Chris Redfern lacks basic logic and math skills

A story from the Dayton Daily News on John Kasich’s reaction to the Ohio budget deal highlights just how lame Chris Redfern really is these days.

First Kasich’s statement:

“Today’s agreement is strictly stopgap and turns a blind eye to the massive shortfalls we will be facing during the next budget cycle,” Kasich said in a Thursday press release. “We better have new leadership and new ideas in place by then. Our state’s future depends on it.”

Kasich said “it has been clear to me that the people of Ohio understand that raising taxes is counter-productive to job creation and economic growth.”

Redferns brillant retort?

“John Kasich has no relationship with the truth, Redfern said. “Once again, Kasich is offering attacks on Gov. Strickland’s leadership while failing to propose any alternative of his own. Shockingly, he also criticized his own party, since the Republican-controlled Senate supported the budget.”

This is nonsensical. What does truth have to do with criticizing the budget without providing your own alternative? This is called a non sequitor for those scoring at home – something Redfern specializes in (I am surprised he didn’t bring up Lehman Brothers).

But the last bit is so confusing that the DDN felt compelled to highlight reality:

Republicans provided five of the 17 votes needed for Senate approval; Democrats provided the other 12.

Can Redfern handle basic math? Just because the Republicans are the majority in the Senate doesn’t mean any bill that passes is somehow approved of by all Republicans.

There are 21 Republicans in the Senate and 5 voted for the budget deal. Basic math tells you that a majority of Republicans voted against it while every single Democrat voted for it.

This is the leadership of the Democratic Party folks.  Kasich offers a stinging rebuke to the leadership of politicians in Columbus and all Redfern can come up with is meaningless boilerplate that doesn’t even make sense. Lame.

Government funding conundrum

The Dispatch offers yet another story about how the stimulus is affecting local communities.  The angle is clearly aimed at making the funding distribution controversial:

With budget cuts already forcing layoffs this year, Union County Sheriff Rocky Nelson was certain that he could qualify for federal stimulus money to hire and retain deputies.

So were sheriffs in Marion, Morrow, Logan and Clark, other counties that have endured layoffs or cutbacks since January.

But the sheriffs were wrong. The crime rates in those counties are too low and the sheriffs’ community-policing efforts too good, according to federal criteria for distributing the money. That was part of the reason they didn’t get any of the $79.3 million awarded three weeks ago to 47 Ohio law-enforcement agencies.

But what leaps out to me is 1) that the stimulus is clearly about keeping state and local governments afloat not economic stimulus and 2) that this is just another example of an age old government funding conundrum.  Do you reward those entities that succeed or do you give more money to those who are failing and thus need the most help?

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Despite budget crisis Strickland gives $2M to AFL-CIO

First is was turning to labor unions to fix the auto industry, now Ted Strickland is looking to his labor union cronies supporters to help job seekers find government help.

You read that right.  Strickland is sending two million dollars to the AFL-CIO so they can help those out of work connect with government programs:

The state is spending $2 million to hire the AFL-CIO’s United Labor Agency to reach out to workers losing their jobs statewide.

[...]

The money does not pay for retraining or provide front-line services. Instead, the union trains peer-to-peer counselors to tell workers how to access dislocated worker services, such as training, resume writing, and job hunting. The union also sets up labor management teams to plan for layoffs.

I am sure all this labor union activity has nothing to do with the fact that Strickland is up for re-election; and is worried about about his support after budget cuts impacted state workers.

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Mike DeWine was right

Say what you will about Mike DeWine, and there is much that can be said, but he was right about the budget and about the stimulus back in February.

On the stimulus:

Whatever you think about the federal economic-stimulus plan, this much is clear: It’s going to be the most costly “free” money Ohio ever receives.

It is absurd to think that a one-time, short-term monetary shot in the arm will heal economic wounds that have been festering in this state for years. It is equally short-sighted to grow government at a time when we should be streamlining it. The more we expand Ohio government with this money, the more we’ll have to pay year after year in growth that we simply cannot sustain and with resources we simply do not have.

