Ohio Politics Online » budget

Chris Redfern lacks basic logic and math skills

kevin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:15:37 +0000

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

kevin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:59:08 +0000

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?

This question applies across any number of funding areas from public safety to education. Reward the successful too much and the rich (in terms of funding) get richer and the poor stay poor. But spend too much on failing organizations and you risk encouraging poor results.

The Feds had a system:

Each department that applied received a score: Fiscal health accounted for 50 percent, and crime rate and community-policing efforts combined to account for the other half. The feds looked at 2008 statistics for murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, larceny, vehicle theft and arson.

I suppose if you wanted to get worked up about this you could. But it strikes me that the underlying idea of a federal stimulus was the bad idea not the allocation of funds. I don’t see an easy solution to the problem the article highlights

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

kevin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:41:03 +0000

: Image by aflcio2008 via Flickr

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.

So is the program effective or particularly important? Who knows and not likely:

The union spent $800,000 over 18 months training 500 peer-to-peer counselors and setting up 40 labor-management teams. The new contract is for $1.2 million.

Tolles said the union has worked with 270 plants or state government departments doing layoffs, serving union and non-union employees. But she cannot say how many workers have been helped.

“What we do know is that in the areas where we have trained peers and had labor management committees is the usage of the work force system increases,” Tolles said.

Local county officials do not see existing programs as hard to find or to use.

And this at a time when it looks likely the budget crisis is going to get worse not better.

Mike DeWine was right

kevin — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:03:48 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

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

kevin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:53:26 +0000

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.