Issue 2 Yes Vote Will Save Your Budget

Election day is drawing closer and the hottest issue is that of keeping Senate Bill 5 in force. It is listed as Issue 2 on the ballot. Make no mistake about it, Issue 2 is the most important decision Ohio voters have been asked to make in recent years. Senate Bill 5, passed by the Ohio Legislature this year, returns to elected officials their ability to manage the political entities to which they were elected. From the state to counties, to cities, to townships, the ability of elected government to manage their employees has been taken away by a system which has transferred municipal management from officials elected by the voters to arbitrators which, being union biased, have granted pay raises, promotions, created new job positions, set working standards, regardless of the desires and needs of elected officials and those citizens who elected them.

Two classes of people will be effected by the vote on Issue 2. The first are government employees, fire and policemen, street workers, garbage men, highway patrolmen, secretaries, public health workers. The second class are tax payers, the citizens who pay government workers and under the scheme of things before Senate Bill 5 came along, had no say in what government employees were paid, disciplined, required to work, or what benefits they received.

Should Issue 2 be defeated and Senate Bill 5 not be kept in force, the results will be terribly one sided. Uncontrolled pay raises for government employees will continue to be legislated through "collective bargaining". Increased numbers of personnel on government payrolls will become unmanageable. Benefits, which currently add 48% to the cost of wages will increase government payrolls to unmanageable amounts. Workers benefits, such as holidays, comp time, overtime pay, minimum pay for call-in backup, uniform allowances, more fully paid health insurance, will be increased by union contract to the point that cities will no longer be able to pay the bill.

Can this be true? As a matter of fact, it is occurring now, and has been for a number of years. This is how it works. The unions under the current system present a city with a proposed contract for coming years, which contains all the conditions in the existing contract, plus any new requests they may have. These requests are not limited in scope nor cost. The city, say, does not accept the union requests. The union, then, takes the contract to arbitration, or fact finding, and the arbitrator or fact finder makes the final decision which is binding on both parties. And that becomes the way it is. The problem is that in the majority of cases the union wins. That is why unions are paying $35 a month for comprehensive family health insurance and cities are picking up the other $965 a month for their employees. That is why police and fire departments are able to add lieutenants and sergeants to their departments, along with mandating what their salaries will be, without the approval of city administrations and city councils regardless of budget restraints and shortfalls. This translates to unbalanced budgets and red ink accounting.

If you listen to the ads of those who oppose SB 5, you are told that services for fire, police, public health, and the like, will be decreased. This is not true. Issue 2, SB 5, will provide better services to the citizen than is available today, and at a lesser cost. Consider that currently the cities have no control over pay raises, the unions assuring everybody covered by a contract will get the same pay regardless of competence, ability, motivation, and ambition. Incompetence is rewarded in the same way as is achievement. There are exceptions however in the case of layoffs. In that case the newest hired is laid off while the do-nothing long term employee is retained. Incompetency in school systems is similarly rewarded. Poor teachers are protected by longevity while good teachers are discriminated against. The current system is basically poor.

But not all is lost for the taxpayer. We are going to get the bill. And don't believe for an instant that is not coming. What's more, good civil employees are going to be laid off because of the inability of municipalities to pay the bills, a situation which has become common place in the past couple of years. It will become worse as time goes by. This depression is not over. Ask your neighbor who is out of work. Check your own budget. How are you doing? Unless you are a government employee, probably not as well as a year or two ago.

If you are a government employee you should be doing pretty well. Police and fire departments recently received a 9% raise over the next three years. Not that bad when one considers that pay raise will also raise the cost of benefits by an equal amount.

Is it any wonder that public service employees are against Senate Bill 5 and are pushing to have Issue 2 defeated? It is not a case of offering more protection and services from police, fire, public health, and the rest of the government employees, because you aren't going to get it. Public services have not increased over the past years. They have become more complex because of union rules. They have become more expensive because of mandates from union influenced arbitrators.

