Ohio Chamber of Commerce advocates raising taxes

The Ohio Chamber of Commerce has released a report on how Ohio can start digging it's way out of it's budget mess.

One item I disagree with is the suggestion of the elimination of the real estate rollback. This was implemented in the early 70's to help "sell" the income tax. (never trust your government).

(The Chamber is playing a Chameleon again. Depending on the subject............they either say we are massively overtaxed (which I agree with) or now, we are "giving money to taxpayers", propaganda Lenin would be proud of)

Now the Chamber thinks it's a costly entitlement given to tax payers! This sounds just like a press release from the obama administration.

They also float the idea of "means testing" the real estate rollback based on the value of the property. Again, never trust your government. They know that over time inflation will make whatever number they come up with meaningless.

Previous posts on not trusting what the government says when they try to sell a new tax: here and here

The part of the report I do agree with is consolidation of local governments. They talk all around the idea but they get there. I wish they'd be even more bold and suggest the elimination of Townships. It doesn't matter if the cost only equals whatever percentage of the upcoming shortfall. If Townships are wasteful and not needed, they need to go!

Previous posts on eliminating Townships here and here.

Weirdness at Federal Hocking's graduation

One of the girls graduated yesterday. Attached to her diploma was something that was strange to me, as I've never seen anything like this before. Maybe this happens all the time, but I've never seen it before.

It was a letter from our State Representative Debbie Phillips. I didn't find it odd that Debbie Phillips would want to hand out "congrats" letters to all the graduates. It makes good political sense to congratulate them, especially since they are all, now, voting age.

What I found odd was that the school would do her bidding for her.

Then, I remembered that George Wood (the high school principal who handed out the actual diplomas attached to this letter after the ceremony was over) is (or at least was) a member of the Athens County democrat Central Committee.

Makes me wonder of Jimmy Stewart (our State Senator who happens to be a Republican) was offered the same deal as Debbie?

I've been around Athens County too long not to think something fishy is going on. Maybe not??

Then, once you get to the letter itself, you realize that Debbie doesn't do herself any good when she refers to the graduates in the manner that she does. Or, more importantly, how the graduates interpret the tone of her letter.

Here it is, the phrase that really turns off the young ladies that I'm sure she feels are her voters anyway.

"Being from Southeastern Ohio, you have confronted challenges, etc........"

So, the implication is, you are really dumb, you're a hillbilly from Appalachia and it's a real achievement that you even graduated........you know.

More than one of my daughter's friends noticed this slight of hand in this letter.

I know the young people around here don't like being labeled as stupid and needing "help" just because of where they live geographically in Ohio. They see this labeling as nothing more than Bolshevik's trying to get more tax money for their socialist programs.

Here's a message to the label making politicians:

1. We have high speed Internet already, we don't need your help. If you'd get out of the way, private businesses would have had DSL to all the folks in SE Ohio by now.
2. We have and know how to use cell phones.
3. We even have color TV!
   

We don't need or want your "help". But if Debbie Phillips wants to continue to insult our young people, that's OK with me, she's just helping the GOP candidate for the 92nd district.

Debbie Phillips bragging about raising your taxes

$871 million gap in the state's current biennium budget by delaying the final phase of a planned tax reduction until 2011, Phillips said. The state would raise about $844 million in revenue, she noted.

Story here.

One more example of why you should never trust the government. Promising to reduce tax rates after raising them somewhere else.

However the reduction part is incremental over time. That's pretty handy when a government made "crisis" evolves and we "need" more of your money. We just won't give you the tax cut we promised.

By the way, the tax increase is in full effect.

Never trust the government when they tell you they'll cut your taxes over time. They lie. Even if they keep their word (laughing), the money is artificially inflated by same government, making it worth less.

Yes, I know that the CAT tax had to be incremental due to loss of funding if we just "gave" all the tax money back to the people all at once. Right. Here's the reason why governments make tax cuts gradual over time. So your attention will be elsewhere when they cut the promised tax cutting short.

