They want more taxpayer dollars to pay for more teachers to get more dues to support more pro-union politicians.  How is that “putting kids before politics”? 

The whole lack-of-evidence funding scheme is about payback to the unions who heavily supported Strickland and House Democrats in the last election.  And all Ohioans get what the majority of voters asked for - more spending, bigger government, higher unemployment, and loads of new TEMPORARY union jobs.  The jobs and spending will be unsustainable, but that’s irrelevant to those oinkers feeding at the government trough.  And that, my friends, is putting politics before kids.

Governor Ted Strickland returned to Washington, D.C., to beg federal officials to spend more money in Ohio. You can’t really blame him, since his begging earlier this year helped result in the federal “stimulus” bill that allowed him and the General Assembly to (largely) escape dealing with Ohio’s budget problems. Of course, this trip’s begging was to try and convince the feds to allow a passenger rail system to be built in the state, something which would likely exacerbate Ohio’s spending mess.

The governor says it’s “intolerable” that Ohio doesn’t have much passenger rail service. That’s like saying it’s intolerable that Ohio doesn’t have a vacuum tube industry or that there aren’t enough Calecovisions being played in the state. The fact is that people have chosen through how they spend their money not to take passenger rail, whether in Ohio or around the nation. Passenger rail is a relic of days when there wasn’t low-cost and reliable air transportation, many people lived in cities instead of suburbs, and cars were more scarce. Today, though, passenger rail makes little economic sense. Those who do use it are heavily subsidized by those who don’t. But politicians love it because there is a romantic notion in our nation about “taking the train” (even though most of us never do so).

The Buckeye Institute will be releasing a report soon about the folly of high-speed rail plans. Keep checking back for a detailed analysis of why this infatuation with passenger rail is just a waste of taxpayer dollars.

When even Russia can recognize our steamrolling national trend toward Marxism, you know there is a problem! In an article entitled “American capitalism gone with a whimper” in the Russian newspaper, Pravda, the American people (or “sheeple” as the author refers to us) are criticized on several fronts and rightly so, to be quite frank.

On the education front (where to begin?) we are labeled as a populace “dumbed down” by a “substandard education system based on pop culture” where we “know more about [our] favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects [our] lives.” And what accompanies this lack of value in education? The disappearance of our faith in God where “Even [Russia’s] Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.” And this trend culminates (not surprisingly) in the grand event of – you guessed it – the election of Barack Obama, whose “spending and money printing has been record setting.”

But are these criticisms true? A study done by USAToday in 2008 reveals that the graduation rate for Columbus Public Schools is a dismal 40.9%. And what about the rate for the Cleveland Municipal City School District? Even worse – 34.1%. Our education system may be failing, but surely our faith in God isn’t wavering, right? Well sadly, yes. According to NBC News, for President Obama’s recent speech at Georgetown University, a Catholic university, the White House asked the university to cover the “IHS”, a symbol for Jesus’ name, in front of which the President would be speaking. In God we don’t trust? And the spending? Well, that needs no explanation after the recent passage of the $787 billion stimulus package. And I’m not even going to get into the accompanying control over private enterprise by our beloved federal government, as shown in the auto industry.

It is frightening how similarly reality corresponds to these criticisms of Marxism that come from a nation who should know Marxism better than anyone. Our response to this sad transition of our nation thus far has not been one of active concern but rather one of blind compliance, like “sheeple” instead of the freedom-craving American people we are supposed to be. If we are to retain the America we have always known and loved, we must be resolute in defending our freedoms instead of so willingly surrendering them.

What a sad state of affairs for Ohio.  Our unemployment rate is above 10%, the government take over of the auto businesses is closing plants left and right, and now, more bad news.

A Dayton-area business, NCR Corp., with a 125 year history in Ohio, is pulling up roots and 1,250 jobs and moving to Georgia (according to the Dayton Daily News).

The question we should be asking is, “Why are they leaving?”  (more…)

It seems that if we want our government to be fiscally responsible, we may have to take matters into our own hands. Findlay resident, Larry Manley did just that when he returned his $250 check from the Social Security Administration for the purpose of reducing the national debt, showing an awareness of our national priorities that it seems our government is lacking. And in light of President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package that was passed earlier this year, we will need many more Larry Manleys so that our future generations are not forced to shoulder the responsibility that was dropped at their feet by our own federal government.

To see the letter that Mr. Manley sent to the President, visit this story in the Findlay Courier.

Shocking but not surprising, one of our elected State School Board members, G.R. “Sam” Schloemer, is anti-public charter school.  He’s even gone so far as to officially write a letter to a handful of new board members, asking them to oppose any public-charter school supporters when they consider whom to choose for President and Vice President of the state school board next month.

I wonder if he ever read his own webpage, where it claims, ”I have strived–and will continue to do so–to demand the highest results from the public school system of Ohio for all students.”

Mr. Schloemer, charter schools ARE public schools.  And if you succeed at eliminating them, costs will go up.  Keeping per pupil funding levels the same in our major urban schools districts will require property tax increases from several hundred dollars to several thousand!  Shame on you for trying to manipulate your fellow board members to support anti-charter leadership.  And shame on you for claiming to support ALL students when you clearly don’t. 

I hope the voters of the 4th district in southwestern Ohio are paying attention to this.

Last December the Stowers family had all of their food taken from them. Almost six months later they still have not got it back. The Buckeye Institute’s Maurice Thompson finally has some answers.