Like the proponents of Ohio’s Issue 2 tried to point out before the November vote, keeping the status quo for Ohio public union salaries, benefits, and pensions was unsustainable. A yes vote would’ve kept Ohio Senate Bill 5 as law, and tried to reign in the runaway spending and debt being heaped on the state. Unions spent over $50M to defeat Issue 2, as evidenced by | Read More »
Issue 2 in Ohio has failed. Unions poured a gazillion dollars into Ohio and won. Despite having a sense of this outcome for some time it still stings. Believe it or not, a great many felt that these reforms were important steps in bring fiscal and structural sanity to government. The voters clearly did not get that message. The media is going to try and | Read More »
Is John Glenn a hero? Tricky question. First American to orbit the earth and third American in space. A long list of awards and medals to his name. But also a Senate a career that was less than illustrious (including the Keating Five scandal). When I think John Glenn I think bland Democratic politician not heroic astronaut. Your mileage may vary. But the point of this | Read More »
As Ohio’s SB5 (collective bargaining reform) goes to a vote on November 8th, pressure is being ramped up in the final week and a half. According to the Columbus Dispatch, unions and their fellow reform opponents have bankrolled the We Are Ohio anti-SB5 campaign to the tune of $19,048,680, dwarfing the pro-reform Building A Better Ohio’s $7.6 million. Democrats and their union cronies have dominated Ohio | Read More »
With less than two weeks before the November 8th elections and with the polls leaning toward repealing SB5, it appears that Ohioans are ready to vote to increase their taxes and unemployment. Ultimately, that is a choice Ohio taxpayers will be making and fiscal self-immolation is certainly within their rights and, frankly, there are states who would be all-too happy to see Ohio’s unions put the nail | Read More »
Given that just a few short years ago (pre-market meltdown) Ohio’s taxpayers were on the hook for $46.5 billion due to its underfunded retirement system, one would think that November 8th’s decision to Vote YES on Issue 2 would be a no brainer. After all, if you’ve got a system where union bosses have been able to put every single Ohio citizen (now) $6150 in debt, | Read More »
As you may know, there is a critically important issue being debated here in Ohio that has long term implications for politics, public policy and the health of Ohio’s economy. Issue 2 is a result of a union led attempt to repeal Senate Bill 5 – legislation which brought much needed reform to Ohio’s collective bargaining laws. A yes vote allows these important reforms to | Read More »
As it happens, this Wall Street Journal article discussing Ohio’s (among other states’) credit upgrade by Standard & Poor – and Ohio’s fairly dramatic drop in unemployment in a year – came out the same day that I spoke with Governor Kasich about his budget and labor union reform successes. The latter (SB5, which was in many ways an even stronger reform package than Wisconsin’s) | Read More »
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