Never trust the government. Especially one (Ohio) some in bed with the teacher's unions that they can't take care of their own citizens needs....like letting them keep their own money.

Does no one care that Texas and Tennessee are filling up with ex-Buckeyes?

Who wants to wager that we'll never see the "final phase of a planned tax reduction"?

Meigs democrats and Cordray

Pomeroy Daily Sentinel story below.

A couple of thoughts.

1. So Cordray is pro-death penalty as well as pro-gun? Yet the Ohio GOP wants us to support Mike DeWine for the Republican Attorney General nominee over Dave Yost? This makes absolutely no sense. Cordray is no raving lunatic typical democrat. Mike DeWine and his anti-gun voting record will have no chance against Cordray. And, well, why would republicans vote for a pretend republican that sounds like Ronald Reagan when he's campaigning, but votes like Ted Kennedy when we was in Washington? The Ohio GOP must think we can't remember when DeWine was our Senator. Dave Yost is the only choice for the GOP nomination. If we're voting in a GOP primary, I suspect that people will vote for the real GOP member, not the fake.
2. Remember when Debbie Phillips was running for the 92nd district and every other word out of her mouth was "Ted Strickland" this or that? Why doesn't she remind everyone that she and Ted are tied at the hip now? Could it be she doesn't want to have the same fate he will have at the polls in 2010?
   

BTW, this is another story / example of the media just taking the dems talking points and making a story out of it...passing it off as news. However, it's hard to blame poor Brian Reed.....he's the reporter and photographer for most of the stories in the Sentinel. If he's like most Meigs countians, he'd rather be doing almost anything than sitting through a democrat dinner.


Cordray keynotes Kennedy Day dinner; A.G. back from Supreme Court arguments in Spizak case

by Brian J. Reed

slideshow

MIDDLEPORT — Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, just back from arguing a Cuyahoga County murder case before the U.S. Supreme Court, addressed Meigs County Democrats Saturday at the party’s annual Kennedy Day Dinner.

State Rep. Debbie Phillips, D-Athens, introduced Cordray. Party Chairman Henry Hunter served as master of ceremonies at the Riverbend Arts Council.

Cordray appeared before the Supreme Court panel on Oct. 14, to argue that the death sentence of a man convicted in a Cleveland triple murder should be reinstated. It was Cordray’s first time before the U.S. high court as Ohio’s lead attorney, but not the first in his career. He argued five other cases before his election to state office.

Frank Spizak, described by the Associated Press as a flamboyant neo-Nazi, was convicted of murdering three men at Cleveland State University 25 years ago.

Cordray told justices during oral arguments that Spisak had a fair trial and deserves death and urged the high court to reverse a federal appeals court ruling that found Spisak's trial lawyer was ineffective and that his jury received faulty sentencing instructions.

The Attorney General used his experience last week as an example of the work he does as Ohio’s top legal official. His office oversees the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, and he also discussed the close relationship between state and local law enforcement, training programs and undercover investigations.

Cordray also promoted the AG’s office’s consumer protection services, and the toll-free number consumers can call if they feel they have been subject to consumer fraud: (800) 282-0515.

In her remarks prior to introducing the Attorney General, Rep. Phillips focused on signs of economic recovery in the region, but also acknowledged the impatience of some that the economy has not recovered sooner.

She noted that all three districts will receive extra state funding and stimulus money, and that recent legislation relating to school funding has placed Ohio’s public schools “on track to being constitutional.”

Phillips noted that the final phases of the Nelsonville Bypass, which got under construction last week, are the largest state transportation project funded by federal stimulus funds, and noted recent permit approvals for the American Municipal Power plant to be built in Meigs County is another sign of economic progress.

Hunter pointed to a reduction in home foreclosure rates and a recent boost in the stock market, and commended President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders for their work in advancing the cause of universal health care.