On how Ohio should have approached the budget:

Juggling the budget with borrowed money, like the banks on Wall Street did, isn’t going to work. And, unless we chart a radically new course and fundamentally rethink how this state operates, we only postpone Ohio’s day of reckoning.

[...]

The crisis should be our mandate for change. While a massive $7.3 billion projected state budget deficit hurts — a lot — it forces us to look forward. Now is the time for Ohio to take some calculated risks, and ask: “Where is this state going to be in five, 10, 20 years? How do we reposition this state for the long run instead of just battening down the hatches to weather the economic storm?”

Ultimately, Ohio needs more jobs and a more competitive economy. Key to that is reforming our system of education. I commend the governor for spotlighting education in his recent state of the state address. But, what is troubling is that it is a promise-it-now, pay-for-it-later plan. Does anyone really think the federal government will have a $1 trillion stimulus again next year and in 2011, 2012, 2013? How do you pay for an expanded school year and day-long kindergarten when the one-shot money is gone?

Politicians are in the business of selling hope, but when there’s a real crisis, you have to act like it and use the bully pulpit to sound the alarm. That means bringing all the parties together — public and private sector and nonprofits — to start figuring out what to do. We need to get strategic about every major aspect of state government, look at it as if we were starting from scratch, and re-examine the functions of each department and agency.

We should, for example, overhaul Medicaid, which eats more than one-third of the state budget and is projected to grow rapidly for years to come. To get a better bang for our taxpayer bucks, the state needs to be a much smarter health-care purchaser, and get better prices and results.

If we would have followed his advice we would be in a lot better shape than we are right now.  Alas, this kind of thinking has been ignored, things have gotten worse, and the next budget cycle is going to bring some reckoning that few will enjoy.

Bob Taft is feeling pretty good these days

What with Ted Strickland taking all the heat from left and right while the economy makes Taft’s time in office seem like an oasis of prosperity.

The folks over at the Education Gadfly had the bright idea of talking to him about his new found perspective.  And it produced some interesting quotes.  These two in particular caught my attention:

Is a good education a matter of money?

Overall, funding is not the biggest obstacle to school improvement in Ohio. It’s how we can best use the time and talent of educators to improve education for all kids, particularly for kids in urban areas…. Resources are important but more important is how the dollars are used at the school level to change what is happening in the classrooms.

Is it time for a tax increase?

It’s nice not to be governor right now and worry about those decisions….The temporary one-cent sales tax increase was not popular, but I believed it was necessary after all the cuts we had already made. Today, I’m not close enough to the details of the budget to answer that question…. I do believe, however, that it is important to continue the income-tax reductions underway because Ohio’s rates are too high from a competitive standpoint when you put the state income tax together with our city income taxes. You don’t want to be one of the highest income-tax states…. It’s hard to compete with Texas and Florida [and other states without income taxes] but now we’re not even competing with surrounding states.

More on this below.

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The bottom line on Issue 1

At its most basic level Issue 1 is a failure of political will mixed with the lure of corporate welfare and a willingness to deceive voters.  Mayor Coleman and City Council simply lack the will to propose real budget solutions in order to avoid raising taxes.  And the corporate interest who are supporting Issue 1 would rather go along with the tax increases – which they can easily afford to pay – than risk harming their reputation or clashing with city leaders who have such a large impact on their companies.

In order to believe that the only thing left to cut is critical health and safety forces you would have to believe that the City of Columbus is running on some sort of bare bones budget stripped of all but the most necessary line items.

This is of course absurd and everyone knows it.  But few civic leaders are willing to take on the establishment culture that thinks a certain amount of bloated government is just a fact of life; that after trimming back government a bit the next step is always tax increases.

More details below.

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Dispatch right about all-day kindergarten

I am not shy about criticizing the Columbus Dispatch when their coverage or editorials deserve it.  But they also offer some good coverage and some worthwhile editorials.  So in the interest of fairness allow me to point out today’s example.

