Warped priorities replace moderate gov't in ColumbusWarped priorities replace moderate gov't in Columbus

Ohio's transition from a state run on rational choices and moderate policies to one that's guided by ideology, extremism and preferential treatment for the wealthy is nearly complete with the radical state budget that's poised for approval.
The $55.7 billion budget plugs an estimated $8 billion shortfall carried over from the Ted Strickland administration, but does so almost entirely on the backs of local governments, human services and public schools. The people who will suffer the most from this latest round of harsh budget cutting are mainly those without the resources to provide for themselves.

In the alternate universe occupied by Gov. John Kasich, Republican legislators, and the right-wing supplicants on the editorial board of the Columbus Dispatch, the following facts don't exist:

A series of reckless income tax cuts approved in 2005 had predictable effects on the revenue side of the state budget, and did nothing to measurably improve the state's economy. The idea that lowering taxes may result in lower revenues doesn't register with these people, whose self-serving trickle-down ideology just happens to mostly benefit themselves, their cronies and their campaign contributors.

Ohio's poor economy is mainly a function of the worst national economic downturn since the Great Depression. It would have been very odd indeed if Ohio under Ted Strickland somehow had avoided the same budget crises that nearly every other state experienced, whether run by Democrats or Republicans. Cutting state revenues in the midst of it just made things worse.

When the national economy finally improves, Ohio's economy will, too, and that's going to happen regardless of whether we allow the final year of those income tax cuts to go into effect, eliminate the estate tax for the wealthiest residents by 2013, eviscerate funding for mental-health and other human services, and sharply cut money for public education, mainly targeting the schools least able to compensate for the losses locally.

Factors that likely will influence investors and businesses in their decisions to locate in Ohio or to stay or move if they're already here include the tax and regulatory climate, to be sure, but also include the quality of public schools and higher education, the adequacy of local government services, and the presence of homeless people rapping on their windshields as they pause for stoplights in Columbus.

A governor and legislature not hogtied by the hard (and self-benefiting) abstractions of hard-right ideology would balance measures to improve the state's business climate with provisions to protect essential assets such as education, preserve local government services, and not slice massive holes in an already fraying safety net for the increasing ranks of the poor and unemployed.

The abstract, entirely questionable benefits of knocking another percentage point off the state income tax, or eliminating the estate tax for the state's richest 8 percent or indeed, of laying bare our state's natural resources to the oil and gas industry pale next to the flesh and blood consequences of stripping away that safety net.

A local and tangible impact of that particular budget cut occurred Tuesday when Athens County Job and Family Services announced another round of layoffs. Faced with a proposed budget cut of $1.2 million in state and federal funding, on top of $670,000 in federal stimulus funds, the agency is losing 25 positions, with 18 of them actual layoffs.

This drops ACJFS's staff from 112 to 87. The layoffs include seven caseworkers, three social program coordinators, three investigators, three aides, one administrative assistant and one accountant, according to the agency. Several other positions have been lost through attrition. The latest round of cuts comes on top of previous cuts since 2009 when ACJFS's staff stood at 144.

With these positions dropped, services will continue to dwindle as well. Some of the concrete effects include the number of child support hearings being cut in half, resulting in delays in enforcement (and the consequent lifestyle impacts for those who depend on child support); no more assistance for people with their Social Security disability applications; sharply reduced help for the increasing number of people applying for or changing their assistance from the agency; suspension of most summer employment programs for young people and adults; and elimination of funding for the agency that provides for the Athens County Food Pantry, among other things.

Of course, all of these things each of which has real effects on real people in need come on top of previous budget cuts that had already left ACJFS operating on fumes. The list of previous services that are long gone is extensive.

Meanwhile, in an editorial on Sunday, the Columbus Dispatch provided us a good taste of the sort of selective and coldhearted priorities driving Kasich and the Republicans' budget actions.

Responding to calls by legislators and "special interests" to use higher-than-expected state tax revenues to soften some of the more draconian budget cuts, the editorial supported Kasich's refusal to do so. "This is a bad idea," the editorial argued. "Any unexpected additional revenue should be used to pay overdue bills and replenish the rainy-day fund."

While these goals are worthy enough to override any concerns about the vulnerable people who depend upon government services, they're apparently not important enough to justify the delay of a small tax cut or to retain the estate tax on the rich.

Don't mistake this for good government; it's a conscious choice to favor the wealthy over everybody else.

