John Kasich is so arrogant about this election, so sure he’s going to win that he won’t debate his opponent.
John Kasich is so arrogant about this election, so sure he’s going to win that he won’t debate his opponent Ed Fitzgerald, or even mention his name during media events. He thumbs his nose at Ohio voters who — he assumes — are so poorly informed about his record they’ll fall for his glossy ads and assurances, that he learned his lesson with Senate Bill 5.
Kasich couldn’t care less what Ohio citizens want. His interest is in lining up profitable gigs during and after the next term for himself and his buddies. They’ll be gigs like the job he had at Lehman Brothers before the recession, when he was instrumental in introducing Ohio pension fund managers for Ohio Public Employee, Ohio Police and Firemen and Ohio Teachers to Lehman private equity fund dealers who were selling what was known as “Distressed Structured Credit” funds (later known as “toxic assets”). The Ohio Treasurer’s office
estimated that Ohio’s pension funds lost 480 million dollars because of their junk investments with Lehman Brothers. Why would any public employee vote for Kasich?
Get ready for “right to work” legislation to come up right after the election if Kasich wins. State Rep. Andrew Brenner, who tried to co-sponsor three “right to work” bills, told the Delaware Gazette last year that legislators were told by Kasich’s administration to hold off until after the election. “Right to work” laws prohibit employers and unions from bargaining security clauses, thereby allowing workers to enjoy the benefits of union representation without having to pay union dues — ultimately resulting in unions folding from lack of money. The governor and legislature already tried Senate Bill 5 in 2012, meant to gut public unions in Ohio. With that failure, they’re ready to take Ohio down the same path as South Carolina and Oklahoma, where business owners increase their wealth while average wages of workers drop. A study found the average yearly pay for workers in free-bargaining states was 14.1 percent higher than in “right to work” states.
Kasich already is giving his for-profit charter school owner cronies millions of tax dollars a year cut from public school budgets. Even being exempt from more than 200 oversight regulations required of public schools, the vast majority of charter schools are failing. Eighty-seven percent of charter students attend schools that have D or F ratings from the Ohio Department of Education. Meanwhile, cuts to public districts have forced superintendents to beg for more money raised by local tax levies.
Kasich doesn’t care if Ohio students get a good education or not. He’s used the issue of “school choice” to reward charter school operators who shovel taxpayer money into their own pockets while pouring contributions into Kasich’s campaign coffers. White Hat charter school operator David Brennan and his wife each dished out the maximum donation of $12,155, while Brennan’s CEO gave $5,000. Together, Brennan and William Lager have donated several million dollars to Republican candidates in Ohio. Lager, who runs ECOT, the huge for-profit online charter, has received $691 million in the last 10 years, with more than a third of that money in the last three years. ECOT’s performance index of 68.1 is worse than the lowest performing public school district in the state. Talk about pay to play.
If you’re a Libertarian or independent voter, you should remember that Kasich’s people directly orchestrated the dirty tricks which kept Libertarian candidate Charlie Earl off the ballot. Without Charlie Earl, Kasich can’t lose votes to him, according to the Libertarian website, www.Reason.com.
The Democratic candidate, Ed Fitzgerald, is determined to stop Republican efforts to privatize Ohio’s education and prison systems and to kick out the crony capitalism that has pervaded state government for the last four years. He’ll rebuild Ohio’s economy, not by giving huge tax breaks to corporations that create low-pay jobs, but by growing small business and industries and supporting clean energy business and research building from the middle out, not from the top down.
Richard Carlson is an Athens resident.
