BuckeyeBlog

The Columbus Dispatch editorialized last week about the Strickland plan for public schools:

Strickland’s plan and his proposed budget would lock Ohio’s schools into business as usual, only with more money. It invests huge amounts of money in simply hiring more teachers, counselors, nurses and other employees — hence the enthusiastic union support — as if simple hiring ratios can fix what’s wrong with public schools.

Meaningful change would come from bypassing this inertia-prone system and, instead, allocating state dollars to individual students, taking into consideration any special needs such as disabilities and lack of English-language proficiency, and allowing families to apply those dollars to the schools they think are the best fit for their child’s unique needs.

What would an Ohio education finance system that allocates dollars to individual students look like? See our report “A Child-Centered Solution to School Finance in Ohio” for a detailed road map on how to move from our current status quo-centered finance system to one that is truly family friendly and quality oriented.

Kudos to Ohio State Rep. Seth Morgan who has filed suit with the Ohio Supreme Court seeking the Court’s backing in his quest to secure information for the Governor under Ohio’s Open Records Act (found in Ohio Revised Code’s Chapter 149).

Unfortunately the Governor has stiff-armed Rep. Morgan’s request for the evidence Strickland used to formulate his ‘Evidence-Based Education’ plan for state school spending. 

The Administration’s recent, repeated attempts to hide its workings from the people raise important concerns about the Governor’s commitment to freedom and liberty in Ohio.

The Founders knew that the consent of the governed, upon which the legitimacy of the government they were designing would rest, would mean nothing if government were to deliberately obscure its workings.  An opaque government would invalidate popular consent, and with it, the legitimacy of governmental authority.

No transparency, no freedom.  Even Gorbachev understood the connection in offering glasnost to the Soviet people twenty years ago now.  Remember that, Governor? 
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Ohio Auditor of State Mary Taylor points out that if state laws for local government fiscal transparency were applied to the state itself, she would have to declare the state ‘unauditable’.

It should come as no surprise that the state has exempted itself from the expectations it has of others, and so Auditor Taylor asks of the Strickland Administration:

“How will the governor know where to go fiscally if he doesn’t know where he’s been?”

We second this. And add that while it’s only a matter of managerial competence for the governor to be in the dark about the state’s fiscal condition and future, it concerns the freedom of Ohioans when the electorate cannot learn the truth of the state’s stewardship of their tax dollars.

After all, the kind of government a free people deserve is constitutional, transparent and accountable. Which is to say, a government that is ‘auditable’!

One leading electricity utility executive predicts a 25% increase in Ohio’s electricity rates under the initial $20 ton ”cap and trade” carbon tax proposed by President Obama.  This burden would not be shared evenly across the country as electricity in espcially Ohio and Indiana is generated largely from coal while other states get theirs from nukes, hydro and natural gas not so burdened by this plan.  

Nor is there realistic hope of the benefit of the $645 billion coming out of our pockets and going into the government’s being reasonably redistributed back to what would be a devastated Ohio economy.  As Duke’s Jim Rogers notes:

“My view is they’ll try to use the money from Ohio and Indiana to subsidize the West coast and the Northeast and to use it for purposes that are different from addressing the climate issue,” Mr. Rogers said Friday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“Ya think?”  With anything proposed by Obama going through Rep. Henry Waxman (D – Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Malibu CA), Chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, despite believing in neither?

Let’s hope that Governor Strickland will appeal to the President to forgo this cap-and-trade plan with the same alacrity with which he went after “stimulus” money in recent weeks.

As the editors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer point out here, Medicaid’s burden on Ohio’s taxpayers is growing:

Medicaid enrollment by Ohioans has risen by 27,488 people since July 1, with roughly 16 percent of the new patients in the most expensive category (elderly, blind or disabled).

Thus, overall Medicaid spending is up sharply. From July 1 through Oct. 31, Ohio spent $3.97 billion on Medicaid. For the 2007 period, the tab was $3.62 billion. That’s a 9.7 percent increase — and a cold welcome for spenders’ letters to Santa Claus, care of Strickland’s Statehouse workshop.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I predicted as much here:

Expanding Medicaid can lead to large increases in Medicaid spending when states can least afford it – during recessions. Ohio saw this earlier this decade when Medicaid spending increased dramatically during the recent recession. Spending grew at 11 percent annually during 2001 and 2004, squeezing other budget priorities at a time when the state was seeing reduced revenue. Expanding Medicaid now will only repeat this cycle during the next recession.

That “next recession” is now. Of course, the expansion pushed by the governor and approved by the General Assembly last year has been stalled by the federal government. Imagine what Medicaid would be costing if it actually took effect. We may not have to imagine, as Governor Strickland is pushing the feds to approve the expansion. When Senator Obama assumes the Presidency, it’s likely that Strickland will get his wish. That means even higher Medicaid spending next year.

A lot of people got their tighty-whities in a bunch simply over the thought that Ohio Workers Comp funds were being put into a rare coin fund. (We won’t get into the issues of access-buying and the rest, but the scandal started over outrage over the investment choice…)

Now the Wall Street Journal ($) reports that with stocks tanking many investors are ”seeking refuge in unusual alternatives — parking spaces, for instance, and condos in Peru. Sales of exotic livestock are up. The U.S. Mint has seen a gold-coin rush.” [My italics.]

I wanted to see how much of the multi-billion dollar Workers Comp fund was invested in AIG just to put the investment returns on rare coins into a context with one more politically acceptable alternative.

