Now, if we could convince our federal government to follow Morgan County's lead

County offices go to four-day work week
The Morgan County commissioners reported, that due to the shortfall of revenue for the county General Fund, they passed a resolution on July 6 to close those county offices funded by the County General Fund on Fridays, effective July 17 through at least the end of 2009.

The offices affected are: Auditor’s Office, Clerk of Courts, Recorder’s Office, Treasurer’s Office, County Court, Prosecutor’s Office, and the Commissioners’ Office.

Now, if we could convince our federal government to follow Morgan County's lead.....of course when the federal government falls short of funds, it just prints more.

Morgan County Women’s Republican Club

"Republican salad luncheon set
Morgan County Women’s Republican Club will hold its annual salad luncheon on Friday, May 1, at the Masonic Temple in McConnelsville. Serving will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost will be $5.00 per person.

There will be an abundance of salads and casseroles, as well as ham sandwiches and numerous desserts served. The event is the club’s only fund-raiser for the club’s scholarship fund. The club awards two $500 scholarships each year to graduating seniors at Morgan High School."

Good Candidates

Morgan County Herald story:

"“I have been to regional meetings around the state. We are going to work together to develop a message we can all talk about. The party is going to have to raise money. Some place along the way we have lost the way to get our message out. We have a responsibility to be the loyal minority. We have to be a party that provides opportunities, ideas, and concepts. We are going to spend a lot of time doing this,” she said."

Jo Ann Davidson, former Speaker of the Ohio House.

I agree with this....somewhat. I wish we'd just have a party that wanted to do what government was supposed to do. The bare essentials and nothing more. Lower our taxes and leave us alone.

With so many on the government handout list in one way or the other, I believe normal government is a thing of the past and socialism is our future.

I also agree that a party has to have good candidates. Dave Yost (Attorney General) and John Kasich (Governor) would both be great office holders.

I'm not sure about Portman. A lot of good folks have had a lot of good things to say about Rob Portman. However, the fact that he could raise cash is always one of the reasons given for strong support. It's a shame that we have to factor in fund raising when deciding which candidate to support. This leaves one with the logical conclusion that there are many good (better?) candidates that are not given the light of day as far as consideration, just because they do not have a fund raising organization. So we are not necessarily choosing the best candidates, we are choosing who we think can beat a democrat. This, of course, is not a bad thing in and of itself.

I just wonder if we would have ever heard of Abraham Lincoln if the voters then picked their candidates solely on their ability to raise money.

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.