So why are public employee unions so against retaining Senate Bill 5? Money. That's it. Money. Self interest. Greed. Public employees who are being paid more than the citizenry they serve want more. They want to maintain control of what they are paid, when they will work, how they will perform. And that is what Senate Bill 5 is all about, to return the control of government to elected officials who are responsible to citizens.

Your vote is going to decide this issue. Voting Yes on Issue 2 will put the responsibility of government back where it belongs, on elected officials who are answerable to you, the citizen who pays the bill. If the keeping of Senate Bill 5, Issue 2 on the ballot, is not approved you will pay the bill, and the cost will be dear. Without a Yes vote on Issue 2 taxes will increase on your income, your business, your property, and sales tax.

It is your money. It is your choice. Vote Yes on Issue 2.

Biden Shoves Foot in Mouth, Again

Friday, October 21, 2011

Americans could have taken little comfort when the man a heartbeat away from the nation's nuclear launch codes predicted, in another context, "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong." This week, however, Vice-President Joe Biden increased his probability of error to 100 percent, making and repeating statements indicating that he's just about the only elected official in America that doesn't know that violent crime has been declining for the last 20 years.

Perennially casting himself as the nation's leading empathizer with the working class, the gaffe-prone Veep often talks about the importance of jobs, which he once described as a three-letter word. So, it was no surprise when he returned to the subject of jobs again this week. But even the leftist Huffington Post didn't give a friend a pass when Biden warned on Tuesday that if Congress doesn't pass the new "jobs bill" favored by President Barack Obama, violent crime would "continue to rise."

The next day, questioned about the claim by a reporter, Biden indignantly defended his position, saying, "Don't screw around with me. Let's get it straight. . . . Go look at the numbers. Murder's up, rape is up, and burglary's up. [And if the Republicans don't pass the Obama "jobs bill,"] murder will continue to rise. Rape will continue to rise. All crimes will continue to rise."
Instead of making stuff up, Biden should have resorted to plagiarism, as he's been accused of before. If he had done so, he could have gotten his crime numbers straight by copying them from the FBI's Crime in the United States, 2010 report and its online database of crime statistics from the last half-century. As the great New York Yankee Yogi Berra once said, "You can observe a lot just by watching."

According to the FBI, the nation's murder, rape and burglary rates decreased five, six and two percent, respectively, between 2009 and 2010; have decreased 14, 14 and four percent, respectively, over the last decade; and have decreased 51, 35 and 44 percent, respectively, over the last 20 years. Today, murder, rape and burglary are at 46-year, 33-year and 44-year lows, respectively. Total violent crime, which includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, is at a 37-year low. Total property crime, which includes, burglary, larceny theft and motor vehicle theft, is at a 42-year low.

Meanwhile, from another source of information more reliable than Biden, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the nation's unemployment rate is still 9.1 percent. If the nation's jobless numbers were declining like crime has been, it would be cause for a celebration like none other in many years.

Copyright 2011, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.

An Open Letter to Sherrod Brown

Senator Brown:

The Labor Department reported on Wednesday that U.S. job openings dropped by 157,000 in August to 3.06 million, down from July's downwardly revised 3.21 million, while hiring increased by 38,000 to 4.01 million. Although openings remain well below the 4.4 million at the start of the recession in December of 2007, it's 26% higher than at the end of the recession in June 2009.

Now, ignore the comparisons and look at the raw numbers. What this says to me is that there are over three million job openings in the United States RIGHT NOW that are crying for someone qualified to do them who WANTS to work. No takers.

While I do realize that unfair trade practices and currency manipulation are partially to blame, I also know that entitlements and welfare play an important part, as well, because they make it easier to be unproductive and unmotivated. The bleeding-heart attitude that enables welfare cheats and illegal aliens to steal our hard-earned tax dollars MUST stop, as does the political garbage that enables such a system to exist and flourish in the first place.

We are tired of it, and by the looks of things, nobody is doing anything to right the ship.

If our elected representatives expect to earn our trust and confidence, these things must not only be addressed, but a real solution put forth and adopted.

