For the latest on what’s happening regarding School Choice up at the capital, here is some testimony from Representative Matt Huffman from Lima, Ohio given on February 16th, 2011. There are plans to expand the voucher program which is an encouraging sign for those of us that are pushing for 100% eligibility in the state.
As seen in Wisconsin, doctors have been on hand to pass out “false” doctors excuses so those teachers protesting can still retain their jobs. As groups like SEIU and the Huffington Post have put their resources to work in an attempt to apply “mass” bringing in people from out of the state to make the movement appear larger than it is, the reality is that hotel rooms and local economies are seeing business that they otherwise wouldn’t have experienced, and that is good for the cities of these protests. The protesters do not have the financial resources to maintain crowds of 70K or more for long. They will run out of sick days and vacation time in the not too distant future. The shock factor and media blitz will wear off and the reality of the situation will become obvious quickly. The true majority will finally have its voice heard over these loud chants from the minorities that pack these state houses. For the way to beat the protestors is to take away their quick emotional victory and spend them into their own destruction, which is what, will happen.
My good friend Ray Warrick from Mason testified on Collective Bargaining in Columbus on February 17th, 2011. Since I have video of his testimony I put it here to be watched instead of read. Listen to the rumble of the crowd outside who were able to watch the proceedings on a screen and hear what was going on in the chamber.
This is what it looked like outside that chamber.
Even though many union workers took the day off to be there, “paid for I might add,” there were some who managed to go up to Columbus and show public support for the bill. Mixed in with the chanting on this next video, “kill the bill,” are people yelling, “Pass the Bill.” It is easy to ascertain that many supporters of the bill are not present. They are the silent majority, while the many of the people against the bill were encouraged by their unions to take off work and protest. This shows the fundamental difference in philosophy.
Let’s begin with Reed Larson from 1997, over a decade ago. American society knew we had a problem then, and nothing changed. We have the same issues now, as we did then. So listen to Mr. Larson.
Now, do you think Reed is speaking out of turn? Well, listen Bob Chanin from 2009. After 41 years as the nation’s top education lawyer, Chanin closes his last Representative Assembly as general counsel with a stirring address to more than 8,000 delegates. Who wants to pay for this kind of “power?” I don’t.
The problem is, these people tend to be radical and on the left side of our political spectrum. If there was more of a balance of all political types, it would have more merit, and justification. But what happens is many of the union members adopt left winged policies in trade for the financial security the unions provide.
And this is how unions bring people under their ranks and ensure that everyone toes the line.
Here is a non-union truck driver trying to deliver his load to a union construction site. It’s a little long, but worth watching because it shows why businesses would rather do business with Right to Work States. Look how unproductive this activity is.
And when it’s thought that this is all a right winged conspiracy, it’s not. If a guy like Jeff Smith was running in my district, I’d vote for him even though he’s a democrat. I admire Jeff, not because of this speech, but because he’s a very hard worker and wants to be in politics for all the right reasons.
Left leaning citizens are always quick to protest the destruction of whales, or deforestation. They’ll protest drilling for oil in Alaska, or the rights of the gay population. But who’s protesting the thuggish influence workers unions have on state and national economies? Who!
So what’s going on in Wisconsin? Here is the platform for Governor Walker’s budget plans. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. The guy was elected by the citizens of Wisconsin to govern the state and balance the budget. If people wanted another democrat to further exacerbate their debts, they would have elected one. But they didn’t. So here is Walker’s proposal.
But listen to these people. Sounds like public education failed them miserably because they clearly don’t have a grip on reality. Where do they get these ideas?
Now, we’ve seen this locally, but it’s a national tactic, where teachers use our kids to fulfill their political and financial objectives. These children have no idea why they are at the rally. All they do know is that they are off school and doing what their teachers told them to do.
So what’s behind all this crazy stuff? That’s right, it’s good ol’ George. It’s all about ideological issues according to him, even though he’s smart enough to become rich, so he’s being misleading. What he really means is that the millions he’s spent pushing left winged agendas are being rejected by the part of the country that is in the political center and to the right of that center. The ideology that he speaks of is the mark he left through his influence on all the people shown above that are protesting something they don’t understand.
And of course here is President Obama’s position on all this. Obama is simply a spokesman to people like Soros who definitely have an agenda to subvert the Constitution. The victims of this activity can be seen in these protests.
I was playing a video game today called Left 4 Dead 2 which is a game where a bunch of thoughtless zombies try to suck your blood. It’s a fun game intended to be action packed and scary. The zombies in Left 4 Dead reminded me of these protestors. The protestors look like us. Talk like us, but they are sick and diseased with something that is dangerous to all of us. And I blame people like President Obama for doing his part to make those poor souls sick on his rhetoric. Obama is responsible for doing his part in creating the hostile climate we are seeing in Wisconsin.
Listen to the generals of this new kind of war. Because that’s what it is.
That’s not the exciting part. Actually, it’s deplorable that the system is exploring a levy in this economic climate. But we all know now, and this is one of the benefits of Senate Bill 5 introduced by Senator Shannon Jones, is that it seeks to eliminate step increases as a state law, which will give school boards much more control over their local finances, because as things stand today expanding school budgets are more or less out of our control. Thank the teachers union for that.
