Cleveland Plain Dealer...
‘Yes’ to all three questions on Ohio’s statewide ballot: Kevin O’Brien
By Kevin O’Brien  
October21, 2011 

Less than three weeks to go, Ohio. 

Issue 2 

After a long spring and summer spent fighting over who should control local governments, Ohioans will have a result. 

Senate Bill 5, now on the ballot as Issue 2, gives Ohio taxpayers the opportunity to re-establish control over local government spending. It sets right the relationship between the people and their employees, after 28 years of unions having an unwarranted upper hand. 

Righting that relationship will do a great deal of good. 

The fiscal picture of local governments and school districts, especially, will improve as they are able to right-size their work forces and their expenditures on services. That will happen over time, not overnight, as new contracts are established. 

Repeal SB 5, though, and it’s going to be awfully hard for local governments to manage their payrolls without resorting to larger-scale layoffs than would otherwise be necessary. And local governments will continue to be hamstrung by anti-merit seniority rules that lead to worker complacency and protect dead weight and time-servers. 

More important than the economics of Issue 2 is the principle that undergirds it: We call them public employees because they work for the public. It’s not the other way around. 

The public freely chooses to hire people to do jobs it considers necessary. 

But the opposition campaign run by public-employee unions operates on the false premise that public employees have not only a claim on taxpayer money, but also a right to help decide how the money is allocated. 

That cannot be. The decisions on what to do with the public’s money must belong entirely to the public, through its elected representatives. 

Public-employee unions, by their mere existence, create a conflict with the public interest. Greatly diminishing their leverage will help the public’s elected officials make their decisions according to the public’s priorities. That’s of tremendous importance. 

In recent weeks, opponents of Issue 2 have trumpeted the concessions some bargaining units already have made. The intent is to garner sympathy -- from people in the private sector who aren’t nearly as well insulated from wage cuts and whose benefits aren’t nearly as generous -- but the effect should be Ohioans’ recognition of the entitlement mentality that pervades public-employee unions. 

They’re arguing, essentially, that they’ve done the taxpayers a favor by accepting a little less. 

They’ve got it backwards. They have what they have through a combination of strong-arm tactics, weak elected leaders and taxpayer generosity in good times. 

Well, the good times are up. 

The national, state and local economies dictate decades of lean times ahead for people and programs relying on public money. The Ohio General Assembly was wise to give local governments the tools to part with employees they no longer care to employ and to motivate strong performance among the employees they retain. 

Those are rational steps that will benefit the public. The result will not be rampant crime, city blocks wiped out by fire or (noticeably more) children who can’t read, write or calculate. The result will be adjustments by institutions forced to do more efficient work on the public’s dime. 

Vote “yes.” 

Issue 3 

Anything that slows down that laughable misnomer the Affordable Care Act is a plus. 

Issue 3 would put Ohio on the record challenging the constitutionality of the section of Obamacare that would require every American to buy a government-approved health insurance policy. It would amend the Ohio Constitution to prohibit any such mandate under state law, too. 

Even people who normally look askance at state constitutional changes should see the value of this one. Critics say it’s largely symbolic. If it is, it’s the right kind of symbolism. 

Vote “yes.” 

Issue 1 

Raising the mandatory retirement age of judges from 70 to 75 won’t hurt anything. 

If Ohio is going to continue making the mistake of electing its judges, the candidates should at least come from the broadest age range available. 

Vote “yes.” 

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