All day kindergarten is a favorite of the liberal spend more on education types despite the research that questions its value.  The Dispatch has a nice editorial on Strickland’s poor policy on this subject:

The provision in the new, two-year state budget calling for all school districts to offer all-day kindergarten starting in fall 2010 is an unfunded mandate. The precise financial impact on cash-strapped districts is uncertain because of the measure’s lack of clarity.

As with much of Gov. Ted Strickland’s vision for the future of Ohio’s schools, the all-day-kindergarten requirement comes with no sure funding. Although the state-aid formula technically has been changed to allow the full per-pupil amount for each kindergarten student — in the past, districts got half the amount for each kindergartner — overall limits on district funding increases mean most districts won’t see extra money to pay the costs of full-day kindergarten.

The mandate also is squishy: It requires the offering of all-day kindergarten but doesn’t require children to go all day. Under state law, kindergarten attendance is mandatory but needn’t be longer than part time. Districts won’t know their kindergarten costs until they know how many parents want to send their children to the all-day classes.

[...]

Mandating all-day kindergarten for everyone may be a one-size-fits-all solution to a problem that isn’t universal.

If already-squeezed districts are forced to sacrifice other good programs to meet this mandate, Ohioans will see how much it truly costs.

I would go farther, however, and argue that all-day kindergarten is a distraction from the real issue of school reform.  The fact that it is another unfunded mandate from the state with unclear rules further undermines any benefit it might bring.

But it is typical liberal “reform” more symbolism than substance and one that is unlikely to help actual children.

Batchelder on the budget

I am still fighting some weird virus or bug that is sapping my energy so not sure how much posting I will be able to do.

But for your mid-morning viewing here is Ohio House Minority Leader Bill Batchelder discussing “the state budget and the Republican solutions that have largely been ignored by Governor Strickland and the House Democrats.”

Politics win; voters lose

The Dispatch is in high dungeon:

But the machinations that went into the two-year budget deal reached Friday and approved Monday were particularly odorous, because the goal and result was a betrayal of Ohio voters. While lawmakers and lobbyists scrambled to decide what few privileged interests would reap how much from foisting video-slot-machine gambling on the state, they ignored the fact that Ohioans have said four times at the ballot box that they don’t want casino-style gambling.

The cast of characters illustrates the web of conflicting interests that works against the best interests of Ohio residents.

Mountaineer Gaming, owner of Scioto Downs racetrack, was one of many parties eager to see slot machines legalized in Ohio. Its team of lobbyists included the wife of state Democratic Party chairman and former legislator Chris Redfern.

As party chair, Redfern controls party purse strings and campaign support and enjoys immense influence over Democratic officeholders. His wife’s job means he will benefit personally from Mountaineer’s success with the slots proposal. Democratic lawmakers know it would be unwise to say no to the chairman’s wife. Her involvement in the deal might not be illegal, but it’s not an ethical way to make policy.

A consortium of Ohio horse racetracks called the Ohio Legacy Fund wisely employs Alan Mela- med as a lobbyist. Not only is Melamed a close friend to House Speaker Armond Budish, the nursing-home lobby he also represents has an unparalleled record of reaping disproportionate funding from the General Assembly.

As you can probably tell, I am not one to bemoan the politics that goes on at the Statehouse.  And I don’t go in for populist rhetoric about how lobbyists and special interests control the world and stick it to the working man, etc.

Lobbying and politics are part of democracy; it ain’t pretty but it is reality. (It is also worth noting that liberals are the ones who make government so central to our lives that everyone has to hire a lobbyist and play the game)

So I take this Columbus Dispatch article with a grain of salt.  But their naive belief in some sort of above the fray leadership and public service without lobbying aside, the basic point I think is fair: a select group won this budget round at the expense of the voter.

And I think it is just this point for which Governor Strickland and Democrats must bear the disproportionate blame.

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Sneek peak at inevitable anti-Strickland Ads

The folks over at 3BP have a YouTube slamming Strickland for his slots flip-flop.  You have to think this kind of thing is going to be offered regularly as we get closer to 2010.

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