When S.B.5 is passed, it will help enormously with the type of budget problems that give districts an excuse to put levies on a ballot. So until a bill like S.B.5 is passed, we have to stop the growth of this entitlement culture by turning off the money supply through tax revenue. So Lebanon is a levy that must be defeated in May.
So to defeat a school levy, a good web site is very important and that’s why I am very proud to announce the creation of Lebanon Schools Facts.com http://lebanonschoolfacts.com/ that was created to bring the Lebanon Levy down in flaming defeat!
Their site is very impressive. It looks like they took what they liked from other web sites like the Mason site and the Lakota site and dramatically improved them for their own use. It’s packed with information and appears to be only the tip of the ice berg for what will prove to be an entertaining and informative election season. I have some preliminary information that has been sent to me, and once the information can be confirmed, that web site will be the place to break the info, and it will be very beneficial to helping the voters of Warren County decide if they want to support all this activity with a larger imposition on their property taxes.
When launched earlier in the week, the website had over 400 hits in its first 24 hours. Oddly within hours of the launch Joe Roberts resigned from his athletic director position. And before the election in May, there will be a lot more drama as the layers of hidden information gets peeled back to reveal what’s really at the core of this issue.
And be it known that I am fully behind the Anti-Levy effort of Lebanon. My goal at this point is reform at the state level and I believe throwing more money at public education in its current form is no different than paying off mob bosses in a Las Vegas Casino.
So trust me Lebanon Warriors, I dedicate this song to your cause and the lyrics of that song will be yours. It’s a song I listen to almost every day and I think it’s appropriate for you Lebanon Warriors. Listen to the words and enjoy the battle cry!
While these union protestors drive around listening to FM radio and following the current pop culture music trends, and watching popular TV shows like Two and a Half Men and laughing like fools at the adolescent humor of that show, they are ignoring the vast wealth of evidence that has emerged about the unsustainable path that America is on, and which they are participating in by practicing open extortion.
Many of my friends, some of them are seen in these pictures taken at the Rally at the State House on February 17, 2011, read a lot too. That’s why we’re friends because we enjoy learning things and we spend our spare time talking about the things we learn. My friends in the Tea Party are informed, speak for themselves, and are generally grounded people. The reason the Tea Party does not have a leader, is because that is not what the Tea Party is. America does not have leaders! The Tea Party does not have a leader!
The Tea Party Movement has been born because the people that don’t think with a “hive” mentality have been getting “stung” for years by the working bee union types that just keep scooping up the nectar of tax money and “coughing” it up for the queen, or whoever is their union leader. That money has then been used to buy political power that works against those original tax payers, so many of us have caught on to the scam.
American society was never intended to be a “hive” of any kind. It was supposed to be as the Tea Party is taking things, which is a society of individuals free of any queens or kings or leaders that are drunk on power.
So the Tea Party isn’t going away folks. If you are one of those “hive” workers, I’d advise you to use this site to your advantage. Listen to the radio broadcasts, read the material, watch the videos. I put them here to help you learn how to be self-reliant. I’m offering to help you break away from a “hive” mentality to save you from yourself. You’d be advised to use the material to your advantage.
But if you want to continue to be in the “hive” because you think there’s safety in numbers, you are betting on the wrong horse.
Unions think collective bargaining reform is about revenge, or it’s some conservative conspiracy. Yet this is what the union opposition say is happening. A guy sent me this comment while I was writing this article.
I listen to Doc’s show on 700; he is clueless on Labor and the issues that surround labor. Unions and collective bargaining have built the middle class in this country. What you’re seeing is big corporate interest trying to tear it down. Fire, Police, Teachers and all public workers should be getting a big thank you everyday for the job’s they perform. When you have a Gov that is bought and paid for by Wall ST. this is what you get.
Below is my own testimony for the record that I’ll include here in its entirety. It can’t be stressed enough how important this bill is to Ohio and the future of our financial strength. As the union groups attempt to fluff their feathers to appear larger than they truly are while real working people continue on with their jobs, too busy to attend such protests, feel free to make your voice in favor of this bill known by sending your support to Senator Bacon at the email address displayed.
Senator Kevin Bacon Ohio State Senate Columbus, OH
Re: SB 5 – For the Record
During the year of 2010 I was heavily involved in a resistance group to oppose the requested levy increases by the school district of Lakota, from South Western Ohio located in Butler County.
There are many reasons that I can see for the implementation of a collective bargaining reform bill such as Senate Bill 5. It is obvious to me and many of the voters that participated in defeating the Lakota Levy on both 2010 occasions that unions under the collective bargaining bill of 1983 have done what they accused business of doing, and that is acting greedily and knowing no limit to the impositions of their demands. Nor did they show any sign of caring what the cost off those impositions where to the tax payer. The result has been an unfair system that has formed between the public sector worker and the tax payer.
