Of all the questions on all of the ballots today all across the country, questions that run the gamut, ranging from illegal immigration and union rights to Barry "Almighty's" health care law, there is perhaps one that most will be watching. And how the voters choose to answer that one specific question will provide an indicator of sorts, and at the same time offer valuable insight into the temperament, as well as the intelligence, of the American public. That most crucial of votes today, the one most people are talking the most about, is the one that will take place in battleground Ohio, where voters will decide whether to repeal a law severely limiting the collective bargaining rights of more than 350,000 teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees, and whether to prohibit people from being required to buy health insurance as part of the national health care overhaul. Right now, if recent polling data is in any way accurate, it would appear as if the union money is working, with a 59 percent to 36 percent favoring repeal of the collective bargaining law. What is essentially taking place is that the people are voting whether of not to pull the trigger of the gun that has been placed squarely against their heads by the unions.
As noted earlier, recent polls would suggest that voters are now leaning toward rejection of the collective bargaining law, but the final tally could still prove to be close. But the simple fact of the matter is that the people of Ohio are going to have to come to a decision, and this will provide an opportunity to them to say that, yes, they are fed up with the size of government. They will also have to ask themselves if they are willing to mortgage the future of their kids because of the greed of 350,000 of their fellow Ohioans. If they decide to approve the collective bargaining law, it would permit workers to negotiate on wages but not on pensions or health care benefits. It also bans public-worker strikes, scraps binding arbitration and eliminates annual pay raises for teachers. Obviously if they decide to repeal, then we go back to square one, with most likely masive layoff being required to balance the state's budget. Either that, or there will need to be massive tax hikes, and for what? Because 350,000 have a mutated sense of entitlement? The vote is essentially a referendum on both Republican backers and GOP Gov. John Kasich, who pushed strongly for the legislation. The outcome will also be closely watched by presidential candidates as a gauge of the Ohio electorate, which is seen as a bellwether.
Now I'm sure it goes without saying that the lazy, parasitic Democrats throughout the state are almost unanimous in their opposition to SB 5, supporting repeal by an overwhelming 86-10 margin. Meanwhile there also appears to be some division in the Republican ranks with 30 percent saying they are planning to vote down their Governor’s signature proposal while only 66 percent are supportive of it. Independents, aka liberal too chickenshit to call themselves Democrats, are split against it by a 54/39 spread as well. For those unfamiliar with the bill, Ohio Senate Bill 5 is similar to legislation passed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in that it addresses the collective bargaining rights of public sector employees. Public employees demanding that the tab for the exorbitant pay and benefits packages be picked up completely by the taxpayers. With the passage of the Ohio bill, unions would still exist, but “striking would be illegal and there is a limit on what things can be bargained for,” reports the Ironton Tribune. Furthermore, unions could still negotiate working conditions and hours, but things such as healthcare and sick time off are off the bargaining table. This is a prefectly reasonable approach and if the people of Ohio choose to scrap it, then they deserve whatever befalls them.
Here are some additional details of the bill. It, 1) Reduces the collective bargaining power of about 360,000 public workers in Ohio. The current collective-bargaining law gives workers the right to negotiate on a broad scope of topics including wages, hours, working conditions and any provision from an expiring contract that an employer wants to change. Under SB 5, workers no longer have the right to bargain changes from a previous contract. 2) Bans public-worker strikes. 3) Eliminates binding arbitration. 4) Eliminates “fair-share fees” – required payments to unions from workers who choose not to join their union. 5) Places caps on paid personal days (three), paid holidays (12) and the amount of unused sick and vacation time a worker can cash in upon retirement. 6) Eliminates automatic pay raises based on seniority and establishes a performance-based pay system. 7) Prohibits seniority from being the sole factor considered when workers are laid off. And finally, 8) Requires public workers to pay at least 15 percent of their health care costs and to contribute at least 10 percent of their salary toward their pension.
Gov. Kasich and the Republican legislature actually managed to pass the law earlier this year but it has yet to be put into effect. Unlike Wisconsin and Michigan, Democrats, in their effort to bastardize the legislative process, were able to hold up implementation of the bill by using the state referendum process to put the law directly on the ballot. “Triggering a repeal referendum required organizers to collect signatures equal to just six percent of the total votes in the last gubernatorial election, with additional requirements that they be sufficiently spread out around the state, with at least three percent of the gubernatorial vote across at least half the counties in the state,” according to some outfit called TPM DC. What that meant that there was a threshold of 231,150 signatures to be met, but organizers fired their opening political salvo by collecting four times that many, mostly, I'm sure, those previously mentioned parasitic Democrats, thus creating a greater base for the actual campaign. This is in itself a very good indicator of just how many morons live in the great state of Ohio and just how happy they are to pony up and subsidize the lifestyles of Ohio's public employees.
I've heard what going on in Ohio today described as being an education process where the voters are now coming to realize the cost incurred by them to pay for the lavish benefits enjoyed by public employees. Voters who are in desperate straights as they attempt to cover the cost of rapidly escalating food and energy as well as their health insurance and trying to save enough to put their kids the college. With all of Barry's talk about fairness, what's fair about a system that demands that taxpayers be made to cover not only their own expenses but the expenses of lazy, porn-site cruising public employees as well. Wouldn't be great if there were a sufficient number of people in Ohio with backbone enough to tell the union hack to go pound sand. That enough is finally enough. People complain about size as well as the cost of government but when provided with an opportunity to do something about it, that may have a positive impact, they choose to act like Barry "Almighty" and simply vote present. In the end they'll have no one to blame but themselves because the governor and the legislature made a valiant attempt to fix things, but the people were obviously too stupid to recognize that fact.
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