Ah, but of course the voters of Ohio still can’t easily look over the work of their elected officials. I spent 15 minutes on the BWC site, a reasonable amount of time for an ordinary citizen to have to spend in looking up how $22 billion of state assets were kept. I never came close to finding out this information despite the site’s frequent claims of greater transparency brought by the Strickland Administration’s control of this state monopoly.

If anyone more adept at BWC’s data sources has this information, please do share!

Much will be made of Strickland/Fisher “leadership” in convincing the SEIU to pull the sick leave mandate measure off the ballot.

The real reason SEIU pulled the measure is that the Sam’s Club demographic targeted for turnout motivation by it is now far too McCain-Palin friendly.  Can you image the kitchen table conversations in Reynoldsburg, Ohio?  “Honey, who would most likely share our values? A war hero and hockey mom, or, two Washington-loving, blowhard Senators? By the way, don’t forget to write your sister in Iraq and I’ll get Jimmie and Susy from soccer tonight…”  Even Keith Oberman could figure out how this choice will play out.

For the uninitiated, SIEU’s ponderous, anti-entreprenurial ballot proposal for a new paid absence benefit mandate on business would have further estranged Ohio’s limp economy from the dynamism of American free enterprise. It would have benefited no one but SEIU bosses and cost Ohioans jobs, income and prosperity.

Its demise is an early benefit to Ohio of the McCain-Palin ticket.

Once SEIU saw its plan backfiring, threatening to turn out voters intent on voting for real change in Washington, it had no choice but to pull the plug on the proposal.  SEIU was no more pushed into this than Marc Dann was pushed out by Strickland (remember, it took the GOP General Assembly raising the spectre of Inspector General engagement to pry Dann out of office — he wasn’t going anywhere until Husted and Harris played this card).

Contrary to the spin that will be put out, this was, and is, all about Democrat/Union political gaming.

The Plain Dealer reports that prominent Democrats are calling for Jimmy Dimora to resign his position as county Democratic chairman in light of an investigation that centers on him and Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo. Although these “prominent Democrats” aren’t named, Governor Ted Strickland isn’t one of them. He says that it wouldn’t be “appropriate” for him to ask Dimora to resign.

Strickland’s reticence on this is amazing. Here he has a powerful Democratic Party county chairman who is also a county commissioner who is under federal investigation for a rash of financial improprieties and other misbehavior. A few months ago we had an Attorney General some of you may remember named Marc Dann. It was alleged Dann did some bad things, too — sexual harassment and an affair with a subordinate. No one investigated Dann for funneling money to his cronies or for getting free work done at his residence or for the systematic abuse of power that seems to be pervasive in Cuyahoga County. But for his relatively minor transgressions Dann faced a united Democratic front — led by Governor Strickland — who called for his resignation.

So why is the case of Dimora and Russo any different? Dann wasn’t under indictment, only under investigation, just like Russo and Dimora. But Dann’s alleged crimes pale in comparison to the alleged crimes of Dimora and Russo. The governor was correct in asking Dann to resign. I’m curious as to why he seems to have lost his zeal for ethical behavior in the Dimora and Russo case.

While the state’s main papers seem oblivious to the scandal unfoding in Cuyahoga County, at least some members of the media are asking why Governor Strickland is treating this differently than the Marc Dann episode. From the Hillsboro Times Gazette:

Shortly after former Attorney General Marc Dann held a news conference in May to answer questions about a sexual harassment scandal involving a top aide, the response from Democrats was quick and forceful: resign or be impeached.

Yet two weeks have passed since the FBI in Cleveland raided the offices and homes of Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy DiMora and Auditor Frank Russo, and the Democratic Party’s response has been muted.

The party issued an initial statement that the two men should be held accountable if there was wrongdoing, but has not supplied the almost daily pressure it did with Dann.

The FBI seized documents related to fundraising, travel and deals with contractors in the searches, which were also conducted at local businesses with county contracts.

What explains the differences in the party’s reactions to the developing scandals? After all, neither Dann, who did eventually resign, nor DiMora or Russo, have been charged with any crimes.

The answer? Politics:

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The Cleveland Plain Dealer published another article yesterday about the unfolding corruption scandal in Cuyahoga County. It’s too bad that the Columbus Dispatch isn’t doing more to investigate this issue, considering the potential impact this will have on the state.

From the Plain Dealer:

The note in Frank Russo’s office about a $20,000 payment. The paperwork for a downtown condo that Jimmy Dimora might have shared with friends. The meals and trips a county worker received from contractors.

Federal agents knew what to look for and where to find it during raids last week on Russo, the county auditor, and Dimora, a county commissioner and Democratic Party chief, and several contractors.

The details of how the investigation began and what it was based on may not come out for months — if not years — as investigators have to plow through thousands of boxes of paperwork taken in the raids. No criminal charges have been filed.

But former prosecutors and federal agents who have worked public corruption cases in the past — and defense attorneys scrambling to answer grand jury subpoenas for their clients’ records — said the documents give a glimpse of how the investigation may have unfolded to this point.

They said the minute details found in records — the note in Russo’s office, pictures of Dimora with county worker Rosemary Vinci, gifts, campaign literature and casino chips — show the investigation probably started years ago and included informants close to the men, some of whom probably recorded conversations.

So the feds have been looking at this for years, possibly? There certainly seems to be a strong suspicion among the feds that these two men misused their office. According to Governor Strickland, though, the state shouldn’t investigate, too. While nothing has been proven and no charges filed, I find it hard to believe that there aren’t grounds for the state to at least begin looking into this situation. I wonder what the governor would be saying if these two men had an “R” after their name instead of a “D”?