from the AP

Lawmakers want to add language to state law that would force agencies back to the drawing board each budget cycle to reevaluate every penny they spend.

The practice - known as "zero-based budgeting" - was employed by former Georgia governor and President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s but ultimately abandoned as less efficient than the year-over-year, program budgeting Ohio uses now. Oklahoma is one of a few states still employing the technique.

The House was expected to vote on the plan Tuesday.

On Monday, the House Finance Committee put the measure in a bill that authorizes spending over the next two years of the state's $764 million share of the national settlement of lawsuits against tobacco companies. Most of the settlement money goes toward school construction.

House Speaker Jon Husted, a Kettering Republican, said the zero-based budgeting language is part of a compromise with GOP gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell.

Legislative leaders agreed last week to put spending limits in state law in exchange for Blackwell pulling his government-limiting constitutional amendment off November's ballot.

But Scott Borgemenke, Husted's chief of staff, said requiring agencies to start at zero when planning each fiscal year wasn't a demand of Blackwell's.

"I don't think it was necessary. I just think it was desired," he said. "It's been a will of the Republican Legislature for a while, it (the state tobacco budget) was a vehicle in which to do it, so we are doing it."

Forcing state agencies to justify their budget every year should expose how wasteful and/or unnecessary certain agencies are.

On Tuesday, Congresswoman Deborah Pryce praised the decision of WBNS-10TV to remove from the air the most recent false and misleading advertisement purchased by Mary Jo Kilroy supporter MoveOn.org. MoveOn.org has now been refused or taken down by each station on which it attempted to air its advertisements in Columbus.

"The people of Central Ohio are the true beneficiaries of the responsible actions of Columbus' television stations. No longer will they be inundated by these slanderous negative attack ads run on behalf of my opponent," Pryce said. "Our positive message of lower taxes, job creation and improving access to health care has won out over the lies of my opponent and her friends."

"The fact that Mary Jo Kilroy and MoveOn.org believed the people of Central Ohio would be fooled by this negative smear campaign is nothing short of an insult," said Pryce's Campaign Manager, John DeStefano. "Attempting to hide from her record by allowing extreme liberal interest groups to unfairly attack her opponent has sadly become par for the course for the Kilroy campaign."

MoveOn.org, an extreme liberal wing of the Democrat Party, has a history of producing misleading and inappropriate attack ads. The latest advertisement was part of a nationwide smear campaign focused on four moderate Members of Congress. All Columbus area stations have refused to run MoveOn.org advertisements attacking Pryce, and a recent The Virginian-Pilot editorial called the last attack in the MoveOn.org campaign "loaded" with "innuendo and half truths."

(http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=104136&ran=219394).

To say the least...

From The Columbus Dispatch:

Mary Allison doesn’t trust lawmakers to control government spending by themselves. That’s why Allison, a Dublin Democrat, was one of nearly half a million Ohioans who signed a petition last year to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot setting strict spending limits for both state and local governments.

It’s also why she now is angry that the legislature is planning to pass a bill today that would allow the committee that circulated petition forms for the Tax and Expenditure Limitation amendment, or TEL, to pull the issue from the Nov. 7 ballot.

In fact, although some petition signers contacted by The Dispatch said they don’t remember signing or don’t care, many who had an opinion said they want the chance to vote on the initiative.

"I don’t think you can be an organizer of a group, have everyone sign for a cause and then say you want to recall the petition," said Leslie Dannaher, 50, of Galena. "You’re asking people to sign under false pretenses."

Scott Borgemenke, chief of staff for House Speaker Jon A. Husted, said he thinks the legislature is on solid legal ground because signing a petition doesn’t guarantee the issue will be submitted for the ballot. That power rests with the issue committee, he said.

Borgemenke compared the situation to a candidate circulating petition forms to run for office and then deciding not to run. "All this does is continue to give the committee power to determine the outcome of signatures," he said.

But when Blackwell was still defending the amendment before the May primary, he argued that it should go forward because "half a million people signed a petition saying that they want this to be before the people for a vote."

This part of the battle is over and the liberals have won -- for now.

Here's to the hope that Mr. Blackwell sticks to his guns and uses his office to get a better-written (I still support the original amendment) piece of constitutional law in place to protect the hard-working people of Ohio. One that will protect us from all levels of government -- including your local uber-greedy city council.

Me and the wife just watched the original Star Wars trilogy so you can please excuse the reference.

It seems liberals are having "big fun" [where's that phrase to be found?] watching the GOP slither and squirm its way to removing TEL from the ballot.

By Dan Williamson of The Other Paper, Columbus:

If the real goal of Ken Blackwell's campaign for governor was to make his fellow Republicans in the state Legislature look ridiculous, he has already won.

Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly are currently working overtime to deal with what is apparently the most pressing crisis facing the state: the Tax Expenditure Limitation amendment on the upcoming fall ballot.

Until last week, the TEL was the centerpiece of Blackwell's candidacy, which supposedly these Republicans enthusiastically support.

It's all quite entertaining.

"As far as the TEL that's there," said Senate President Bill Harris, "I've not been supportive of it all along, so I'll join any conversation that talks about taking it off."

Asked if he regretted having to spend so much time and effort cleaning up after his party's nominee for governor, Harris said, "I wouldn't phrase it that way. I would phrase it: I think Secretary Blackwell had some reasons for what he did with the TEL, and that's his prerogative. And certainly, the Legislature, our job is to look at our responsibility and react accordingly."

In other words, Harris's job is a lot like that of a Guns N' Roses road manager who has to smooth things over with the hotel after Axl trashes his room.

And:

State Rep. Tom Raga, Blackwell's running mate, seemed to be taking it all in stride this week.

As a member of both the campaign that proposed the TEL and the Legislature that's trying to stop it, Raga has a unique perspective on the entire ordeal. However, standing in the back of the House chamber prior to Tuesday's legislative session, Raga admitted he didn't know what's going to happen.

His uncertainty is understandable. As the TEL could tell him, being on the ballot with Ken Blackwell is a precarious thing.

I know that the primary is over, but...

From The Columbus Dispatch:

Lawyers at a New York law firm that Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro dismissed last week for alleged ethical lapses had given Petro's campaign more than $15,000 before gaining a contract with the state.

On Friday, a day after Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman was indicted on charges of orchestrating a kickback scheme, Petro dismissed the firm from serving as lead counsel for the Ohio Tuition Trust Authority in a complex lawsuit.

Petro spokesman Mark Anthony said the political donations were not a factor in Petro's decision to award the firm work for the state.

...the Democrats like to get paid too.

From The Columbus Dispatch:

Barbara Sykes, the Democratic candidate for state auditor, has made fighting Statehouse corruption a centerpiece of her campaign.

She again referred to this theme in a letter thanking Jerry Hammond, a former president of Columbus City Council, for sponsoring a fundraiser this month on her behalf. Les Wright, who replaced Hammond on the City Council, was another sponsor.

The letter said, "Pay-to-play politics and delayed investigations have corroded Ohioans' trust in their state government."

But Hammond and Wright have had their own ethics troubles.

In 1987, Hammond solicited developers, zoning lawyers and others who did business with City Hall to buy $10,000 limited partnerships in a Short North jazz club he wanted to open.

Five months after The Dispatch revealed the partnerships, Hammond announced he would not seek re-election; the jazz club closed within 18 months.

In January 1999, Wright pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charge. The month before, she resigned from the council.

If the Democrats take control of the general assembly, I hope that you don't count on an end to the corruption.

What you'll get is just a change in uniforms.

Ask TEL critics -- they know.

From The Columbus Dispatch:

A House committee yesterday approved the state spending cap, which grows at 3.5 percent per year or the combined rate of inflation plus population growth, whichever is greater. The cap — attached to the state tobacco-settlement budget — does not apply to debt payments, local government funding, federal funds, or fees.

"Fees," my friends, are what politicians call taxes when they are too afraid to call them taxes.

John Corlett, a member of the Coalition for Ohio’s Future, a group formed to defeat Blackwell’s TEL amendment, stressed that education funding would suffer most from the restriction.

If Medicaid costs rebound, he said, it will put a strain on other parts of the budget — particularly education in grades kindergarten through 12th grade, which makes up 35 percent of funds that fall under the TEL caps.

The cap of 3.5 percent "bears no resemblance to the actual costs of providing government services," Corlett said.

What TEL would have told legislators is to think before you tax and spend. Is more money really the answer to our educational problems? If it is, convince those who must foot the bill -- they will sacrifice if the case is made. It is about accountability: a concept that liberals frankly do not understand.

Rep. Dan Stewart, D-Columbus, said the TEL amendment represents a "help us before we spend again" mentality.

"What we’re doing with this is forcing it back to the local community to raise taxes," he said.

Yes, that is exactly what we will get -- increased local taxes, thus the need for constitutional controls on that level of government becomes clear.

Before he promises to sign the bills, Gov. Bob Taft wants a signed letter from the TEL committee promising to pull the amendment from the ballot. That letter should be delivered today, said Jon Allison, his chief of staff.

Blackwell has repeatedly criticized Taft and questioned his ethics, but the governor won’t hold that against him, Allison said.

Is this news? Has Ken Blackwell agreed to the convicted, lame duck governor's demands? Or are the golf-playing governor's people talking through their hat?

