Ohio Democrats Need To Start Over

logo of Ohio Democratic Party

All of the state office jobs were open in this election on November 6th. Some Republicans currently in office were changing offices and the Democrats seemed to work hard in their campaigns. But in the end the GOP retained all the top offices in Ohio. If you can’t even win one state office with such a toxic person like Trump as President and a GOP who are just lap dogs to the guy not to mention corrupt in the Ohio Statehouse, then Democrats need to nuke their place and start over from scratch.

Continue reading “Ohio Democrats Need To Start Over”

Who Would Be A Worse Ohio Governor Than John Kasich? Mike DeWine Of Course

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine

The current Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who has never feared sticking it to women and the LGBT community in the courts, is planning to run for governor in 2018. If you thought John Kasich was a butt-head when it came to conservative and religiously based politics, then wait until DeWine runs. We might have another version of Ken Blackwell and we know how well that worked.

Continue reading “Who Would Be A Worse Ohio Governor Than John Kasich? Mike DeWine Of Course”

Ohio GOP sweep tied to low Democratic voter turn out

A report released by the University of Akron’s Bliss Institute of Applied Politics maps out the Republican sweep of Ohio statewide offices and the open US Senate seat in 2010. The report, which includes maps, show the percentages of votes and turn out compared to the results in 2006. The numbers show that the turn out by Democrats was much lower in 2010 and that helped the GOP with their sweep.

“The pendulum has swung, this time in favor of Ohio Republicans,” John Green, Bliss Institute director, said in a press release. “Low voter turnout across the board and a poorly performing state economy contributed significantly to the 2010 Ohio Republican sweep.”

Akron U report maps GOP wins in November; contrasts results with 2006

It is clear that there was less voter turnout in 2010 than 2006 in almost every county. The East-West pattern emerges again in this map. There was, in general, less of a drop in voter turnout in the Republican-leaning western regions of the state as opposed to the Democratic-leaning eastern regions of the state. This indicates that Democratic-leaning counties had less-enthused voters compared to those counties that tend to lean Republican. It helps to explain why Democrats did so well in the 2006 state-wide contests and fared so poorly in the 2010 election.

Mapping the Republican Sweep: The 2010 Election Results in Ohio

The report doesn’t look at why people voted the way they did but it showed that when a particular party doesn’t turn out their candidate loses. It seems that’s election 101.


(click on picture for fullsize version)

Kasich plays loose with the facts in latest campaign ad

John Kasich, the cheap labor conservative candidate for Ohio Governor has issued another television ad. Like previous ones, the Kasich campaign plays loose with the facts.

Kasich’s statement that Ohio is “one of the highest taxed states in the country” is debatable and depends on whose measurement is used. Supporting documents with the ad cite the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, which Strickland and others reject as unreliable. They prefer analyses by the Federation of Tax Administration using U.S. census data that ranks Ohio much better.

A number of business leaders, including from the Ohio Manufacturers Association and the Ohio Economic Development Association, say that Ohio’s business climate has improved and is more competitive with other states since 2005. That’s when legislation was enacted to cut the state income tax by 21 percent (it’s been reduced 16.8 percent so far) and eliminate the state’s tax on business machinery, equipment and inventory.

Ad watch: ‘A New Way,’ from the Kasich campaign

John Kasich for Governor of Ohio Television Ad: “New Way”

Some people might complain that I haven’t looked at any Strickland ads and they would be right because there hasn’t been any yet. Kasich has been running his ads as well as ads from the GOP in heavy rotation here in Columbus especially during the news broadcasts.

John Kasich wants to outsource Ohio development efforts

John Kasich, a cheap labor conservative and candidate for Ohio Governor, announced on Tuesday his plan to throw 400 state workers out of a job and provide corporate welfare under the guise of “economic development”.

Kasich wants to replace the Ohio Department of Development with a private, nonprofit corporation staffed by people he personally appoints. He also plans to have final approval on any development money handed out. How convenient.

State development department employees whose jobs would be affected would be able to apply for jobs with the new nonprofit, private development entity, Kasich said.