By now, it should be obvious that in any contest between real impacts on vulnerable human beings on the one hand, and on the other, marginal benefits for the wealthy and dubious economic theory, Kasich and his allies will come down on the side of the rich, the abstract and the immeasurable.

REPLY TO THIS COMMENT

Eagle

Thanks for your opinions. While I wish you didn’t use “right-wing” and “extremist” in every commentary you write, you’re certainly free to do so.

I would, however, remind you that in the words of the Obama administration, “elections have consequences.” If you are correct and the Kasich administration is going too far and/or his policies don’t work (and even you don’t know that yet), he will be voted out of office next time, just like Ted Strickland was. That’s the deal. He has his opportunity to make the changes he feels are appropriate, and the electorate will let him know if they liked what he did or not.

Your job is to tell everyone who’ll listen that his policies won’t work, just as conservative pundits are telling everyone that President Obama’s policies won’t work (I also wish they would take “socialist” out of their commentaries). It’s the natural order of things, and you are fulfilling your role very well. Keep up the good work.

Steven H

Yes, by all means we need more sensible government like we got from the extreme leftwingers we had for the past 4 years. We need more Dann's to provide our government with the proper amount of misuse of public funds and sexual harassment. We need more Brunners to illegally invalidate tens of thousands of conservative voters. (She was slapped down by the court. gee, I thought liberals wanted to count every vote?) We also need more sensible taxes and regulations that Strickland and the democrats in the senate and house used to chase businesses from Ohio. We also need more like Strickland who is willing to let off an Obama contributor and campaign worker who used her office to search records of a private citizen for political without consequences. And I guess we really don't need a John Kasich who has already lowered the unemployment rate in Ohio by convincing companies to move to Ohio while saving others who Strickland and the extreme leftists in the Ohio assembly were bent on driving away. (American Greetings) While at the same time trying to get back jobs that already left Ohio such as Wendy's which moved to Atlanta but confirmed they are in talks to return to Columbus. Now the extrmist lefties like to give credit to Bill Clinton for the budget surplus but much of the credit belongs to the former head of the house budget committee who cut Clinton's budget requests and thus creating a surplus. This was after Clinton vetoed balanced budget amendments twice and w2hose plan called for a balanced budget within 8 to 12 years depending on the day of the week. That chairman was none other than John Kasich and the "extreme" cuts were primarily the one time money of the ridiculus 840 billion dollar stimulus. (I know it started out as a 787 bn dollar stimulus but the CBO updated those numbers to 814 bn and currently it's 840 bn)

Terry

Eagle, point taken about the use of terms such as "extremist" and "right-wing" in some of my columns. I need to be more sensitive to that. (You should see how many of those references I remove!! lol)

But I would argue that if you look at the mainstream political spectrum in post-war America, the Kasich's, Limbaugh's, Palin's, Bachmann's (and Ahle's) are on the far right of that mainstream, if they're in it at all, while Strickland and Obama are solidly centrist, from a historical perspective. For example, the first President Bush would be closer to Obama on a number of issues than he would be to Kasich.

Which is why it's so ludicrous to see commenter Steven shrieking about centrist Democrats being "extreme leftwingers." It betrays an embarrassing absense of any historical perspective or knowledge.

The Athens News covers all 3 political views, the far left, the extremely far left and terry Smith. BTW, kasich has now just brought a new company to Ohio. Johnson Controls will upgrade an empty factory in Toledo for a cost of 138.5 million and will eventually hire an additional 50 employees added to the 400 already required.

All you need to know about how extreme a person's positions are just has to read their opinion that Obamna is a centrist. Obama believes in country of the unions and by the unions and for the unions. His ridiculously high spending (a 429 bn omnibus spending bill coupled with an 840 bn dollar "stimulus' (chuckle chuckle) yielded a net loss of 550,000 jobs. It did create nearly 450,000 public sector jobs.

just as Smith refuses to learn the lessons of FDR who extended the great recession into the Great Depression, he refuses to acknowledge the simple truths. During Obama's first 24 months in office, the economy added fewer than 50,000 jobs per month on average. The republicans stated often that the impending tax increase was stiffling companies from hiring. In December the Bush tax cuts were extended. For the next 4 months the economy added an average of over 200,000 jobs. Then in May Obama put forth a budget that was unanimously rejected that called for rescinding those tax cuts and new jobs took a sharp dive to 54,000. Now the democrats in congress want a 3% surcharge on the producers.

