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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2009 > December > 10
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Prescott hired to head tuition trust
The Ohio Tuition Trust Authority, the state’s college savings program, hired R. Michael Prescott as its new executive director.
Prescott, 47, who started Monday, Dec. 7, will oversee a portfolio of $5.5 billion assets invested for more than 780,000 participants in the CollegeAdvantage 529 Savings Plan.
The authority is a state agency under the chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents.
Prescott, who will be paid $175,000 a year, was recently a regional group president with Columbus-based Huntington Bank. He holds a master’s of business administratio from Ohio State University and an undergraduate degree from Ohio Northern University.
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Republican Kasich leads Democratic incumbent Strickland in governor poll
Republican John Kasich leads incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, 48-39 percent among likely voters in a poll released on Wednesday, Dec. 9, for the 2010 governor’s race.
The Rasmussen Reports poll also found that 3 percent would prefer a third party candidate and 11 percent aren’t sure who’ll they’ll vote for.
Other poll findings:
*Strickland gets 69 percent support from Democratic voters and trails by 25 percent among voters not affiliated with either major party.
*The governor gets 71 percent of the black vote, with 13 percent of black voters saying they’ll vote against Strickland and 15 percent undecided.
*48 percent approve of how Strickland’s handling his job, while 50 percent disapprove.
*On a personal basis, 46 percent view Strickland favorably while 45 percent have that view of Kasich.
*46 percent have an unfavorable view of Strickland, while 24 percent give negative reviews of Kasich, a former Columbus-area U.S. House member making his first statewide race.
The poll was taken on Monday, Dec. 7, with 500 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
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Voinovich wants ways to reduce federal deficit
U.S. Sen. George Voinovich would like one more thing before he leaves public service next year: a commission to study ways to reduce the federal deficit.
Sure, it’s a boring, wonky wish. But it would serve a big, important goal.
“If we could get this thing done and get it taken care of, it’d be very, very comforting to me,” said Voinovich, a Republican.
Voinovich, a former state lawmaker, Cleveland mayor and Ohio governor, is a champion of pinching pennies - he once bragged that he snatched one out of a urinal - and keeping a leash on the federal deficit and national debt.
For the last few years, Voinovich has been toiling away to get his colleagues to embrace a thorough review of tax loopholes and federal entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security.
Finally, a year before his retirement, Voinovich believes he is close to getting an amendment inserted into an appropriations bill that would force Washington politicians to take it seriously.
Here is the deal: the appropriations bill includes a provision to increase the national debt limit. More and more Senators are balking at that, Voinovich says, unless there’s a credible, serious effort to reform taxes and entitlement programs. Voinovich’s plan is to establish an 18-member, bipartisan commission that would analyze the programs and make recommendations by November 2010.
What would prevent this commission report from being yet another dust-collector on a shelf? Voinovich included wording to require an up or down vote by Congress within seven days of receiving it - no amendments allowed.
Voinovich and others warn that if the U.S. continues to spend and borrow, it eventually won’t have money to pay for any domestic programs or national defense efforts.
The national debt is $12.2 trillion, and counting.
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Portman and Fisher neck-and-neck in U.S. Senate poll
Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Lee Fisher are in a virtual tie in a possible matchup in next year’s U.S. Senate race among likely voters, according to a poll released on Thursday, Dec. 10.
The Rasmussen Reports poll, also showed Portman, a former Cincinnati-area U.S. House member, leading Democrat Jennifer Brunner, the secretary of state, 40-33 percent in another possible matchup.
Against Fisher, the lieutenant governor, Portman led 38-36 percent, a virtual tie.
The three candidates are seeking the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Senator George Voinovich. Portman also served as budget director and U.S. trade representative under President George W. Bush. He is running against Cleveland-area car dealer Tom Ganley for the GOP Senate nomination.
In other poll results:
*Overall, 41 percent of Ohio voters support the health care plan proposed by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, with 53 percent opposed.
*Ohio voters are divided over the idea of a government “public option” for health care, with 40 percent in favor and 38 percent opposed. However, 58 percent oppose such an option if it might cause employers to drop coverage and push their workers onto the government-run plan.
*More than a week after the president announced plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, 48 percent support his decision to do so, with 30 percent opposed.
*Overall, 46 percent approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance, while 50 percent disapprove.
The poll was taken on Monday, Dec. 7, with 500 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
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No more mileage unless trips actually made, Garrison says
Taking a shot at her opponent, state Rep. Jennifer Garrison, D-Marietta, is introducing legislation to restrict state lawmakers’ mileage reimbursements to only trips made between the Ohio Statehouse and their legal residences.
