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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2008 > December > 11
Thursday, December 11, 2008
State union warns against layoffs, closing facilities
The doomsday scenario drawn today, Dec. 11, by Gov. Ted Strickland got the attention of Ohio’s largest state employees’ union.
That’s probably putting it mildly when it comes to the reaction from the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association.
Strickland outlined - but didn’t recommend - a series of layoffs and facilities closings that would be necessary if the state has to cut the budget by 25 percent to close a projected $7 billion hole.
A press release said union officials were “stunned at the news that as many as 12 state facilities could be shuttered.”
“While the magnitude of the fiscal crisis is of such proportions that every means necessary must be utilized to stem the tide of red ink, laying off thousands of state employees will jeopardize the health and safety of every citizen in every community in Ohio,” Andy Douglas, OCSEA executive director, said in the release.
The union supports Strickland’s pleas for “a $5 billion package of federal aid to bolster Ohio’s budget,” the release said.
OCSEA represents 36,000 state employees, including 10,000 state prison employees, the release said.
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On GM, Turner listens to Dad’s advice
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner’s dad worked for General Motors for 42 years, but when Turner was faced with voting for a $14 billion bill that could help keep U.S. auto companies including GM out of bankruptcy, his dad gave him an interesting piece of advice.
Don’t vote for it.
Turner listened to his dad, becoming one of eight Ohioans who voted against the bill late Wednesday. He said his dad told him that the company had a lot of work to do before he’d be confident of their success.
“In the end, I felt like I was financing their exit from Dayton,” Turner said. “GM turned its back on Dayton and both Delphi and GM are exiting…I’m very concerned that these monies might be used to outsource the globalization of the jobs that are leaving.”
Turner said he’d rather the money used for an earlier bailout of the financial industry be used for the auto industry. He said the auto industry has not presented a plan that reassured him that they would keep jobs in the United States.
He said the financial bailout - which he opposed - demostrated that there’s been little accountability over bailout money.
“These are very sketchy plans where only a handful of people are put in charge of monitoring the expenditure of funds, and taxpayers are going to be holding the bag,” he said.
Turner, R-Centerville, David Hobson, R-Springfield, John Boehner, R-West Chester, Jim Jordan, R-Urbana and Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, all voted against the bill.
Schmidt said she voted against the bill becasue she believed “there is a better path to reform that does not put taxpayer dollars at risk.”
Jordan, meanwhile, said such bailouts do not work.
“It is wrong to saddle future generations with a debt currently approaching $11 trillion,” Jordan said. “…the same government that has given us record deficits and debt should not attempt to tell the auto industry how to run its business with concepts like the ‘car czar’.”
The House bill passed 237-170. Of the 18 members of the Ohio House delegation, eight supported it and eight voted against it. U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Upper Arlington, did not vote.
A Senate bill appeared stalled early Thursday evening.
Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern criticized members who voted against the bill.
“A vote against this desperately needed rescue measure is a vote against Ohio jobs and the families that they support,” he said.
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Poll: 48 percent disapprove of federal loans to automakers
Congress should put on the brakes.
That’s what 48 percent of Americans said in a new national poll from the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion on federal loans to automakers.
In the poll, 48 percent disapproved of the loans, 41 percent approved and 11 percent were unsure.
The results were similar for registered voter, but Democrats were more likely than Republicans to approve the loans.
Overall, 48 percent of registered voters disapproved the loan plan compared with 43 percent who supported it.
Among Democrats, 53 percent approved while 61 percent of Republicans disapproved.
Independents lined up closer to Republicans, with 51 percent disapproving and 40 percent approving.
The U.S. House has approved a $14 billion rescue plan for the automakers and the Senate now is considering it.
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Rep. Fessler: Electoral College should examine birth certificates
Rep. Diana Fessler, R-New Carlisle, today, Dec. 11, introduced a resolution that “encourages” members of the Electoral College to “exercise due diligence to ensure that the persons for whom they cast their ballots for President and Vice President of the United States are citizens of the United States.”
They should exercise the due diligence “through such means as examining the birth certificates of those persons,” the resolution said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president and federal courts in Ohio and several other states have dismissed suits questioning Obama’s citizenship.
Fessler (pictured) said that she didn’t expect a vote on the resolution before members of the Electoral College in Ohio and other states cast their ballots on Monday, Dec. 15.
She said she had “several phone calls” on the issue, urging her to act.
“I don’t know that it will change anything,” she said. “I have responded to the best of my ability.” She said she had no “first-hand knowledge” of Obama’s citizenship.
Ohio’s 20 electoral votes will be cast by a slate of electors representing Obama and Joe Biden, the presidential and vice presidential candidates who received the most votes in the state.
Fessler said that members of the Ohio House have to show proof that they were elected by providing “official paperwork.”I thought it was a good parallel,” she said of her resolution.
She said due diligence should be exercised “not just in this case but in all cases.”
House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said the U.S. Supreme Court has settled the issue. “That issue is not going to be taken up,” said Husted.
The nonpartisan Web site Factcheck.org has examined Obama’s birth certificate from Hawaii and said it has a raised seal and the usual evidence of a genuine document.
Obama was born in Hawaii to a white American mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father.
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Half of Ohioans say their finances are good
A little more than half of Ohio voters say their personal finances are excellent or good. That’s the glass half-full side of a new poll by Quinnipiac University released Thursday Dec. 11.
The glass half-empty side is that 47 percent of Ohio voters say their financial house is not so good or poor.
Most Ohioans - 95 percent - say the national economy is not so good or poor and 94 percent say the state economy is not so good or poor. More than three-quarters of those surveyed said the economy is the most important problem facing Ohio while 5 percent named education as the top concern.
“There is no doubt that many, many Ohio families are in dire financial straits, and most say their finances have deteriorated in the last year, but the difference between how people view their own situation and that of the rest of the state and country is striking,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Voters support 64 - 33 percent Gov. Ted Strickland’s position not to raise taxes to balance the state budget. Given a choice, 24 percent prefer raising taxes to keep state services at the current level, while 62 percent say cut programs to keep taxes static.
Strickland announced earlier this month that there is a $641 million deficit in the current budget that must be made up by June 30 when the fiscal year ends and state leaders will have to chop $7.3 billion from the next two-year general operating budget if revenues don’t increase.
Quinnipiac also asked Ohioans about the state’s public education system and found that 69 percent rank their local schools as good or excellent but only 50 percent give such marks to schools throughout the state.
Voters are split 49 percent to 47 percent on whether they’d support a tax increase to boost spending in poorer districts. Sixty-nine percent of voters favor changing how schools are funded to better equalize the amount spent on students in rich and poor districts. Sixty-eight percent of voters are prepared to take money from rich districts and redistribute it to poor districts, the poll found.
“It’s fair to say that Ohio voters want to improve public education, especially in poorer school districts, but there is no consensus about how to do it, and significant opposition to raising taxes to pay for it,” said Brown.
The poll surveyed 1,468 Ohio voters from Dec. 4 to Dec. 8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
