AssHole in One
So what is it that I, Chase McInerney, contend is the single most repugnant part of politics that, for the dear life o' me, I don't see ever getting fixed?
Easy: It's Money. Or, as in the case of far too many politicians, easy money.
The source of all undue influence and unsavory relationships and backstabbing and compromise in political discourse can effectively be traced back to the words of Max Bialystock, the schlubby Broadway producer portrayed by Zero Mostel in the Mel Brooks flick, The Producers: As Zero put it: "Money. Money is honey."
While the Jack Abramoff scandal evaporates into the ADD of the 24-hour news cycle and its ability to sap the life-juice out of anything important, we now have Ohio Gov. Bob Taft pleading "no contest" for failing to disclose some 50 golf outings he had with assorted lobbyists.
A few of those golf excursions were courtesy Thomas Noe, a rare coin collector who just happened to luck into managing investments for the Buckeye State's Bureau of Workers' Compensation. Noe has been accused of skimming $4 million from the $50 million fund for his personal use, and investigators say that figure could reach much higher.
Some Ohio legislators are talking impeachment, although I suspect Taft will remain in office while the uproar eventually dulls. The point, of course, isn't that the guy played golf on someone else's dime. It's that he obviously didn't want a paper trail of such meetings that could point to inappropriate access. In policymaking, it's all who you know, and who it pays to know.
posted by Chase McInerney @ 5:30 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Taft will remain. This scandal reaches beyond the heartland. You're talking about Republican kingmakers who run the state that put Bush back into the Whie House.
This entire affair is sad on so many levels. Ohio has produced more U.S. presidents than nearly any other state, yet these days--with generations having abandoned the rustbelt for the sunbelt--we can't even find a handful of qualified, thoughtful, hard-working folks to run for big-city mayors. And in perhaps the scariest of turns, the state legislature is increasingly made up by under-educated, right-wing reactionaries who judge gay marriage as being more important than a state education system in crisis...the funding of which has been deem unconstitutional twice by the state supreme court. A Plain Dealer story ponders why:
Columbus — If you have turned the tassel at a college or university and you then become a state legislator, are you more likely to favor higher education at budget time?
Not necessarily.
Seventy-five percent of members of the Ohio General Assembly hold college degrees of one sort or another. Many hold several.
Those in the growing field of legislators who never went to college — including one in three ruling House Republicans — say they are not to blame if new money for colleges and universities isn’t a state budget priority.
“No one’s ever called me and asked me, ‘Hey, Thom, what do you think we should do about higher education?’ ” said Rep. Thom Collier, a Mount Vernon Republican who in his youth chose self-employment over going to college. “Ninety percent of those decisions are made in education subcommittee. They’re reporting their opinions to the rest of us.”
But others believe the legislature’s rising number of members with no post-high-school degree — five when Collier took office in the late ’90s versus 31 now — plays a role in Ohio’s treatment of higher education.
The $51.4 billion, two-year state budget that moved from the House to the Senate last week proposes $2.47 billion for the Ohio Board of Regents in fiscal 2006 and $2.52 billion in fiscal 2007. Those average annual increases of less than 1.5 percent for the state’s higher-education system are unlikely to even cover inflation.
The House plan also lowers 9 percent caps on tuition increases proposed by Gov. Bob Taft to 6 percent, limiting universities’ options for generating money.
House Democratic Leader Chris Redfern of Catawba Island said those who never went to college are naturally hesitant to publicly champion the cause, so their numbers matter.
“I’m a big supporter of travel and tourism because I live on Lake Erie. If I hadn’t lived on Lake Erie, maybe I wouldn’t be,” Redfern said. “By extension, those of us who have spent a bit more time in education are going to understandably see more value in it. Absolutely, your personal experience makes a difference.”
Redfern holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science and government, placing him among the nearly 59 percent of state legislators with degrees beyond a bachelor’s.
Critics cite other factors
Rep. Diana Fessler, a Newark-area Republican, finds the notion that her vote would be swayed by her lack of a college degree ridiculous.
“I have opinions on a lot of things that have little to do with what I was doing when I was 18,” she said, adding that she now has children in college. “When these university executives buy $4.8 million jets and run around in limousines, that’s what affects my vote. Tell the boys to take a cab.”
Rep. Shawn Webster, chairman of the budget subcommittee on higher education, has been among the harshest public critics of fiscal abuses within Ohio’s university system — despite, or perhaps because of, his doctoral degree in veterinary medicine.
Paul Lingenfelter, executive director of the Denver-based State Higher Education Executive Officers, said you can’t necessarily assume a legislator who went to college will favor more higher-education spending.
“I think it cuts both ways,” he said. “I think people without experience in higher education sometimes have an idealistic view of it, more so than those with the experience.”
Yet Republican Rep. Clyde Evans, a former college provost, said he senses that many in his caucus aren’t convinced that investing in higher education can make a difference.
“I will say that there are legislators who believe we can win this global knowledge war by just cutting taxes alone — and that would be a view quite opposite of my own,” said Evans, of Newark.
Another example of Repuglican sickness.
The success of the recent candlelight vigils for Cindy Sheehan's cause across the country gives me hope that people in this country are finally starting to catch on!
Our country is being run by a bunch of corrupt corporate Nazis who will bring us post-apocalyptic feudalism and serfdom before it's all over.
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