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Governor knows big business
(by Dave Lange - July 21, 2011)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
Governor knows big business
Now that the man who was partly responsible for Ohio's public pension systems losing $480 million has successfully placed the blame on the public employees themselves for their retirement predicaments, it seems just as illogical for Gov. John Kasich to tell local governments how they should run things.
For those with short memories and shallow media coverage, Mr. Kasich, the former Wall Street banker with Lehman Brothers, did indeed lobby the Ohio public employees, state teachers and Ohio police and fire pension systems in 2002 to trust his company with their money. When the duplicitous investment banking corporation collapsed in September 2008, public workers who had been looking forward to secure retirements were left holding the bag. But the man who would be governor two years later walked away with $590,000 from Lehman Brothers that year, including a $432,000 bonus.
So when Mr. Kasich told Ohio cities, villages, townships and school districts this year that the answer to their budget woes lies on the backs of their employees with their cushy salaries and benefits, many local government officials bowed at his feet.
Now the governor is running around the state telling those local officials how to save money and attract business development. And they should listen to him -- not because he landed that wealth-transferring job at Lehman Brothers with a bachelor's degree in political science and no banking or investment experience after nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, but because even those without a clue sometimes are half right.
But they won't. It's easy to listen to someone who says the public workers who arrest criminals, put out fires, plow the roads, teach children and drive school buses are the boogeymen. It's not so easy to listen when that person says the boogeyman is you.
Whether he knows it or not, that's precisely what Mr. Kasich is saying with his lectures about local government mergers and the consolidation of services and resources. There's another word for such mergers and consolidation. It's called regionalism. Progressives have been preaching about its virtues, including efficiency and economy, for decades. It's nothing new.
However, many citizens, including some whose elected and appointed political positions depend on inefficiency, equate regionalism with big government. They prefer many little governments, including tiny villages such as Bentleyville, Hunting Valley and Woodmere and miniature school districts like Newbury and Ledgemont over few bigger governments. Why have one mayor, one police chief, one school superintendent and one finance director when you can pay to have half a dozen of each?
Mr. Kasich noted that the recently passed state budget bill provides the tools for municipalities and townships to more easily merge with each other and to set up joint operations for police and other services.
The governor, who obviously understands the nature of big businesses like Lehman Brothers, repeatedly has said that government needs to function more like they do. Local governments that resist consolidation or the sharing of resources are "really not using business-like approaches," he said.
The current salary for governor of Ohio is $144,269. Gov. Kasich probably could use a bonus.
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