Suffering Ohio begs for federal lifeline

Source: MSNBC

State cuts and cuts while waiting for a possible stimulus package

12:45 a.m. ET, Sat., Dec. 27, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio - As the economy sputters and tax revenue plummets, governors and mayors across the United States are lining up to ask President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars to plug holes in their budgets, arguing that services will suffer and joblessness will rise if Washington does not come to the rescue.

In Ohio, which has shed 100,000 jobs in the past year, Gov. Ted Strickland (D) and his budget team spend a lot of time delivering bad news to constituents and plotting ways to wring money from the federal government. He announced $640 million in cuts for the budget year ending June 30, for a total of $1.9 billion since the economic crisis began.

"We're not crying wolf. This is real," Strickland said in an interview in his statehouse office, pointing to charts that project the most serious erosion of state income in 40 years and a two-year budget deficit of $7.3 billion. Revenue shortfalls in the upcoming two-year budget could amount to about 25 percent of the state's discretionary spending.

Strickland recently picked up the telephone and called Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff. When he heard the recorded voice of his former congressional colleague, he left a message: "Rahm, it's Ted. You've never failed me and I need $5 billion."



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28395932

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Damn, it's so bad here. :cry:

NOT ONCE are George W. Bush or the Republican Party, the two main causes of our current economic catastrophe, ever mentioned.

I am totally sick of hearing it is the greedy worker who wants a decent wage and the stupid consumer that charged too much on the credit cards that made this mess happen - I am not saying that in some cases of course their were people who went overboard but the majority of people just wanted to have a decent life! The little middle-class homes that are being foreclosed on in the $100,000 range - 3 bedroom/1 bath - are the real victims here. Who allowed our jobs to be taken overseas? Who preached free trade and open borders? I have nothing against immigrants but now they can't even find a good job! Blame should go heavily on the Repub's where it belongs.

Randi Rhodes was taking about how the tax payers paid for the Southern Repub's car plants yesterday! She is so right -

SOUTHERN REPUBLICAN SENATORS CHOOSE THEIR FOREIGN CAR TIES OVER AMERICAN COMPANIES

Posted by Charlotte A. Weybright on December 13, 2008

http://berrystreetbeacon.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/southern-republican-senators-choose-their-foreign-car-ties-over-american-companies/

A number of key Republican senators who led to the defeat of the recent auto loan package have foreign-owned automotive companies in their states. Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, has emerged as Detroit’s leading nemesis during two sets of hearings. He seems to be everywhere these days giving interviews and his sage opinion on the Big Three. And no wonder, his state has benefited to the tune of billions of dollars brought to the state through foreign car manufacturing and industry.

Almost every foreign auto factory that has opened since the 1990s has sprouted below the Mason-Dixon Line. Two of the three auto plants under construction also are in the South. Plants typically establish their roots in what is known as the auto corridor — roughly a 200-mile-wide stretch that runs from Michigan to Alabama.

One primary reason for locating in the southern states is the lack of unionization. Unions increase overall costs at plants, thus foreign automakers are drawn to the South where unionization is not mandatory and where workers have resisted calls to join voluntarily. Unionization in the North requires that everyone must join.

No foreign assembly plants are unionized except for a few joint-ventures: the ones that started as projects between domestic and foreign companies.

Since the 1990s, Senator Shelby’s state, Alabama, has won three assembly plants from Honda, Mercedes-Benz, and Hyundai and an engine plant built by Toyota, as well as numerous investments by parts makers. They have been worth $3.8 billion to Alabama, or one-tenth the amount spent in the United States by foreign companies, according to the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing foreign car companies.

Another opponent from the South, Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee also has been a Detroit critic. Again, no surprise since his state is home to Nissan’s North American headquarters, a Nissan plant, and a promised Volkswagen factory.

Although southern senators have been more vocal than many other detractors of the auto loan package, the north has its share of naysayers and one of them is right here in Indiana. Representative Mike Pence - an extreme right-wing Republican conservative representing Indiana’s 6th district - stated during the opening of Honda’s new assembly plant in Greensburg, Indiana, that he would rather see the U.S. automakers file for bankruptcy than receive taxpayer money.

It seems Pence is blissfully unaware of the fact that the Third District, just to his north, has a GM plant which provides a tremendous amount of employment. I would dare say some of those employees come from Pence’s district and take their incomes back to their homes to be put into the 6th district’s economic stream of commerce. His righteous attitude is simply ludicrous.

Perhaps all along the efforts haven’t been to bust the unions - at least entirely - but to dictate what the working wage for the domestic auto industry should be compared to the foreign companies. With the southern senators spewing their constant harangue against the Big Three, they have staked out their support of the foreign auto industry while forsaking the domestic industry - all for the almighty dollars flowing into their states.