More trinkets from our politicians

Ohio State Representative (92nd) Debbie Phillips pulling a publicity stunt of handing out back-packs.....what's worse than doing the stunt itself is that WTAP is giving it air time. Must be really slow in the news department!

"Commitment without cash is counterfeit,"

"No one has ever said where this money is going to come from. I commend them for trying to come up with a better model, but this is a false promise."

State Senator Jimmy Stewart commenting on the new "evidence based" school funding scheme.

This is the problem with liberals.....or big spenders....liberal or conservative. You can have all the so called, alleged, relative, "good intentions" in the world, but if you don't have the money for the program, it's just vote buying on credit.

The good thing about the state of Ohio is it's balanced budget requirement. The federal government is where the liberals really shine. They can actually print money and invent it out of thin air to fund their schemes. The problem, of course, is the inflation and higher taxes it causes in the future.

The EnviroNazi hypocrites need to leave the grid

If coal is so bad, the EnviroNazis need to take their own advice and lead the way off the grid.

In 2000, 90% of Ohio's electricity (I've heard it's 87.5% now) was generated by coal burning power plants.

If they truly feel that this is a huge hazard, they need to turn their electric breaker off 90% of the time.

They could spend the extra time blowing weed or something else productive....like the women shaving their legs.

What hypocrisy to use electricity generated by coal to tell us how bad coal is for us! If they really cared about the people around the power plants (if you believe their faked health concerns for us) they'd quit using electricity from the grid.

Again the same argument (all the EnviroNazi groups (a couple of days ago it was the Sierra Club) must get the same talking points faxed to them) about jobs being given to folks outside of Meigs County.

"However, Belz believes that it is no guarantee that the jobs would go to people in Meigs County, and that people from out of town would be the ones most likely to take charge.

"When the Mountaineer Power Plant in West Virginia was being put up, they came in from out of town," she said. "Those weren't local jobs that were being given out.""

Rest of OU Post's story here

And again, there are only so many trained pipe fitters, steel workers, boiler makers, etc in Meigs County. Just because Meigs County won't be able to supply all the manpower needs does not mean this is not a great economic boost for the county.

They're really getting desperate to stop this plant. It would not surprise anyone if they resorted to more drastic / direct action. That would be a mistake.

One more thing. It's nice to finally see our State Representative Debbie Phillips start weighing in on this. I guess late is better than never. It must be awful being an EnviroNazi at heart and having to support coal. You've come a long way baby, er Debbie from your Walmart protesting days.

Report: Charter schools perform better than some suggest

No wonder the democrats in the Ohio House want to cut their funding, it's a program that actually works.

Dispatch story here

Debbie Phillips under fire for supporting higher taxes

Dispatch story here.

"the Fund for Ohio's Future is firing away at Democrats for approving a version of the two-year budget that contained 150 fee hikes."

I love how when we take more money out of people's pockets, it's called a fee hike. I guess it's a way to campaign that you've never voted to increase "taxes", but you voted to take more money from taxpayers. Sounds like a tax increase to me.

".........Democratic-passed budget also cut charter-school funding."

This, of course, surprised no one. Charter schools are generally non-union and are not run by government employees. They are also successful. So, you can see why the democrats would oppose them.

"The ads equate the fees to tax increases by using a 2007 statement by Gov. Ted Strickland, who shortly after taking office said, "I think higher fees are higher taxes."

"These days, Strickland is no longer equating fee increases to tax hikes, and legislative Democrats say there is a distinction between raising fees for certain licenses and raising, say, the income tax rate.

"I know he rues the day he did that," Garland said of Strickland's fee statement.

"They're not a tax. They are applied to the people who are using that service, or it gives them the right to do whatever it is in the state.""

Ted Strickland was right when he (originally) said that fee increases are tax increases. If you increase money taken from tax payers, it's a tax increase, no matter how specific.

""I do believe the government is here as a safety net, and in these times you need that safety net more than ever before," she said."