Garrison is running against state Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, for secretary of state. Husted’s residence had been called into question since his wife and children live in suburban Columbus and his Kettering residence shows little signs of anyone actually living there.
In October, the all-Republican Ohio Supreme Court overturned a ruling by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, that Husted did not live in Kettering and could not vote there.
House and Senate rules allow lawmakers to claim mileage reimbursement if they live outside of Franklin County. Husted routinely claims the mileage, including more than $2,880 so far this year.
Legislative ethics officials received a complaint this week about state Sen. Karen Gillmor, R-Tiffin, claiming mileage reimbursement even though she lives in suburban Columbus and her children attend Dublin schools.
“Taxpayers should not have to pay mileage for legislators who don’t drive the miles,” Garrison said. “If the current system is open to abuse, we have an obligation to change it.”
Husted said when he claims mileage, it’s for trips he makes between his Kettering house and the Statehouse. “That’s fine by me. That’s what I do already” he said of Garrison’s proposal.
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Senate President Harris fires back in budget dispute
Senate President Bill Harris, R-Ashland, on Thursday, Dec. 10, through his spokeswoman, responded to charges that the Senate GOP plan to fill an $851 million state budget hole is “absurd” and “outrageous.”
House Speaker Armond Budish, D-Beachwood, made the charges in a meeting with the Dayton Daily News editorial board.
“The fact is that there aren’t the votes in the Senate to pass the Governor’s and Speaker’s tax increase,” Maggie Ostrowski, Harris’ spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
Senate Republicans consider the plan by Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, approved by the House, to delay state income tax cuts for two years a tax increase, which Budish and Strickland deny. Senate Republicans want to add provisions such as an overhaul of state construction projects.
Also, the state wouldn’t be in the current situation if Strickland and Budish “had been willing to take the VLT (video lottery terminal) issue to the ballot as Sen. Harris suggested, not to mention that the two of them pushed for a school funding plan which has already cut schools and placed new unfunded mandates on districts.
“So what they are advocating so ardently for is a temporary patch on a mediocre school funding plan,” Ostrowski added.
Harris has said he would provide Republican votes to pass the “tax increase” if Democrats in the Senate “will also do the right thing and pass reforms that will provide long term savings for the state - construction reform and sentencing reform. This will help to avoid a tax increase in the future and will save school districts, higher education and any other entity that sponsors public construction projects significant dollars,” Ostrowski said.
She said it was much easier “to blame Republicans,rally teachers’ unions and ultimately stick the taxpayers with the entire bill, rather than sit down to work in bipartisan fashion with the Senate to do something for the long-term fiscal health of our state and taxpayers.”
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Speaker Budish: Senate GOP budget plan “absurd” and “outrageous”
House Speaker Armond Budish on Thursday, Dec. 10, blasted the Senate Republican plan to fill an $851 million state budget hole as “absurd” and “outrageous.”
It’s not even really a Senate GOP plan, Budish said, because passing it would require votes from all 12 Democrats in the Republican-controlled Senate while Republicans would just provide five. Republicans control the Senate, 21-12.
“That alone I think is chutzpah,” Budish said at a meeting with the Dayton Daily News editorial board.
He said his visit was the beginning of an education campaign to get Ohio residents to call their state senators and urge passage of the plan to fill the budget hole as proposed by Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and approved by the Democratic-controlled House.
It calls for delaying for two years the fifth year of state income tax cuts. The Senate should approve the same plan, Budish has said.
Senate Republicans have said they would provide five votes for such a plan but only if it also includes a number of other provisions, including an overhaul of the way the state handles billions of dollars of construction projects.
Budish said that if he had asked minority Republicans in the House to provide all their 46 votes for a budget-balancing plan, with only five votes from majority Democrats, “I would get laughed out of the state.”
Unless a budget deal is reached by Dec. 31, schools across the state will face $851 million in cuts, Budish said.
That’s because they money from delaying the tax cuts would replace money that was supposed to have come from video lottery terminals at Ohio racetracks. The VLT money would have been part of the Ohio Lottery and all lottery money must go to education.
The Ohio Supreme Court effectively shut off the VLT money by ruling that the proposal is subject to a vote of the people.
Budish said he will keep the House in session during Christmas and New Year’s weeks if necessary to try to solve the budget problem. He said the construction overhaul is complicated and should be considered separately from the budget fix.
“Time is running out,” Budish said. Maggie Ostrowski, spokeswoman for Senate President Bill Harris, R-Ashland, could not be reached immediately.
