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Dayton Daily News...
Kasich vows vast
reform in budget
By Jack Torry, Washington Bureau
Monday, February 28, 2011
WASHINGTON — Gov. John Kasich said curtailing collective bargaining
rights for public employees is just the first step in a series of
sweeping reforms that he insists will “lower our costs, keep our
entrepreneurs and create jobs.’’
In a news conference Sunday, Kasich repeatedly defended his backing of
a bill that would limit public employees to bargaining for their wages
only, saying that “it’s a matter of restoring some balance” between
workers and public officials.
But he made clear that revising collective bargaining “literally is
just one piece of a significant reform agenda’’ that he promised to
unveil in his March 15 budget.
He vowed the budget will include wholesale changes in higher education,
elementary and second education, prisons and health care.
“I have to deliver the message to people: That in the beginning this is
difficult, but once we achieve our reforms and balance our budgets and
lower the costs of creating a job, Ohioans are going to be better off,”
Kasich said.
“Everything I’m doing is designed to fight joblessness and poverty.’’
Kasich, who is in Washington for a meeting of the nation’s governors,
said that by changing collective bargaining laws, “we’re not going
after anybody’s rights. What we’re doing is we’re balancing, restoring
some power with taxpayers.”
Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Governors Association and a
onetime aide to former Gov. Ted Strickland, assailed Kasich, saying
that his job “should be creating jobs for Ohioans, not settling old
political scores with divisive tactics like this. His effort to take
away the right of workers like police officers and firefighters to
bargain for fair wages may help him tear down his political opponents,
but it will only further divide Ohioans and distract from what should
be the governor’s primary goal: job creation,” Smith said.
Kasich, who attended a dinner for governors Sunday, will join them
again today for a meeting with President Barack Obama. Kasich said he
also will meet with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who heads a
foundation that deals with education and health care.
Read it at Dayton Daily News
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