Of course you do, more money for government, more money to dole out to your union supporters so they can give you more money to campaign with.

"This is not the time for partisan politics," Carney said. "We are supposed to be trying to resolve problems for the state of Ohio. I don't have time to run negative ad campaigns."

Hilarious! The dems are in constant campaign mode. But when a GOP leaning group campaigns it's, of course, outrageous. What's outrageous is the democrat's pension for raising taxes and punishing successful programs.

What can I do? VOTE!

THERE ARE NO "OFF" YEAR ELECTIONS. They are all equally important.

Can someone please explain the thought process of only voting during Presidential elections? This completely baffles me.

There is absolutely no excuse not to vote.

Here's what you can do:

1. Register to vote, do it now, don't wait until it's too late!
   
2. Vote on election day.
3. If you want to vote early, request an absentee ballot (from your county's board of elections).
   
4. Make sure your family members vote, at least the conservative ones. If you don't trust them to vote on election day, due to work, forgetfulness or laziness, get them absentee ballot applications, make sure they vote. If they don't vote absentee, drag them to the polling location.
5. Make sure your children are registered as they hit the required age. If they are in your house, they should be a reliable conservative vote. Then make sure they vote.
   
6. Make sure your conservative neighbors are registered to vote.
7. Make sure your conservative neighbors actually vote.
8. Make it as easy on them to vote as you can, just like your family members. absentee ballot applications, etc....
9. Don't spend time on making sure your Marxist neighbors vote or not. Let ACCORN take care of that.
   

We need to vote at every election, period! There are always issues that need more conservative votes. The Statists are happy to see you not vote so their voting effect will be exaggerated due to less overall votes.

A good reason (there are plenty more) we need to vote every time is:

Many State Representatives / Senators were former Township Trustees or City Council members.
Many of our US Representatives were former State Representatives / Senators.
These folks started out in local elections, usually, not a presidential election cycle. You need to vote every time and know who you are voting for just because they are the pipeline to higher office when someone else moves on.

Figure out who is the conservative candidate and vote for them. Even if it's a "non-partisan" election.

More examples where one vote would have changed an outcome in an election:

Here is a link to a previous post detailing two contests in Troy Township that were decided by one vote.

Here's 2 tie votes in one election in Athens County.

Jill Thompson lost in the conservative 92nd Ohio House district by 514 votes. Not much, taking into consideration the amount of votes cast. Meigs County alone could have assured a conservative victory if only 258 of them would have voted for Thompson rather than Phillips.

Meigs would have had a real clean coal promoter, not a do nothing, say nothing to support coal State Rep that Debbie Phillips has turned out to be.

One final comment, conservatives have to turn out in massive numbers. Enough so, that even ACCORN / can't come up with enough fraudulent ballots to change the election results.

When you can tell the dems have control of the Ohio House

When you see Marxist ideas like this being considered.

""Although the sponsors of this bill have expressed the intent to rescue homeowners who are currently in foreclosure or risk thereof, it is clearly unconstitutional to interfere with existing mortgage agreements in Ohio," Thompson said. "Any provision authorizing Common Pleas judges or the Ohio Department of Commerce to modify existing mortgage contracts will be stricken from HB 3 upon legal challenge. This will not only negate assistance for current homeowners, but it will leave the statute applying only to prospective mortgage contracts."

"As applied to these prospective mortgages, HB 3 would clearly raise interest rates for prospective homeowners, thus harming more Ohioans than it would help, and enhancing the likelihood of increased delinquencies," Thompson added.

Specifically, HB 3 empowers Common Pleas judges to reduce the principal amount and/or interest rate of the loan. In addition, the measure empowers the Ohio Department of Commerce to"

• Reduce the interest rate on a home loan;
• Extend the period over which a homeowner may repay a home loan;
• Defer the amount of principal due on a home loan;
• Reduce the principal due on a home loan; and
• Utilize "other factors that the director determines are appropriate."

Thompson's complete testimony is available online at www.buckeyeinstitute.org."