Obama was elected because people voted for change without understanding what changes were really needed. Obama and his cohorts didn’t understand either. They still don’t, and it doesn’t look to me like they care to learn or do anything about it. I am not impressed. I am insulted.

We will never fix a broken system, a misguided system, by throwing more money at it. We will never spend our way out of debt. We will never develop a more competitive workforce by paying them to do less or to do nothing. Our “leaders” have engaged in those practices for far too long already, and the ship is still in serious disrepair and taking on water.

I have always believed that money is a yardstick of service to people. THIS government is changing that definition, and it is a crying shame. Our federal government needs to be lean and mean, not fat and ugly. The free ice cream must stop.

Have a nice day.

Rod Kirkendall
Dover, Ohio

Obama's First 1,000 Days As President

Today marks the 1,000th day of Barack Obama's presidency, and unfortunately for America, those days have been marked by deeper deficits, lost jobs, prolonged unemployment, and bigger government. Meanwhile, many of those charged with leading the federal government have all but abdicated their responsibilities.

The national debt stands at $14.9 trillion--$4.2 trillion of which has been added since Obama took his oath of office. Fourteen million Americans are unemployed--that's 9.1 percent of the workforce. The unemployment rate has been above nine percent for 840 of the 1000 days, and the average unemployed worker has been without a job for more than 9 months. All told, 2.2 million jobs have been lost under Obama's watch, despite the White House's claims that the President's $787 billion stimulus would create 3.3 million net jobs by 2010.

Unfortunately, instead of leading America toward fiscal sanity and a stronger economy, the President is taking the country in the opposite direction. Last week, his latest proposal to "stimulate" the economy with another $447 billion in spending failed to pass the Senate, but instead of recognizing that more taxing and spending is not what America wants or needs, he's redoubling his efforts. Today, the President is starting another bus tour to sell a different version of the same plan--this time broken up into pieces of taxing and spending still big enough to choke a horse. It's the same plan, only in different packaging.

Former Congressman Ernest Istook explains the danger: Even segmented versions of Obama’s $447 billion plan can be used to squeeze in those worst parts. That’s because it’s almost impossible to get both the House and the Senate to enact identical versions of a bill, thus requiring a conference committee to "work out the differences"--which sometimes includes adding distasteful details.

While it's good news that the Senate rejected the President's jobs plan, the bad news is that the Senate has utterly failed to help put America back on a strong fiscal path. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) point out that it's been 900 days since Senate Democrats last adopted a formal budget plan, calling it "a national disgrace."

As required by law, House Republicans presented a budget in committee, brought it to the floor, and passed it earlier this spring. It was an honest, detailed, concrete plan to put our budget on the path to balance and our economy on the path to prosperity. But Senate Democrats, during this time of national crisis, failed even to present a budget plan — in open defiance of the law and the public they serve.

What we have seen from the Obama Administration is bigger government, more regulations, and massive amounts of government spending in the hopes of stimulating the economy. The trouble is that it hasn't worked, as the numbers show. Obama promised that his $787 billion stimulus would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. It didn't, and given the jobs that were lost, he came up 7.3 million jobs short of his goal. His health care plan, better known as Obamacare, did not reduce health care costs as promised and is in fact responsible for increasing costs in 2011. On top of that, the law will price many unskilled workers out of full-time employment.

And those are just the big-ticket items. Over the last 1,000 days, America has seen increased regulations, a 9,000-earmark omnibus bill, a government union bailout, a Wall Street reform bill that will do more harm than good, a nuclear arms treaty that is detrimental to missile defense, a refusal to expand domestic energy production, federal overreach into education, an undermining of the rule of law, and a dark cloud hanging over our military's future due to a failure to ensure adequate defense spending.

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, James Freeman writes of an interview with billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman--Democrat, real-estate mogul, and New York Daily News owner. "Among business executives who supported Barack Obama in 2008, [Zuckerman] says, 'there is enormously widespread anxiety over the political leadership of the country.' Mr. Zuckerman reports that among Democrats, 'The sense is that the policies of this government have failed.'" Given the track record of the Obama Administration over the last 1,000 days, they would be right. Bigger government has not put America on a stronger fiscal path, it hasn't created jobs, and it hasn't built a stronger economy.

