Suffering Ohio begs for a federal lifeline. ***"Ohio, which has shed 100,000 jobs in the past year, Gov. Ted Strickland and his budget team spend a lot of time delivering bad news to constituents and plotting ways to wring money from the federal government. In the meantime, Lucas County Health honcho David Grossman continues to target smokers and has eliminated rat control.
Strickland announced $640 million in cuts for the budget year ending June 30, for a total of $1.9 billion since the economic crisis began. ""We're not crying wolf. This is real," Strickland said in an interview in his statehouse office, pointing to charts that project the most serious erosion of state income in 40 years and a two-year budget deficit of $7.3 billion. Revenue shortfalls in the upcoming two-year budget could amount to about 25 percent of the state's discretionary spending. Strickland recently picked up the telephone and called Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff. When he heard the recorded voice of his former congressional colleague, he left a message: "Rahm, it's Ted. You've never failed me and I need $5 billion."
"There is no question about it," said John Habat, a budget specialist at Cleveland's Center for Community Solutions. "At this point in the financial crisis, federal aid is the only lifeline left for Ohio."
Many things Ohio spends money on are becoming more expensive, Medicaid most prominently. In the 2007 budget year, Medicaid costs devoured 24.2 percent of the state's general fund, or $4.3 billion. Four years earlier, the figures were 20.5 percent and $3.7 billion. While Strickland hopes a 6 percent increase in Medicaid will be part of a federal stimulus package, the relentless math of a balanced-budget mandate forces cuts.
"Almost everybody is facing some kind of service disruption," Columbus finance director Joel Taylor said in his office at City Hall, a few blocks down West Broad Street from the statehouse. He pointed to cuts in yard-waste pickup and custodial contracts and $1 million less to neighborhood health clinics, a cut of nearly 20 percent. By March, 11 of the city's recreation centers, which provide art classes, sports, homework help, child care and senior activities, will be "basically mothballed." It will also mean the end of the city's five-person rat control operation.
"With the magnitude of the problem, there's no way Ohio can expect the federal government to give it that kind of money," said Habat, whose organization calculates that the recession will cost the state another $4 billion in revenue during the next two years.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28395932
...1. Statistically, it decreases the longevity of those who do it enough that they aren't a burden in their old age; 2. If the government taxes it, it is a source of revenue; 3. It puts money into the service economy (restaurants). We should really consider allowing smoking back into the economy. I would vote for the repeal of the no-smoking rule. I would just use restaurants that cater to the non-smoking population. I do not frequent bars.
Old South End Broadway
I 've just recently begun to laugh out loud the worse things get in OheilO and Michigan. Stupid bastards.
Let's just close all bars and small, locally-owned restaurants and clubs,screw it.
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'I used to have compassion, but they taxed it and legislated it out of existence.'
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'I used to have compassion, but they taxed it and legislated it out of existence.'
Grandmole has already said publicly she is 'chafing at the bit' to sign a statewide smoker ban into law. They know they don't have the votes for a public referendum on the ballot to pass up there, so the usual suspects (dems, ACS, ALA, AHA, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) are going the other tack, that of getting the politicians to pass it. Their economy is even worse than ours, so bad they had to recently-what else? Raise taxes as an emergency measure. And watch-even though she's destroyed the state (not quite done yet, but..),they'll vote her into the House or Senate there for life once she's termed out as governor. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
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'I used to have compassion, but they taxed it and legislated it out of existence.'
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'I used to have compassion, but they taxed it and legislated it out of existence.'
...They have this unproven idea that cancer and smoking are related. Instead, we should eliminate all public health moneys for research and treatment into cancer.
We have many more important areas to spend it on, like getting business back into Ohio and Michigan. Trying to increase the average life expectancy for Ohioans and Michiganders by trying to get them to give up smoking does not seem very smart from the consumer standpoint (unless you're invested in nursing homes). Younger people buy more stuff, older people already own it.
Old South End Broadway
When are politicians going to address the problem of SBR debris released into the environment every year?
It is estimated that 661,386 tons of Styrene Butadiene Rubber dust are released into the environment every year by consumers.
POLITICIANS NEED TO PROTECT AMERICA FROM 2ND HAND SBR EXPOSURE.
SBR
EPA report on cancer risks of SBR
Cancer Risk:
References:
http://www.retread.org/QA/index.cfm?fuseaction=Answer&ID=11&nonav=1
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/butadien.html
If ''CON' is the opposite of 'PRO', does that mean Congress is the opposite of Progress?
Probably months or years, while it takes only days to die from starvation. It is better to spend the money on supporting businesses (even ones that create cancer-causing compounds) rather than worry about long-acting carcinogens. What difference does it make if someone dies at 70 from cancer as long as they were able to have full bellies the previous 69 years 364 days. If our economic model is based on consumption then we need to support that, rather than worry about carcinogens that take on average years to do their deadly work.
Old South End Broadway
There is a known carcinogen being released into the environment to the tune of several hundred thousand tons per year.
Yet somehow 2nd hand smoke has been blamed for all lung cancer deaths among non-smokers.
If the Ohio smoking ban were truly about "public safety", then this other carcinogen known by the US EPA to cause cancer would also be outlawed.
Now look up what SBR is and where it comes from.
http://www.retread.org/QA/index.cfm?fuseaction=Answer&ID=11&nonav=1
If ''CON' is the opposite of 'PRO', does that mean Congress is the opposite of Progress?
In the future the concerns about environmental diseases should be taking a backseat to economic concerns. Why would anyone really care (if they are reasonable) that cancer might lower the average age of death from 87 to 85? People want money when they are young to enjoy life. They are quite capable of rationalizing risk. If this "recession" becomes a permanent feature of the landscape, then a lot of the "advances" we've made impacting the environment will become just so many expensive doo-dads that will have to be eliminated. Say "goodbye" to clean air because it will become too expensive to maintain. What will be important is that we live long enough to raise the next generation of consumers to adulthood. The rest is superfluous.
Old South End Broadway