Now that the homebuilders are no longer building homes, the "guest workers" need jobs. And so of course non-union labor states are going to get priority. Have to keep the "guest workers" happy.

And the Democrats have been just as complicit as the Republicans with regard to illegal immigration. The Republicans didn't listen to Ronald Reagan. The Democrats didn't listen to Barbara Jordan. All they saw was cheap labor and big profits. And a lower "prevailing wage" for everyone else that even the labor unions are now having to concede to in union labor states.

This country is going to hell very quickly. At the hands of both Democrats and Republicans.

They have had the White House for 8 years and they have controlled the Congress for about as long. I say that the Repubs are not getting the blame they should be getting and that as a whole the workers are the victims here.

As far as the "guest workers" I never said they didn't need jobs, I said that all of us are in the same boat here if we work for a living.

You think draping yourself in the flag to ensure idiots of your nationalism is free?

Mean Jean isn't even IN my district. I live in what used to be Stephanie Tubbs Jones country.

Sorry, but the "Let that state suffer as punishment for voting for the wrong politicians" isn't going to work.

And I really, really wish DU'ers as a whole would end that attitude for good.

I just like kicking on Jean.

Of course I can't speak for the poster I was replying to...

proof there is hope for Ohio's politics

I really think everyone needs to look at what brought us where we are - an act of legislation called the "Financial Services Modernization Act" that repealed much of the Glass-Steagall Act and allowed unregulated trading. And who signed the legislation into law? Bill Clinton. Can't blame Phil Gramm without blaming Bill Clinton. Sorry.

So far the Democratic Congress seems interested only in bailing out the Republican crooks. Not their victims. Which include a growing number of state and local governments who are "losing it all" along with everyone else. The only Democrats who seem to support it are the ones who either put all their money in T-bills or live off enormous trust funds that still manage to give them sufficient income to take an attitude towards everyone else. Including their own so to speak.

The 1% who still own it all, even if it all isn't worth what it used to be, include many Democrats. Who really don't care about the other 99%. But of course love to blame the Republicans. While they go buy another Hummer or donate to an arts organization to get their name in the paper instead of donating to a homeless shelter or food bank.

Things may change because of Barack Obama. For the 1%. It won't change for the other 99%. It will only get worse.

The only Democrats and Republicans in this country are the fools who believe there are Democrats and Republicans on the ballots.

Why? Dennis is my congressman. Your ignorance shows through your post.

It's the worst I've ever seen, and my parents all say that it's the worst they've ever seen, too. I didn't know it could be this bad.

I expect we will surpass the 1982 recession and begin to rival the Great Depression.

We lost tons of jobs in the 70s and early 80s, sure, but we haven't gotten them back, so the jobs we're losing now hurt that much worse. There's no cushion anywhere at all--we're cutting into bone here.

The little people and democrats can go die.

Things are incredibly bad in MI and OH.

I didn't want to but there were no jobs. And it hasn't gotten any better at all since I've been gone. Our government has sold out to greedy corporations who just can't bear to pay middle-class American wages. Well, if you have no middle class wages, you have no middle class. If you have no middle class, you have no decent tax base or reliable consumers. They killed the goose that laid the golden egg...the middle class.

:sarcasm:

Synopsis:
This film is an excellent biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, and discovered the suffering and strength of America's working class.

Me: we need another Woody Guthrie, because no one is fighting for ordinary Americans. Congress is all about helping the elite and they could care less about working Americans.

Please, watch this film or buy it and watch it.

The Dems in Ohio fell apart and the state house and administration was run by the Rethugs ... Governor "Education" Voinovich and Bob Taft (how much corruption can I bring to one state?). And Kenny Blackwell ... Education was allowed to tank ... taxes were cut and leadership was nonexistent.

Strickland came in 2 years ago and is dealing the giant steaming pile of dog poo the Rethugs left behind. And for the first two years Strickland had a Republican legislature working very hard to block every initiative.

Ohio has been hemorrhaging jobs for years, but the people who continue to support the Rethugs in Ohio are either (a) wealthy and don't think that the economic downturn would EVER affect them (but keep their taxes low) or (b)poorly educated fundies who have been led to believe the Democrats are godless, evil, and unpatriotic.

But Ohio is home to good, solid progressives who are fearless and work hard ... think Dennis Kucinich and Sherrod Brown.

Services and supports for vulnerable populations are now minimal at best. This at a time that more and more people are falling into poverty and the risks to children especially are increasing exponentially. I know things have gotten bad in my own state (I am in a human services field) and it sounds like things in Ohio have gone past the critical stage.

I guess Grover Norquist is happy anyway (the guy who wanted to drown government in a bathtub). Now he can have the consequences of drowning government (including deaths of some of those depending on services) on his conscience (if he or any of that criminal cabal have one).