There is a better way. Heritage's Saving the American Dream plan charts a course that fixes the debt, cuts spending, and restores prosperity. It redesigns entitlement programs, guarantees assistance to those who need it, and saves the American dream for future generations. If Congress and the President want to move America forward, create new jobs, and spur businesses to grow and invest, then piling on debt, raising taxes, and increasing spending is not the answer--no matter how much Obama would like it to be.


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Originally Published by morningbell@heritage.org on October 17, 2011.

Why Obamacare Might Cost You a Job

Back in February 2010, when Congress was still debating the Obamacare legislation, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) proclaimed to America that the law "will create 400,000 jobs almost immediately." But according to a new report by Heritage's James Sherk, Obamacare will have the opposite effect, pricing many unskilled workers out of full-time employment due to the law's requirement that employers offer health benefits to full-time employees.

According to Sherk, the minimum cost of employing full-time workers under Obamacare amounts to an average of $27,500, more than what many unskilled employees produce. He explains in his paper, "Obamacare Will Price Less Skilled Workers Out of Full-Time Jobs" why increased costs will lead employers to shift to employing part-time workers:

After paying the new health premiums, the minimum wage, payroll taxes, and unemployment insurance taxes, hiring a full-time worker will cost employers at least $10.03 per hour. Full-time workers with family health plans will cost $13.75 per hour.

Employers who hire workers with productivity below these rates will lose money. Businesses employing less skilled workers will probably respond by dumping their employees onto the federally subsidized health care exchanges and replacing full-time positions with part-time jobs.

Fewer full-time jobs in favor of more part-time positions is not what America needs, particularly as it struggles with a stagnant economy, 9.1 percent unemployment, and 14 million people out of work. But just when the United States needs businesses to expand, grow, and invest, Obamacare is piling on the costs and regulations--making it more difficult for businesses to create new jobs.

Under the law, businesses with more than 50 workers must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty, thereby reducing the amount of capital they have to invest in expanding and hiring new workers. That requirement also has the effect of incentivizing businesses with fewer than 50 employees to maintain their size to avoid the costs. And then there's the uncertainty that Obamacare has brought about--businesses don't know what their future costs will be under the legislation, making it difficult for them to plan for the future.

America might already be seeing the job-killing effects of the President's signature law. Sherk writes that following Obamacare's passage, economic growth in America changed course:

Initially, the economy appeared on track for a steady recovery. The economy went from losing 841,000 jobs in January 2009--the recession's low point--to gaining 229,000 jobs in April 2010...

Within two months of Obamacare's passing, the recovery stalled... In May 2010, the job situation stopped improving. Job creation dropped to just 48,000 net private sector jobs, and private-sector hiring took a new course. From May 2010 onward, private job growth improved by only 6,500 jobs per month--less than one-tenth the previous rate.

Though correlation doesn't prove causation, the economy's slowdown following the passage of Obamacare, when considered alongside complaints from business owners about the law's effects on new hiring, should cause alarm for anyone who cares about unemployment in America. Heritage's Nina Owcharenko explains why the law is the wrong prescription for turning the economy around:

Obamacare is perhaps the most damaging of the Administration's policies that are impeding the country's recovery. At a time when there should be a focus on cutting spending, reducing regulation, and lowering taxes, Obamacare does the complete opposite. It spends more, imposes costly new mandates and regulations, and raises taxes on individuals and businesses. This is no way to get the economy up and running again.

Unfortunately, Obamacare will make an already bad economic picture worse. Unskilled workers are struggling to find employment, and the President's health care law will make finding full-time jobs even more difficult. If President Obama truly wants to reduce unemployment and help businesses grow, he should admit that Obamacare was a mistake and work with Congress to repeal it.

