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The Other Side of the
Coin
By Bob Rhoades
Tabitha Hale had an interesting comment on this website yesterday
concerning President Obama’s handling of the budget problems as well as
our own Governor Kasich’s view on the problem or as she put it,
Kasich’s opinion on Obama’s opinion.
Well, I’ll have to say Mr. Obama having an opinion on what is happening
in Ohio or Wisconsin would probably be better spent on dealing with his
own problems in Washington. You can’t spend money you don’t have.
On the other hand Mr. Kasich’s ability to lead Ms. Hale and a lot of
other people down the path with the idea that the unions have caused
this massive problem doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Ms. Hale,
do you know what the word negotiation means? Has it dawned on you
that in every single case people sat on two sides of the table and
banged out an agreement that was supposed to be acceptable to those on
both sides? Have you ever wondered why some elected official
doing those negotiations would sign a labor contract that they couldn’t
honor? Why can’t you ask those questions? Why hasn’t anyone
answered any of these questions?
On the other side of the coin, where are the examples for all of these
accusations? Ms. Hale, are you telling me that you would take
sides without ever seeing any proof? Perhaps you know something
that the rest of us don’t know.
Mr. Kasich wants a system where firefighters and police officers are
paid by how smart they are. Well guess what, right here in
Greenville, Ohio, that is the way things have been run for a long
time. You take a test to get hired, you take a test to move to
the next level in your grade and you take a test to get a
promotion. Fix something that isn’t broken?
It is true Ohio has lost 600,000 jobs. The firefighters, police
officers and school teachers didn’t run them out of the state.
The state of Ohio ran them out of the state. Can you say
UNFRIENDLY to business?
You mentioned bankrupt pension funds. I wonder how that
happened. Oh yes, our pension boards invested in those companies
that went down the tubes because of unscrupulous managers. That’s
why that happened. Oh by the way, look up who the people are on
our pension boards. Besides our own members we have “investment
experts”. We need that because we’re cops and firefighters.
There are three investment experts appointed by and representing: one
from the Governor, one from the legislature and one from the treasurer
of State. Mmmmm! As you said, bankrupt. So much for
experts! OK now, again if they are bankrupt, why did that
happen? That’s right the dumb firemen and cops did it to
themselves. Wonder why those investment experts didn’t tell the
dumb firefighters and cops not to do that.
You know there is one more thing that you could do Ms. Hale.
There is a website you can go to for comparison of salaries or just to
look up salaries, for any state. It’s called Indeed.com. If you go there you
will see that the average firefighter and police officer earns
$46,500. After taxes that’s about $32,000. That’s an
average, many are below and some are higher. I’ve included a
comparison of a lot of jobs. The question you need to ask is
this: Is that enough money for me to do that job. Along
with the 600,000 jobs that the state lost you forgot to mention that
the buildings that were left behind still have to be protected from
fire and vandalism. The frustration that those jobs being lost
has to be dealt with by police officers when those folks rob a bank to
feed their kids and those kids still have to be educated by a school
teacher in a classroom that the state of Ohio still hasn’t come up with
a good funding mechanism for and that’s been a long, long time
coming. So here you go Ms. Hale, there are three more fingers on
that hand for pointing, and who would you like to point at next?
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