If this isn't a lesson on intentions vs consequences I don't know what is. Marxists are known for having perceived good intentions (I don't think they do, but they, at least try to sell the good intentions) but the results are catastrophic.

Letting people renegotiate the principal on their mortgages? Apparently, all of us that pay our bills on time and have either paid down our mortgages or paid them off, have been doing it the wrong way.

So, we should have gotten behind in our payments, by getting ourselves into debt that we never could afford to repay....hoping the housing market would continue to go up and we could sell our house if we ever needed to for a higher price than what we paid for it.

It is fundamentally bad for a civil society to let people break their contracts whenever they have found themselves in a (usually self imposed) predicament.

Now, those of us that follow our contractual obligations, will have to pay to bailout those that don't follow theirs.

Seems fair in a government think sort of way. Sort of like Congressman Charlie Wilson is acting right now. Borrow ourselves out of debt!? Make the taxpayers pick up the tab because our Congress doesn't do their collective jobs by putting the halt to the Marxist in the White House and tell him NO when he wants to put our kids and grandchildren into debt.

Looks like Congressman Charlie Wilson is too happy to get a few table scraps to bring back to the district to help him get re-elected than doing his job by keeping our country solvent.

Meigs AMP "permit to install" issued by OEPA

This is one of many permits required.

Pomeroy Daily Sentinel story

They've already obtained:

• the air permit-to-install (finalized February 2008)
• National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit (finalized November 2008)
• 401 Water Quality Certification (finalized January)
• Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need-Generation Facility (finalized March 2008)
• OPSB Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need-Transmission Line (finalized November 2008)

"An application for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 404 Permit remains pending and the final air and NPDES permits are being appealed by various opponents of the project. "

I wonder if this is why the Roman Empire fell? Permitted themselves out of existence?

Notice the EnviorNazis are still throwing up road blocks to stop these new jobs from coming to Meigs County.

Where's Debbie Phillips? Is she trying to facilitate the permitting process? One doubts it. She protested the Walmart being built in Athens of all things!

Debbie Phillips = more government

Great post at One Oar in the Water blog.

Just cut taxes and let private business grow instead of growing government.

Another point he touched on, I haven't heard Debbie Phillips promoting clean coal. Why not?

Why isn't she having press conferences supporting the AMP plant in Meigs?

We all know the reason, she does not support coal.

Slopping the hogs in Morgan County

Using Congressman Charlie Wilson's funny money / deficit spending.

It's scary listening to government officials talking about spending your tax money. Especially when there is a lot of it being spread around in an attempt to buy your vote.

Morgan County Herald story

Comments:

"State Rep. Phillips said she had gotten significant correspondence from people in Morgan County already concerning the cut in school funding proposed for Morgan Local School District in 2010."

Well, she helped create this funding plan, she should explain it from that perspective.

"During the discussion, Vicki Quesinberry, director of the Morgan County Department of Job and Family Services, talked about funding for her office. She said, “We have had four cuts. My help is running out. I don’t know what they want us to do. The finances are not there to support the workforce. There is not enough people to help. We had another layoff today. The TANF funding is totally cut.”"

Hmm, maybe government should act like private businesses (who don't have endless supplies of Wilson's funny money) and cut back spending and do more with less. It's called increased productivity.

"Gary Arnold, a representative for AFSCME, commented, “I represent 55 locals and everyone of our Job and Family Services has been sliced. Job and Family Services is the busiest state agency, and they have laid off three in Noble County and we had the one in Morgan today. We cannot take another $300,000 cut in an agency."

Gary needs to learn government speak. He needs to phrase this "if you keep laying union members off, we won't be able to give you campaign contributions to keep you in office, so you can keep us employed, to give you more campaign contributions...all from the taxpayers, of course."

"Morgan County Commissioner Mike Reed stated, “I was just looking over your projects. We need jobs. We also need money for a new jail. Our crime rate is going to go up. Stress on the system will make the crime rate go up.”"

