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).
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.
At a time when Ohioans need most to build and maintain their financial security, the “cap and trade” measure spear-headed by US Rep. Henry Waxman of California, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will do nothing but provide further hurtles for Ohioans to realize such security. This bill, which calls for restrictions on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions such as those produced by coal, would result in higher energy costs for consumers. Furthermore, the job security of those in high-manufacturing areas would be in jeopardy, leading those affected to tighten their budgets at a time when spending is most needed to stimulate our economy. The pending consequences to this bill are evidence to show that regulation does not help our economy but cripples the very workers and families upon whom it depends.
For more information on the effects of this bill visit the Heritage Foundation website.
For information on how this bill would impact Ohio directly, visit the Sandusky Register at this site.
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 willrequire 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.
The bankruptcy of an Allen County ethanol plant illustrates a variety of problems with government intervention in the market. The only reason ethanol is being used as fuel is because the farm lobby (which benefits from having another market for corn) and the environmental lobby (whose hatred of fossil fuels blinds them to scientific facts) teamed up to convince federal and state governments to promote ethanol usage. Of course, this push for ethanol ignores the fact that it is bad for car engines, environmentally destructive, and may have raised the cost of food, thus contributing to food riots around the world.
These facts were ignored by policymakers because they like to appease farmers and appear environmentally-friendly. So there was a push at the state level (in Ohio and many other states) to use taxpayer money to invest in ethanol plants. Now those plants are going bankrupt. The one that went bankrupt in Allen County cost taxpayers $1 million.
When you have governmentally-directed “economic development” strategies, this thing is inevitable. Sure, in a free market situation there are plenty of products that fail. But there is no way that a product like ethanol, which has so many flaws, would still be produced unless the government was offering such absurdly high incentives for its production and mandating its usage. And when private business ventures fail, it is businessmen and investors who lose money, not taxpayers.
The ethanol boondoggle should be a sobering lesson for all those who want the government to promote “green technology.”
Listen here to a BuckeyeVoices podcast with Dr. Tom Woods, author of “Meltdown: A Free Market Look at Why the Stock Market Crashed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse.”
Judging by the product it passed yesterday, the US House Committee on Commerce and Energy would that we in Ohio have neither commerce nor energy. In a WSJ op-ed last week, Indiana’s Gov. Mitch Daniels weighed in on the politics behind this bill from a Hoosier perspective that applies just as well from here in Ohio.
Quite simply, it looks like imperialism. This bill would impose enormous taxes and restrictions on free commerce by wealthy but faltering powers — California, Massachusetts and New York — seeking to exploit politically weaker colonies in order to prop up their own decaying economies. Because proceeds from their new taxes, levied mostly on us, will be spent on their social programs while negatively impacting our economy, we Hoosiers decline to submit meekly.
It must be nice to have allies in the General Assembly. As the Ohio Contractors Association found out, getting a provision tucked into the budget bill which will reduce comptition for state construction jobs (and, in turn, drive up the cost of those jobs) was pretty easy:
House Democrats slipped a provision into the state budget last month banning some uses of a new style of competitive bidding over the Internet that has netted big savings in Portage County.
Inserted at the request of the Ohio Contractors Association, the provision added during the early hours of April 28 bans Internet reverse auctions for supplies and services related to construction projects.
Vernon Sykes, an Akron Democrat, was behind this language. As Portage County’s experience with these auctions shows, they can produce substantial savings:
Jeff Lonzrick, an engineering manager for Portage County’s water resources department, said the online bidding on the water project was done April 20 by a half-dozen companies prequalified to do the work. It resulted in a low bid of $188,500, while the engineer’s estimated cost had been $253,000, he said. The project was a routine replacement of 1,126 feet of a 16-inch water main in Aurora.
The contractors claim that these auctions don’t produce this kind of savings regularly. Fine. As Portage County Commissioner Chuck Keiper says, then their supporters should have this debate in the full House and not stick the ban in a budget bill.
Making businesses compete for government contracts is good. The more transparent the competition, the better. Trying to reduce this transparency at the behest of a politically-connected interest group is a shameful. Perhaps that’s why Rep. Sykes tried to slip this into the budget bill unnoticed. Kudos to the Plain Dealer’s Aaron Marshall for exposing this anti-taxpayer move on the part of Rep. Skyes and the Ohio Contractors Association.
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.
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.