Ohio needs a tax watchdog who will competently guard the interests of the people of Ohio -- at least the ones who aren't packing for Florida as you read this...

From the Post Gazette

In late March, hundreds of Florida homeowners jammed the chambers of county commissioners in Fort Pierce, Fla., to protest rising property taxes. Ed McIntosh, a 75-year-old retiree, showed up with a foot-tall stack of complaints from homeowners, 623 letters in all.

He read a batch of them aloud, one tale after another of seasonal residents juggling rising insurance costs, hurricane-repair bills and escalating property taxes, which have more than doubled in five years in parts of the state.

Such protests have become commonplace in Florida as the state's snowbirds -- winter residents, who are mostly retirees from the Northeast, Midwest and Canada -- fight back against a tax system they believe is unfair and onerous. Mr. McIntosh, a retired Ford Motor Co. finance manager who lives in Beulah, Mich., spends four months a year along the Atlantic coast in Jensen Beach. He complains that seasonal residents are "being discriminated against ... We're carrying the state on our backs."

The snowbirds get screwed.

Hugh Hewitt thinks so instead of Minn.

Plus, Cleveland has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Minnesota has Fort Snelling.

Cleveland has a Great Lake. Minneosta has Lake Minnetonka.

Cleveland has LeBron, an ascending Tribe and a rebuilding Browns.

The Twin Cities' sports glories are all in the past.

Finally, Ohio's bloggers are much better trivia players.

UPDATE: Contenders for the Democratic gathering, from August 25 to 28 (immediately following the Beijing Olympics) are NYC (again), Denver, New Orleans and Minneapolis-St. Paul (and, yes, the state fair is underway then too.)

Reasons Why the GOP Should Pick Cleveland

1. Electoral Votes

2. Can't win the country without our state.

3. We are all witnessess. (LBJ)

4. Our football and baseball teams play on real grass.

5. Pro Football, Rock and Roll and Inventors Hall of Fame.

6. Cuyahoga Valley National Park

7. Our shopping is top notch. (Legacy, Crocker Park, 1st and Main, Chagrin Falls, Tower City, Beachwood)

8. Just imagine the nightlife

9. Don't make us hear the words "Mabye next year" again.

10. Lake Erie.

11. Photo Ops at the West Side Market.

12. Pronk.

Feel free to add your suggestions.

When asked what would do the most to provide African Americans with more jobs, 36 percent chose tax breaks for businesses over more government programs. 37 percent of African Americans chose "I see myself more as part of the middle class and am looking for political candidates who share my beliefs on issues such as reducing taxes and spending and strengthening moral values," over working class and government solutions. And support for school vouchers ranges from around 50 percent to almost 80 percent, depending on how bad local schools are and whether or not the respondents are parents.

Abortion, gay marriage, vouchers, and religion are all visceral, important issues on which 46 percent or more of black voters agree with Blackwell. And even on fiscal matters, Blackwell would find support from around 35 percent to 40 percent of the black community.

Read the whole thing to find out why these facts are important.

Being a Clevelander, I'm new to stories about Ted Strickland. Forgive me if you have heard this but I just read about this news from some older Free Republic posts.

In the 106th Congress, House Concurrent Resolution 107 was passed to condemn a study from the American Psychological Association. Here is its summary:

Expresses the sense of Congress that it: (1) rejects and condemns suggestions in a recently published article in the Psychological Bulletin that sexual relationships between adults and "willing" children are less harmful than believed and might be positive for "willing" children; (2) vigorously opposes any public policy or legislative attempts to normalize adult-child sex or to lower the age of consent; (3) urges the President to likewise reject and condemn any suggestion that sexual relations between children and adults are anything but abusive, destructive, exploitive, reprehensible, and punishable by law; and (4) encourages competent investigations to continue to research the effects of child sexual abuse using the best methodology, so that the public and public policymakers may act upon accurate information.

Seems reasonable. But Ted Strickland was one of the few Congressmen who voted present, and later justified his vote by saying..

"Mr. Speaker, it troubles me that sometimes in this Chamber we stand and say things that we ought not to say. We criticize people that we have no right to criticize.

and

We ought to have the decency not to vote to condemn something until we know what it is we are voting to condemn."

Honestly, I disagree- I think our shopping is not top notch.

But the GOP should still come. Ohio seems to be reclaiming its title as a chronic battleground state. Hillary Clinton probably can't win without Ohio.

The Q would be perfect for this event.

And Drew Carey, a Clevelander, is a Republican. Maybe he could be involved! Afterall, who doesn't like Drew Carey?

Czech's health care minister and an adviser to President Vaclav Klaus got into a fight.