Please Mike, this is an urban legend. The crime rate during the so called "great depression" was no more than the time period before or after it. Maybe if we lowered the minimum wage, we'd have more people working and less with idle time on their hands.

"County Commissioner Dean Cain talked about the need for a jail in Morgan County. He said the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail is a tremendous drain on the county. “We send $300,000 to Nelsonville. If we had our own jail we would create a minimum of 10 jobs,” he said. “The cost does not account for the transportation to get prisoners there.”"

Didn't we hear these same arguments, except in reverse, when the regional jail was built? It was going to save money for counties??? Now we want to use more tax money to go the other direction?

"Bill Hutchison talked about the underground economy. “Is there anything to police that type of activity?” he asked. “You can place a law that says you cannot do it, but a lot of people do not pay into Workers’ Comp. The state is out that money.”"

We'd hate having people making money without the state getting their cut, wouldn't we?

"Concerning education, State Rep. Phillips said, “There are a couple of things in there that will make a real difference for Morgan. Supt. Lori Snyder-Lowe has done some great things to get with all the legislators. Nothing is easy right now. People are raising real concerns."

Wow, that really puts people at ease! That's deep man...crazy....

"Shannon Wells, director of the commissioners’ Development Office, talked about Morgan County Transit. She had put in a request for $385,000 to purchase an existing facility to house the rural public transportation system which has eight vehicles and 15 employees. The money request is to also purchase one additional vehicle and vehicle radios. “We can house 15 vehicles at the facility we are looking at. We take 1,500 trips a month taking people to work, to the grocery, to the drugstore, and to the doctor,” she said. “If we have the money we would be able to employ additional drivers plus a caretaker and create 10 jobs.”"

After paying the government mark-up on this, called union workers, it'd be cheaper to hire cabs to give these folks rides. Or better yet, lower people's taxes so they can afford, or have the time to help their neighbors on their own. Of course, no politician would get credit for that, so it will never happen.

"Terry McGrew, director of the Morgan County Health Department, talked about people needing funds to fix their sewer systems. He said, “There is not a lot of assistance for people in Morgan County to fix their systems. One of the requests is for $50,000 to assist Morgan County homeowners in need of household sewage treatment system replacement, repair, or installation.”"

So, we want to reward those that don't keep their sewage system working and penalize those that do by making them pay for those that don't? Seems fair in a government sort of way.

"Rep. Phillips handed three “sticky dots” to each person in the room and asked them to put a “dot” by the project they favored. “This helps. There will be different pots of money for different projects. It is interesting to see how much there is a common sense of priorities in the room. It should start moving very soon. The goal is to get people back to work as soon as possible. Some of the projects are due to be started in three months or so.”"

Leadership by "sticky dots", unbelievable.

One last comment, this stimulus spending is not about "getting people back to work" it's about funding government. Yes, the government started this mess to begin with, but who cares, we've got Congressman Charlie Wilson's funny money to play with.

Strickland / Phillips cut more local school funding

Morgan Local getting 2% cut under Strickland / Phillips plan.

Previous post detailing Athens County's cuts.

Ted Strickland and Debbie Phillips both campaigned on fixing school funding. Especially the perceived inequities between poor Appalachian schools and rich suburban schools.

So, the great irony is that their "plan" to "fix" education funding is to cut funding to most poor schools and give more money to rich districts. I thought the dems were supposed to be for the "poor and disadvantaged".

Since Strickland and Phillips ran on "fixing school funding" and this is the best they can do (cut funding for poor schools and increase funding to rich schools (Upper Arlington = 15% increase, which just happens to be where Phillips attended school), I hope they don't try to help us with anything else. We won't be able to stand too much of government style help much longer.

Priceless

The Athens News' Terry Smith has finally come to the realization that having good intentions doesn't qualify one to be Governor.

At least he's honest. Here's today's Athens News and Terry's column.

