Posted by Bill on November 12, 2008 at 1:33 pm
With the troubling economy, many people are losing their jobs. It’s unfortunate, but Ohio has been in this situation much longer then the nation as a whole. Now this economic pinch is squeezing state unemployment budgets.
There is a growing fear that those receiving unemployment compensation in Ohio will be given IOU’s by the state, just in time for the holidays. According to a news story released today, Ohio may run out of funding for unemployment benefits by next month.
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Archived under Ohio
Posted by Bill on June 10, 2008 at 8:52 am
Ohio is one of those states that relies heavily on property taxes to fuel its ever bulging budget. So it comes as no surprise that the State of Ohio is concerned that the recent downturn in the economy is going to cut into their revenue.
On a whole, property values in my city have taken a huge hit. Homes on the market for $200,000 ultimately have sold for $170,000. And the wait to sell is extremely long. The house across the street from my residence sold after being on the market for nine months, and it too was sold at an extremely discounted price.
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Archived under Ohio
Posted by Bill on March 4, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Ohio citizens are used to the talk about Ohio being a battleground state. Little did we know that the real battle was taking place in our own homes. The battle is between political telephone spammers and our right to privacy.
Today, my 18 month old son was taking a nap, when the telephone abruptly rang. It was a telephone recording from Dennis Kucinich. After hanging up on the voice recording, my son began to cry - his nap cut short because of political spam.
My son was not the only one forced to wake up to a ringing political spammer’s phone call. WKYC has reported that Cuyahoga County Commissioner Tim Hagan’s automated political spam message was distributed to nearly 5,300 Cleveland area residents between the hours of 11 PM and 3 AM. There’s nothing like getting awakened by a recorded political spam encouraging you to pay more taxes. I wonder if Tim Hagan will be criminally charged for violating telephone solicitation laws? Let me guess… Politicians are exempt from that as well?
Kucinich was not the only spammer to call my home today. The Barack Obama voicemail spammer called as well. In addition to these two spammers, numerous judges spammed my telephone today. Read the rest of this entry »
Archived under Ohio
Posted by Bill on March 3, 2008 at 6:38 pm
With the housing problems and sub-prime mortgages dominating the news, there are now other business sectors coming into the spotlight for preying on consumers.
In Ohio, we know all to well that our State legislature has failed the citizens. That can be found in the predatory lending laws Cleveland enacted that were struck down by the State of Ohio. Here’s some other examples of Republican friendly laws protecting and allowing businesses to prey on Ohio citizens: Read the rest of this entry »
Archived under Ohio
Posted by Bill on February 2, 2008 at 11:57 am
It was just about a month ago that leaders in Ohio were talking about expanding state subsidized health care coverage to children. Now, reality has set in.
Ohio is expecting a budget shortfall up to possibly $1.9 billion dollars by June of 2009. Major budget cuts are on the way and there is probably more budget cuts coming in the following years.
How did Ohio get in this financial mess? First, let’s look at Governor Ted Strickland’s ambitious plan to provide an expand homestead exemption for the disabled and senior citizens over age 65. This property tax break sapped $257 million dollars out of Ohio’s budget. But this action by our Democratic Governor is not the entire cause. Look back to Republican Governor Bob Taft, and his efforts to cut income tax rates by 21% might have something to do with the current financial problems.
Normally I would be overjoyed with tax cuts, because I believe Government is bloated from the local to federal level. But there is a difference between giving money back to the people and just being plain irresponsible. As citizens, we make financial sacrifices all the time. To buy that new TV, we eat out less often. To afford the heating costs of our homes, we turn the thermostat down. Why can’t any level of government see that reducing taxes requires reducing the size of government first? There must be cost savings elsewhere before cutting taxes. Read the rest of this entry »
Archived under Ohio
