As Governor John Kasich wrestles with a looming $8 billion budget shortfall and a fermenting unrest with the direction he is choosing to go with stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights in the name of economic well-being, I scream to him: Governor! Don’t stop there! Truly strip Ohio down to its barebones and rebuild it in your image! No other governor, or president for that matter, has the guts to do what needs to be done: fire everyone and make them justify their jobs.
The heart of this proposal asks the question what services does the state have to provide that are essential to the safety of its citizens and what should the citizens provide for themselves? By answering this, you will profoundly change the way that Ohio and all other states look at themselves and their citizens.
At my count, there are 152 agencies, authorities, boards, commissions and departments dispensing services to the populace. How many of those are truly needed and not some archaic remnant from a previous do-gooder-gone-wrong administration? Do we really need and Accountancy Board or Barber Board? What about the Landscape Architects Board? You mean that landscape architects have a board to report too? Please. How about the Motor Vehicle Collision Repair Board? Did you even know we had a board that regulates that? Didn’t Ronaldus Magunus eliminate all the alphabet agencies left over from the failed policies of the Tyrant King Franklin D. Roosevelt? His cuts sent tens of thousands of superfluous cubicle dwellers to the dole and led to an unregulated paradise unparalleled in modern economic history.
We can do the same in Ohio. Imagine it Governor Kasich. Imagine it.
What about those unfunded federal mandates? If the federal government is not willing to give the money for the third-rail de jour, why should the good hard working citizens of Ohio create another welfare program for those unwilling to pull their share of the load?
I call for an end of all unfunded federally mandated programs. If the Congress thinks they are so important, show Ohio the money.
What about the Ohio Constitution? It has become an unwieldy document full of amendments that reflect the politics of the day rather than a vision for the future. By contrast, the US Constitution is a slim, functional, dynamic document that has been amended only 27 times 222 years. By contrast, the Ohio Constitution is 82 typed, single space, double column pages of original text and amendments by two conventions and numerous initiates that make it a document worth revisiting for serious surgery. Do we need all of these silly laws dragging the ship of state to a halt and keeping you from making this into a heaven on earth?
I call for an immediate revision of the Ohio Constitution to bring it into line with modern thinking, convention and wisdom.
So, what services does the state need to supply to the masses?
Safety. The state needs to provide some sort of law enforcement capability or there will be chaos. So, let’s keep the Highway Patrol since they provide your personal safety and generate revenue by nuking motorists going a fraction over the posted limit. They don’t look to be very happy. When was the last time you saw a trooper smile? I never have.
Courts. You need a way to prosecute the speeders, so the courts become the collection agent for the state as the troopers generate fines. Let’s not forget that the court also has a layer of fees to pay for its existence at the cost of the accused. How often does a motorist come to court and exit exonerated? My guess is that a snowball has a better chance of surviving a heat wave than a person has of truly being found not guilty of a traffic offence.
Do we see a pattern forming here?
Prisons. You need a place to lock away all these scofflaws and those that can’t pay the fines levied by the courts. Why should theses miscreants get a cot and three squares for thumbing their nose at authority? Charge them for their stay. This way you turn a loss leader into a profit center and by making someone pay for the privilege of staying at the fine lodgings supplied by the state, they may think twice about accepting an offer to stay at one of these spa-like facilities.
Governor, you are a smart man in a very difficult job. I know that using and expanding on these simple ideas you will find a way through the financial thicket.
Imagine it governor. Just imagine it.
Through the Mill 