Moving to a New Home (page)

For several years, I've maintained a political website, http://www.daveyost.com



During a recent re-design, we decided to incorporate this blog on that web site. Today marks my first post on the new site.

This Blogger account will no longer be updated. If you are interested in future posts, please go to http://www.daveyost.com/



Thanks!



Dave

Cutting History Class: Gov. Strickland and the Efficiency of State Spending

Gov. Strickland said yesterday that state spending, of all things, is the "most efficient" way to get resources into the local economies of Ohio. Mr. Strickland evidently was not paying attention when, during his lifetime, all the planet's state-planned economies collapsed -- from inefficiency.

The Governor is wroth because the U.S. Senate dares to give him only $2.2 billion in state welfare -- $1.2 billion less than the House did. His letter to Ohio's congressional delegation details his displeasure and threatens all manner of budget mayhem if this "cut" remains in the place -- without mentioning that his proposed budget actually increases state spending by 4.4 percent.

Even if the Senate's less-generous bailout remains in place, Mr. Strickland will still spend more next biennium than last.

But tucked away in his letter is this amazing paragraph:

"State spending is perhaps the most efficient way to ensure that the stimulus resources flow quickly into local economies where they will have the greatest impact. In Ohio, for example, a full 88 cents of every revenue dollar is spent in local cities and towns." (Emphasis added.)

That just isn't so. The most efficient way to make sure resources flow into local economies is not to take them out in the first place.

Taxpayers already spend their money in local economies, and they don't drop 12% of the value along the way.

But the inconvenient truth is that when taxpayers are allowed to decide where to spend their money, they don't choose to spend it on the priorities set by Mr. Strickland, or his allies in Congress.

Ohio is not its government, but its people. Our State will be great again when we trust the people to make their own decisions.

Is Gov. Strickland the New Bob Taft?

"And we never failed to fail,
it was the easiest thing to do"
-- Stephen Stills, The Southern Cross

Many poor schools get poorer under Gov. Strickland's new plan to fix public education, while some of the rich schools get richer. His lack of vision and penchant for bullet-point fixes puts him in the Bob Taft class of "education governors."

Mr. Strickland's "bold" (according to the Colmbus Dispatch) six-point plan would not work as planned for more than a few actual school districts in the real world.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports this morning about the impact of Mr. Strickland's plan on actual school districts. It turns out that the governor's plan has many unintended consequences.

And that's the problem with a system that's broken beyond repair. My daughter recently had a car accident. Her 1999 Honda had 190,000 miles on it, and needed about $3,500 in repairs. It didn't make sense to try to fix it.

So, we bought another car and started over. Ohio's public school finance and management system is in the same condition: time to start from scratch, not tinker with a system that's just too out-of-date and expensive to fix.

There are too many schools systems -- more than 600 of them. The people in charge of managing them are handcuffed by work rules in labor contracts.

The Ohio Supreme Court has detailed the problems with the 19th-century property tax system that finances schools. And the formula used to dole out state money to local districts is a maze of complexity that guarantees perverse results like the ones detailed in the Plain Dealer article.

Former Gov. Bob Taft squandered a priceless leadership opportunity. With control of the executive and the legislature, the Supreme Court handed him political cover for a radical redesign of Ohio's education system when it declared Ohio's system unconstitutional.

Gov. Taft could have spent his political capital -- he actually had some, back then -- and really re-imagined the system. Real change. A new car.

Mr. Taft chose to fix the old car instead. Mr. Strickland is heading down the same unimaginative road.

Running With the Big Dogs: A Modern Day Parable

Tim -- not his real name -- is the son of one of my friends. His story shows where our country could be headed, for good or for ill.

Tim is a bright and sociable guy. He's struggled with a learning disability, but he's developed tools for organization and learning. It takes more time and work, but you'd never know about his challenges to talk to him.

Tim eventually graduated from college, and looked for a job teaching elementary school. He found one teaching kindergarten in a northern, snow-bound state.

He took to it like a politician to tax money. Many of his kids had challenges of various kinds. Tim understood their struggles, because they were so similar to his own -- struggles that he still had. He was often working past 7 o'clock to compensate for his learning disability.

But compensate he did, and he loved teaching. His students began to excel, and the other kindergarten teachers -- entrenched union members who did only what they were required to do by contract -- began to make Tim's life difficult.

The kids loved Tim, and so did their parents. Some of the parents of students in the other classes began to ask the school administration how they could get their under-performing child into Tim's class.

The major event of the winter social calendar in this small town was the dog sled race. Tim had never been in a dog sled race, but he was an athlete. As the new guy in town, he decided to enter the race.

The race began, and the dogs leapt forward, straining at their harnesses, pulling the sleds with grown men on them. As they ran, Tim realized that the dogs would run much faster if they did not have to pull his weight.

Still holding the handles of the sled, he jumped behind it and began to run with the dogs. They pulled ahead.

For four miles, Tim ran with his dogs behind the sled. He won.

Tim's still teaching, and I don't know if his least-possible-effort colleagues have cut him any slack yet. They're probably sore at him for making life so easy on those dogs.

Tim represents what's wonderful about America: determined, committed and passionate, he never expects others to pull his weight for him.

I'm sorry he left Ohio. We could use a few more like him.

Playing Chicken With the Senate: Gov. Strickland Threatens to Close Prison

Gov. Ted Strickland threatened Monday to close a prison by 2011 if Ohio doesn’t cut the number of people it locks up. Whether he gets what he wants or not, Ohio can count on more criminals on the street if he gets a second term, which would begin in 2011.

You read the first sentence right. The Governor is threatening to close a prison – unless we cut the number of prison beds we need, and then we can keep it open.

No one in the mainstream media asked him why he thought that made sense.

Strickland’s threat to close yet another prison is part of a high-stakes game of chicken with the GOP-controlled Ohio Senate. The Senate is strong on law-and-order issues that matter to the folks back home. The Governor wants legislation that diverts more criminals out of prisons and into “community-based” alternatives.

In plain English, those criminals are either going back on the street on probation, or back to your county jail. (A few will probably go to community based correction facilities, which are already operating near capacity.)

The Senate is going to want them to stay in prison. The Governor doesn’t, because he wants the money for Medicaid, Medicare and schools. And so, his gambit: those criminals are leaving prison. Do you want them to leave in an orderly way, or do you want me to just close the prisons?

Not every petty criminal should be in prison. But public safety is the first task of government. All the development and health care and roads and schools in the world are worthless unless we live in a well-ordered, safe society.

We should lock up the people who need to be locked up, not decide how many beds we want to pay for. But we’ve been doing it backwards -- deciding how much we want to spend on prisons first, then deciding which bad guys to let go.

It’s like deciding you’re only going to spend $15 a week on groceries, forcing yourself to skip lunch four days a week – while you’re still paying the cable TV bill.

The crowding problem in Ohio prisons was created by politicians. Ohio has 1330 fewer prison beds today than in 2002, thanks to budget cuts and closure of two prisons by the last administration.

It’s a problem politicians should fix – and it won’t be fixed by closing another prison while the bad guys are still out there committing crimes.