My focus of this testimony is on what I consider to be the most pertinent of the many benefits of S.B.5 and that is the elimination of “step increase” as a hidden cost that is deceiving communities all across Ohio. As much of the talk from Fire and Police Unions has centered on their lack of ability to strike, teachers can, and do. “Step Increases” are an ominous appeasement to those potential strikes that is largely hidden from the eyes of tax payers.
In October of 2008 the LEA (Lakota Education Association) threatened to strike and staged a demonstration against the school board. Their reasons for the strike were increased wages and benefits. In the small hours of the morning on the final day of contract talks a settlement was reached, and the LEA achieved its objective.
Two years later Lakota had an operating budget of $160 million dollars even with the declining revenue imposed under the Strickland Administration which favored allocation of state funds to poorer districts. Lakota saw a decline in state funding but through their property taxes, which saw approximately $11 dollars per $1,000 in home evaluation going directly to the schools, still maintained the large budget mentioned.
In the spring of 2010 again the LEA was pushing for a renewed contract and threatened to strike. They did this just months before a new levy request was being placed on the ballot in May. This was a reckless enterprise on their behalf and showed incredible arrogance in an economy that was already weakened. The residence of the Lakota District easily defeated that levy in May.
By August the LEA had announced that they would take a “pay freeze” in order to work with the school board on bringing down their costs as the announcement came from that same board that another levy attempt would be coming in November.
As I looked at the financial situation I realized that the reason the Lakota District was in trouble was because nearly 80% of their budget allocation was tied up in salaries and benefits, so it was obvious to me that the LEA should renegotiate their contract to fit the needs of the community. The average salary of a teacher at Lakota had been during much of 2010 $59,000 per year. As the new school year started that fall, those salaries on average had crept up to $62,000, and this was a baffling statistic. After all, the LEA had just agreed to a pay freeze.
I had loosely understood what “step increases” were but didn’t really give it much thought as to the impact on community budgets. I learned through the campaign that fall how devastating they truly are to financial forecasts. The reason is that often communities only consider the finances of their local districts. They don’t concern themselves with the affairs of their neighboring districts. However, the teachers unions do. The LEA is an arm of the OEA (Ohio Education Association) and they do have a statewide strategy that they impose district by district. It’s a game communities have been unaware was occurring, until now.
Knowing the game was larger than just the situation at Lakota I took my story to WLW radio in Cincinnati and engaged in many debates on the air hoping to get input from school districts around the region, and that’s how I learned about the terrible cost and manipulative nature of “step increases.”
As the facts that are known to many of the law makers that have graced Columbus for many years became apparent to me and a small army of tax protesters that were gathering in Southern Ohio and pockets all over the state, it became evident that communities were being selfishly misled intentionally and action would be needed to return real management power to the district where we elect members of the community to manage our resources.
School Boards under the current system have no choice but to just keep asking for increases in funding because they are so constrained by legislation lobbied and secured by the same forces that have collected themselves to protest this bill S.B.5 and the people who fund this activity have been manipulated and outright lied to regarding the intentions and motives of collective bargaining agreements.
This education funding issue that has plagued Ohio for decades is an unsustainable path, and collective bargaining is at the heart of the problem. I have planned to stand in the way of every single levy initiative for every district that wants my help until true reform is initiated from our State Representation. I consider any further property tax increases for any district in Ohio to be as good as throwing money on a fire. The money will not go to improving test scores for kids, or making children more comparable to students in the international stage. The entire nation is seeing the same story from its public education system, and it has failed in its current form. No amount of union rhetoric can hide that fact now. A majority of the voting public is now ready to admit it to themselves. Putting this bill on the table for discussion is a bold move by this legislative body and hopefully is a sign of things to come, for I do not believe if S.B.5 goes far enough. Many, many reforms will need to be implemented to give the State of Ohio the competitive advantage it needs to step out in front of the nation in education.
There are programs available that could save the State of Ohio a lot of money and make it a premiere state of education reform in the country. Representative Bill Coley from my district has started that process in the last session of congress with a technology bill which allows students to use technology to greater effect, and take away some of the “brick and mortar” costs imposed on school districts currently. There is also “School Choice” which is a phenomenal program utilizing all the best traits of competition to make education better, that will trickle down to the culture of the children attending those education systems.
But all those programs will take courage and they start by dealing with the type of resistance organized by groups like SEIU who have flown in protestors to lobby against this bill. They are applying their work to Wisconsin also where the governor there is also trying to reform their collective bargaining issues, only to be degraded as the villain from the Austin Powers films.
Such actions have taken our state through the collective bargaining process to extort millions of dollars from the intended target of those dollars and it has been to a loss of the entire state not only in being disingenuous to the tax payer, but to the competitive nature of the state as a whole. Over the next decade, the states which become swifter or most innovative will become the guardians of prosperity. Collective bargaining is a failed system that does nothing but help the people on one side of that bargaining, which leaves everyone else feeling depleted and used.
Innovation in most every category is available to Ohio ripe for the picking. But we have to have the courage to reach beyond the fence of collective bargaining to pick our harvest and unleash the true potential that resides among the true labor of Ohio.
The Overmanwarrior 