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Originally published on October 14, 2011, by Morning Bell, morningbell@heritage.org, a publication of the Heritage Foundation

Solyndra Scandal Ends Green Jobs Myth

President Barack Obama's solution for America's unemployment woes has been a stubborn campaign to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on economic "stimulus"--much of it on so-called "green jobs." Report after report has shown the approach to be a total failure. And now, a new scandal involving Solyndra, a bankrupt solar panel company in California, should be the final nail in the coffin for the government’s meddling in the free market.

"[W]e can see the positive impacts [of the stimulus] right here at Solyndra," Obama claimed when he spoke at the company's newly unveiled factory in May of last year. He was correct that the results of his stimulus would be on display at that factory. But he was wrong that those results would be positive. Little more than a year later, the company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and plans to lay off more than 1,000 employees.

The Solyndra factory where Obama spoke was built after the company received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Energy Department as part of the stimulus's green jobs push. "Through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations," Obama noted. "This new factory is the result of those loans."

But "everyone knew that the plant wouldn’t work," according to a former Solyndra employee. So why was the President so sure of the plant’s success when he spoke there? What's more, the company was built on "a model that says, well, I can build something for six dollars and sell it for three dollars," according to an industry analyst. That would normally be a red flag for investors. So why did the President claim that "the true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra"?

The answer to both of those questions: The government's decisions are driven by politics and ideology and are divorced from economic reality. Want proof? Take a look at a January 31 e-mail between Office of Management and Budget staff regarding "Solyndra optics" -- that is, how the issue looks in the public's eyes. "If Solyndra defaults down the road, the optics will arguably be worse later than they would be today," they wrote, adding:

In addition, the timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up, whereas a default today could be put in the context of (and perhaps even get some credit for) fiscal discipline / good government because the Administration would be limiting further taxpayer exposure letting bad projects go, and could make public steps it is taking to learn lessons and improve / limit future lending.

In other words, in January the Administration was essentially letting the 2012 campaign dictate decisions on the federal government's financial involvement with Solyndra. They were not responding to normal profit-and-loss signals, as they should. Had Energy Department bureaucrats been investing their own money, they might have been more careful. But it was others' money -- taxpayers' money -- at stake. Self-interested investors, who naturally weed out bad investments, were wholly absent. The result: Taxpayers are likely to lose up to $535 million, while the people who made the decision to throw money at Solyndra have, so far, been completely insulated from reprisal.

Much attention has been paid to accusations of cronyism in the Energy Department, given that a major Solyndra investor is also a big Obama donor. But the fundamental lesson of the Solyndra scandal is not that money buys political favors. That now goes without saying. The real takeaway is that government intervention in the economy is a fool’s errand, as Heritage’s Nicolas Loris notes:

Solyndra exemplifies the government’s abysmal track record of picking winners and losers in the marketplace, and the solar company is not the only example of energy stimulus struggles. With a number of targeted energy tax credits set to expire at the end of this year or next, industry groups are lobbying hard for extensions. Especially given the U.S. fiscal situation, this is a time to end all energy subsidies—not to extend wasteful, market-distorting policies. When the government decides to favor a technology with subsidies, it’s a good bet that subsidy 'winner' is a loser in the marketplace.

Indeed, at least four other companies to receive money from Obama's stimulus package have gone bankrupt, Fox News reports.

Even where companies do create jobs, they do so at such exorbitant cost that the effort cannot reasonably be considered a success. To date, The Washington Post reports, the Energy Department loan guarantee program from which Solyndra benefited has created one new permanent job for every $5.5 million spent. Lend that kind of money to a private business in an industry that doesn’t rely on taxpayer support, and it will put hundreds if not thousands to work.

Government subsidies are invitations for political favoritism, of course. But more importantly, as engines of job creation, they simply don't work (just ask Spain). Sure, the Administration's "green jobs" program has led to allegations of corruption. But it has also failed even in its foremost task of creating jobs for an economy with a chronic unemployment problem. Columnist Jim Pethokoukis writes, "Solyndra is the logical endpoint of Obamanomics." Unfortunately, the American people are paying the price for getting us there.

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Originally published on September 16, 2011, by Morning Bell, morningbell@heritage.org, a publication of the Heritage Foundation