Liberals and far lefties like Obama believe the government can stimulate the economy by the means of tax and spend.I recently heard a perfect example. A man has 500 dollars and he gets robbed. When the thief spends that 500 does it stimulate the economy any more than when the rightful owner spends it? No wonder businesses and financials are sitting on 2.5 trillion in cash. No wonder we have the fewest new start ups since WW2. No wonder the E6 unemployment number continues to cklimb.

Also if a man were to say he was for cutting taxes, a strong national defense, against welfare Smith would call him a far right extrewmist. I would call him JFK.

Obamna is a centrist huh? let's just take a look at your definition of centrist.

In his book "Dreams of My father" Obama said he actively sought out Marxist professors. This includes Gates for whom he unjustly defamed the police for doing their job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4EHmzslKLw

OK. So a centrist seeks out Marxist professors.

In the Illinois legislature a bill was offered that would force doctors to give treatment to babies born after a botched late term abortion attempt. Obama voted present. (A no vote would allow the baby to lie on the delivery table until it died) In fact Obama voted present 129 times in Illinois, almost as many as he has as president. (Stimulus, Omnibus spending, Obamacare)

A centrist refuses to lead.

In a 2001 interview, Obama decries the Warren court for not redistributing wealth. And although the Warren court is considered by most SCOTUS historians as being the most radical court ever, Obama claims it wasn't nearly radical enough.

A centrist believes in a radical SCOTUS i.e. Kagan and SotomayerAnd for the record, with a recent SCOTUS decision, Sotomayer has now been overruled by the Supreme Court in 80% of her cases reaching it) who is responsible for redistribution of wealth.

A centrist believes in redistributing wealth from the producers to the nonproducers.

Presidential appointments. Van Jones, self proclaimed communist, truther and racist. Carol Browner, card carrying communist. John Holdren, science czar, who wrote a book describing a world body that could order mandatory abortions and sterilizations of poor women (mostly black women) Ezekial Emanuel (Rahm's brother) as medical advisor. "Doctors take the Hippocratic oath too seriously." and who has written on age rationing of health care. Donald Berwick (aka Dr Death) to head Medicare and Medicaid. Max bauchus, who wrote the senate version of Obamacare refused to let his name come to the floor for a vote because of his extreme views on rationing based on age and weight as he did in Great Britain where he earned his nickname. Dan Pfeiffer to White House Communications Director. Obama plucked him away from his job as Google lobbyist and placed him a position where he could illegally notify his bosses at Google about the progress of net neutrality. Despite this, Obama has kept him on the payroll. Then you have the long list of tax cheats including Daschle, Geithner,Solis,Killefer, Kirk, and the current White House staff owes a total of 800,000 dollars in back taxes.

Centrists appoint commies, nuts and tax cheats for important positions.

candidate Obama promised the middle class would see no tax increases of any kind but within 18 months, Obama raised taxes not only on the middle class but the poor as well 18 times. (Tobacco tax, tanning tax and 16 new taxes on poor and middle class in the Obamacare Bill)

Centrists are all about raising taxes and creating massive debts.

Candidate Obama praised the Washington DC voucher program for it's work with the poorest of the poor with education and their record of increasing students (Mostly black) who went on to college. President Obama on orders from his bosses at the NEA killed the voucher program. That rascally radical right wing nutcase John Boehner restored it.

Centrists are willing to toss the future away for thousands of poor black families in order to mollify their bosses.

Obama appointed Greg Becker to the NLRB in a recess appointment (another appointment the democrats in congress opposed) Currently he is leading the fight over Boeing building a plant in Sc. If he wins Boeing has 2 choices. Either build in Washington State where the unions have cost it billions or move the plant overseas. gee, now that's a tough one. Becker was the lawyer for the radically extreme SEIU Obama uses to beat up black conservatives and to keep conservatives out of townhall meetings. (August 6th, 2009 daniel Stern, president of the SEIU visits the WH. One of his 22 trips in the first 6 months of the Obama regime. That afternoon, the WH releases a statement that “If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” That night 4 goons in purple SEIU tshirts brutally beat a black man for being a conservative)

http://www.politico.com This attack was so brutal, he had to be rushed to the hospital./news/stories/0809/25891.html

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/07/video-seiu-activists-try-to-set-obamacare-opponents-straight/

Centrists send out their goon squads to hospitalize opponents. They also destroy businesses and US jobs (Boeing is the US's number one exporter) to curry favor with the unions.

I could go on and on. I assume you also like lenin and Chairman Mao who were also centrists in the Obama tradition.

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Warped priorities replace moderate gov't in Columbus

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