"After all this, the people of southeast Ohio who had long tolerated schools with minimal financial resources, always seemingly on the verge of insolvency, excitedly awaited the governor’s reform plan. It had been a long trek through the desert, but finally, the promised land was at hand.
Um, well, no. In the district-by-district breakdown released last week by the governor’s office, here’s how Athens County’s school districts fare under the Strickland education plan:

• Alexander Local School District: No increase in money in fiscal year 2010 and a 2 percent reduction in 2011.
• Federal Hocking School District: 0 percent change in 2010 and 2 percent reduction in 2011.
• Nelsonville York City School District: 0 percent change in 2010 and 2 percent reduction in 2011.
• Trimble Local School District: 0 percent change in 2010 and 2 percent reduction in 2011.
• Athens City School District, (the most prosperous school district in the county): 0 percent change in 2010 and 1 percent increase in 2011.

We’re going to hear a lot of statistical hocus-pocus to explain this but there’s no getting around the fact that schools that have always been considered the ones most unfairly treated under the old system won’t get any new money under the new one, and actually will have to absorb 2 percent reductions.

This is an outrage, and Appalachia Ohio’s native son Ted Strickland should be forced to come up with an explanation."

What must hurt Terry even more is the fact that the Athens News endorsed Strickland and one of the main reasons was his promise of "improved support for education."

"Strickland would accomplish some of his goals -- including more early-childhood education, a focus on science and math instruction, a more effective system of public-private college savings accounts, guaranteed tuition rates -- through tinkering with the funding system. He would try to make it fairer and simpler"

"Strickland is a good man with a sincere desire to improve Ohio's sorry state"

One has to wonder now, that since the Athens News endorsed Strickland and he's turned out to be a disappointment, who else did they endorse that has failed them?

How about Debbie Phillips? Here's The Athens News endorsement of her State Representative candidacy.

"Education is Phillips’ strong suit, as the founder and executive director of the Ohio Fair Schools Campaign. She has an intimate working knowledge of the complex ins and outs of Ohio’s ineffective system for funding schools, and can be depended upon to apply that knowledge in Columbus. She will work with the governor, and hopefully a Democratic majority House of Representatives, to finally reform our unfair system for funding schools."

The Athens News was wrong about her also.

Yes, she's only been a State Representative for a short time, however, Strickland's education funding "plan", looks like it came from Debbie Phillips and her Ohio Fair Schools Campaign, which she was the founder and executive director. It looks like Strickland and Phillips were holding hands while putting this plan together. Take a look at the Ohio Fair Schools Campaign website and see how many initiatives have made it into Strickland's proposal. (It looks like the Ohio Fair Schools Campaign website hasn't been updated since last year, which would lead one to believe that it was purely a vehicle in which Debbie Phillips rode to a State Representative seat.)

While many of the districts she represents are getting funding cuts, see list above, the school she attended (Upper Arlington) is getting 15% and 16% increases over the next two years.

Phillips and Strickland are equally responsible for this debacle of a "school funding plan". The dems have been demagoguing this issue for the past 12-15 years. After all this time, this is the best they could come up with?

While Phillips and Strickland are responsible for this mess, it's up to the voters to hold them accountable on election day.

After this track record of endorsements from the Athens News, one would think that voters should vote against those they've endorsed....for the most part. They get 1 or 2 out of 100 right.


And yes, Terry, you are a liberal.

Unbiased headline

Is the Democrat party writing the headlines for stories in the Marietta Times?

"Ohio Democrats want to create jobs" Maybe it's just me, but the first thought that came to mind was the implication that the Republicans don't want to create jobs. What the headline should have said was "Ohio Democrats want to create government jobs".

A couple of thoughts on this story:

1.

"Sen. Jimmy Stewart, R-Athens, said Monday he's willing to look at Democratic proposals, but has some reservations. For example, he favors the veteran bonus plan vetoed by Gov. Ted Strickland, which would have paid for the bonuses out of the state's rainy day fund.
"The bill that we passed used current resources... instead of going deeper in debt," Stewart said."

