From his press release

Gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell today welcomed the endorsement of the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants. The Ohio CPAs chose Blackwell, a former state treasurer and Cincinnati City Council finance committee chair, because of his solid understanding of fiscal issues and financially prudent solutions to Ohio’s job creation and economic growth challenges.

“Ken Blackwell impressed the society’s endorsement and executive committee with his clear vision for Ohio,” said Barbara Benton, Vice President of Governmental Affairs of the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants. “He has a strong sense of how to drive Ohio’s economy, control government spending, limit the tax burden on individuals and businesses and improve Ohio’s K-16 educational system.”

This is impressive, since this group decided to back the underdog. It would have been easy to just back Strickland since all they hear is how Ted is up by 25 points. This is good news.

From stateronline

Everyone seems to hate the new layout of Facebook and fears that if it is opened up to anybody, there will be more stalkers - but there is a plus to the Web site. It now has a section devoted to the upcoming election. While Facebook has been known to cut off people from their friends in favor of staring at the computer screen, this new addition to the Web site should give us all a little bit more hope in our generation.

The thing that really caught my eye was an election group called "If Ken Blackwell gets elected, I'm going to shoot myself in the foot." I was relieved to know someone could actually verbalize my exact sentiment if the current Ohio Secretary of State wins the governor's race. With more than a month until the actual vote, we can definitely see that the Ohio gubernatorial race is shaping up to be an interesting one.

Too bad all these people are against the 2nd amendement and probably don't own guns.

From newsnet5

Appearing in Columbus, Jackson said Republicans in general are emphasizing voter suppression, not voter registration.

Blackwell is the GOP's candidate for governor. His campaign spokesman, Carlo LoParo, calls Jackson "a partisan operative" for the Democrats, and says the party is wrong to criticize Blackwell, who is black, on the race issue. LoParo says a Census Bureau study after the 2004 election found that Ohio had record turnout among African-American voters.

Besides that its just bad economics, itt hurts small businesses and the fact that government should not be involved in setting private sector wages, check out this section from the minimum wage amendment text:

An employer shall at the time of hire provide an employee the employer’s name, address, telephone number, and other contact information and update such information when it changes. An employer shall maintain a record of the name, address, occupation, pay rate, hours worked for each day worked and each amount paid an employee for a period of not less than three years following the last date the employee was employed. Such information shall be provided without charge to an employee or person acting on behalf of an employee upon request.

Ah! So anyone would be able to have complete contact information for a company's employees, contact them and campaign to unionize their workplace. This is proof that this Amendment is nothing but a power grab by unions.

Vote NO on Issue 2.

from their website

Strickland’s plan, released to much fanfare last month, makes many grand promises but offers few details. From the outline of the plan released to the public, it appears the centerpiece of the program is to expand Medicaid to help fund health insurance for Ohio’s 1.3 million uninsured.

A major problem with this is that Medicaid only covers certain people – pregnant women in poverty, their children, people with disabilities, etc. It also does not cover people who are not in poverty. Since 440,000 of Ohio’s uninsured have incomes above 200% of the federal poverty level, if this Medicaid-financed plan were to meet Strickland’s goal and cover all the uninsured it would involve a massive expansion of Medicaid eligibility in the state.

Another problem is that Medicaid is not an insurance program and it does not pay for insurance. Medicaid is a fee-for-service program that reimburses doctors or other service providers when an eligible individual uses certain services. To try and reshape Medicaid to pay for health insurance would involve a radical restructuring of this program.

Strickland’s plan addresses this by saying that it would be a demonstration program that would be funded under a Medicaid waiver. This also has the benefit of making the federal government pay for 59% of the program, since that is their matching rate for Medicaid spending in Ohio.

There is a major problem with this, however. The only way Strickland’s plan can cover the uninsured is to radically expand eligibility in Medicaid. That means a large increase in cost. However, the type of waiver that funds demonstration programs of this type must be “budget neutral.” That is, it must not cost the federal government more than the current Medicaid program.

One thing Strickland’s proposal is not is “budget neutral,” either for the federal government or Ohio taxpayers. He even acknowledges that by saying that it would cost $550 million over the next two years. The only way it could qualify for a federal waiver is if the plan would save Medicaid $550 million in some other area. With the generous eligibility expansion proposed, it is difficult to see how this could be the case.

Even with these staggering numbers, Strickland seems unconcerned with the price tag. He claims that between federal funding and “current state resources,” there will be no need to raise taxes. Even if we accept that his health insurance plan qualified for federal matching funds and only costs $275 million a year (as described above, both are dubious propositions), that means that the state is still on the hook for $113 million a year in new spending. Add that to the coverage of those not currently eligible for Medicaid but not using it, this spells up to $473 million in new spending every year. And this is only part of Strickland’s health care plan!

Read the full article at http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/article/832

Hey guys! Ready for another 12 noon debate on a work day that no one will watch, and seems to only exist so the liberal press can spin it the next day as they see fit?

The next debate will be at 12 noon on Wednesday, and will be streaming live at http://www.newsnet5.com. The debate is only about education, so if this interests you, check it out. Hopefully the questions will be as awesome as this question from the last debate:

from Buckeye State Blog

About the only thing that makes me nervous about the up coming election is the decline in gas prices.

Staff proves again that good news for America is bad news for the Democrats.