“They would not be public employees,” Kasich said. “We don’t want public employees.”

Kasich said he would be chairman of the JobsOhio board and Taylor probably would be vice chairman, “but we don’t want a government entity. We don’t want the civil service restrictions. We’re going to have to work through all the privacy questions, but we’ll work through that.”

The board, Kasich said, will be empowered to negotiate incentives and other deals with companies “all the way to dotting T’s and cross I’s (but) the final decision will remain inside the governor’s office.”

Funding for JobsOhio would come from the state and private sources, including individuals, businesses, labor organizations and foundations. The Kasich campaign could not immediately estimate how much state funding would flow to the new nonprofit entity or how much would be required to operate it.

Kasich would privatize state development efforts

So basically his cronies will decide who to give money to and there would not be any oversight on how tax payer money is spent. {snark}How could that go wrong?{/snark}

Kasich is under the assumption that Ohio is not pro-business – well his idea of pro-business (which means cheap labor, no taxes, and ample corporate welfare like little to no regulation).

“We have a much better tax system going forward because we no longer have this punishing tax on investments, and inventory, and machinery and equipment,” he said. “We no longer tax corporate profits. Most states tax corporate profits, and so we are much better going forward.”

The commercial activities tax, which replaced those taxes, imposes less than half the burden of its predecessors, State Tax Commissioner Richard Levin said.

“In our region, we have the lowest effective tax rate for businesses,” said State Development Director Lisa Patt-McDaniel.

Ohio’s regional competitors include Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and, to a lesser extent, West Virginia and Kentucky, she said.

Other more formidable competitors are farther away: North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. They vie with Ohio because they have more undeveloped land, are in the Sun Belt and a have a cheaper work force image, Patt-McDaniel said.

But Ohio boasts drawing cards, too: a higher-skilled work force with a better work ethic, she said.

Fresh water, plentiful in Ohio and more scarce in the Sun Belt, will become a bigger factor in economic development over the next 50 years, Patt-McDaniel said.

Ohio business tax rates ‘much better’

The reason Ohio is having a struggle now is not only from the 2008 collapse sponsored by cheap labor conservatives like Kasich but also because those same cheap labor conservatives did a number during their 16 years in charge of Ohio. Governors George Voinovich (1991-1998)and Robert Taft (1999-2007) molded the state with plenty of “pro-business” policy. Current Governor Strickland hasn’t had much time to do anything different aside from stopping the final part of a 21% income tax cut from going into effect to try and lessen the pain of an $800 billion dollar budget shortfall.

It isn’t unusual for a cheap labor conservative to have selective memory. Tuesday night President Obama arrived in Columbus for a campaign event for Ted Strickland and of course the Columbus Dispatch had to have a comment from Kasich:

Asked today about the president’s visit, Kasich wasn’t impressed.

“Obama’s a fine man, but his economic policies are flat-out not working,” he said. “I would love to talk with him about the power of free markets and free enterprise and lower taxes on work and lower taxes on investment and risk-taking.”

Obama arrives in Columbus

I wonder if the phrase “squeezing blood from a turnip” means anything to a cheap labor conservative like John Kasich.

*Update*

The Columbus Dispatch had some further comments on Kasich’s “JobsOhio” that I had missed myself when thinking about it. Such a non-profit private entity would be in a very gray area when it comes to public records. I’m sure John Kasich best fantasy is giving tax dollars to his business buddies and no one knowing the details until years later when the law suits finish in the courts and he is back working for Wall Street or in the US Senate (or both).

Advocates of government transparency might have shuddered at John Kasich’s proposal to put the Ohio Department of Development out of business by privatizing its duties and handing them to a government-funded nonprofit.

The plan of the Republican gubernatorial candidate to create an entity known as JobsOhio raises questions about ongoing access to state records and financial information that now are a matter of public record.

A nonprofit organization performing a public purpose with a funding hybrid of tax dollars and private donations is a much tougher and murkier creature to explore when it comes to obtaining records under state law.

Kasich nonprofit plan risk to transparency?