Contrast this sentiment to Rep. Charlie Wilson's (D) deficit spending and it's a breath of fresh air.


2.

"Stewart said he's not opposed to the idea but believes fixing the state's unconstitutional education system is the priority and he's skeptical of Strickland's plan.
"That would be helpful," Stewart said of the distance learning initiative, "but what would be even more helpful was if the governor's school funding plan wasn't taking money from some of the poorest districts in the state....""

Then you have Strickland and Debbie Phillips telling us they had an "education funding plan" and they were going to fix "school funding". Then when the "plan" is revealed, it actually reduces funding to many schools in Appalachia....some of the poorest in the state. What kind of a fix is that? As Jimmy stated in another story recently that the Strickland / Phillips plan would actually increase the dependence on property taxes in some districts. This is the main reason Strickland and Phillips said we needed to "fix" school funding in the first place. What they've done is actually made our school funding situation worse.

I hope Strickland and Debbie Phillips don't try to fix anything else!

AEP: Clean coal plant on hold

Daily Sentinel story.

This is different from the AMP power plant that is still a go.

Originally, there were 3 planned plants on slate for Meigs and Mason (WV, right across the river) counties.

• American Municipal power is still going to happen.
• AEP's clean coal power plant is on hold.
• Mason County plant has been approved by West Virginia. This is an identical plant to the one that was going to be built by AEP in Meigs.

So, the environazis should be laughing over their lattes after reading this story. This does nothing, however, to help the 600 Century Aluminum employees who just lost their jobs.

One question for Debbie Phillips, she said she was for clean coal, during the latest campaign for State Representative. Is she working with Gov. Strickland to remove roadblocks for this clean coal plant being built? I haven't heard that she is.

Phillips to serve on alternative energy

Here's a link to the Daily Sentinel story

"State Rep. Debbie Phillips, D-Athens, was named by House Speaker Armond Budish, D-Columbus, to be Vice Chairman of the Alternative Energy Committee.The Alternative Energy committee deals with the many ways Ohio can incorporate alternative energy initiatives into its economy.
“Bringing jobs to our region is my top priority. To that end, my first meeting in Columbus was held in December with Meigs County economic development officials,” Phillips said."

She's going to help Meigs County with jobs by being on the "alternative energy committee"? They don't need alternative energy when they are sitting on huge deposits of coal, cheap coal, high BTU coal. What Meigs County really needs is for her to call off her environmentalist pack of wolves from laying roadblocks, hindering the building of the proposed power plants. I won't hold my breath on that one....she's one of them.

“These committee assignments put me in a strong position to represent our region"

Maybe the windmill worshiping communes of the Amesville area, but not Meigs County.

Debbie Phillips, she's here to "help" you

So, she thinks it's her job as state representative is to make sure tax payer funded "service providers" don't run into "bureaucratic issues". The state government creates programs and bureaucratic hurdles at the same time. Then we go to our State Representative to help us around these hurdles that the State Representative helped put up in the first place?

Debbie, how about stop providing "services" and just cut our taxes and spending. We'll take care of the rest and provide our own services with our own money that we don't send to Columbus.

By the way, where's her education funding plan? Why is she waiting for uncle Ted to produce his? I thought this was important and she was going to "fix" it for us.

Athens News story
As far as keeping her finger on the pulse of the district, Phillips said she plans to meet regularly with folks within the district who are implementing programs on the ground to make sure that she’s aware of the priorities and any bureaucratic issues that may be causing problems in program implementation. The 92nd House District includes Athens, Morgan and Meigs counties, and the western part of Washington County.
“I’ve already been talking with some of the local service providers and boards that implement state programs to get their side of the fence of the priorities as we head into the budget,” Phillips said. “People are already calling and e-mailing. My office is fully involved with reaching out to state agencies and helping people resolve problems.”