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Ohio House of Representatives
Office of Representative Ted Celeste
For immediate release: Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Celeste reacts to Strickland’s State of the State address
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Today, State Representative Ted Celeste (D- Grandview Heights) offered the following statement in response to Governor Ted Strickland’s first State of the State address.
“Governor Strickland’s address zeroed in on exactly what Ohio needs at this critical time- an investment in all levels of education, a focus on rebuilding our economy, and a commitment to expanding health care coverage for Ohio’s children,” Celeste said. “From the proposed increase in the state’s contribution to local schools to the twenty-five percent property tax cut for one out of four Ohio homeowners, today’s proposals will set the stage to turnaround Ohio.”
I believe that his ideas will resonate with the voters, and surprisingly, many of his ideas garnered a standing "o" from even some of the crustiest Republicans. I am not so naive to believe that the Republican General Assembly will not give the Governor a hard way to go in accomplishing his intiatives, but surely, ideas of personal and state agency accountability, less local tax reliance for school funding, strenghtening the educational system at all levels, health insurance for our most at-risk citizens, and expansion of PASSPORT services rather than Nursing Home confinement are all initiatives that a majority of citizens will agree with.
In my office, the Governor's proposal to get rid of for profit management companies in the school voucher system was a huge hit (take that White Hat/David Brennan) as were the PASSPORT services expansion (take that for-profit Nursing Home mega corporations currently on the government dole). Of course, education and slower governmnet growth were well-taken by my small group, both Dems and Republicans.
As always, the devil is in the details, and the elephant in the room, according to my Republican friend, is MONEY. He stated that he hoped that the Governor's bean counters were up to the task before the Governor made all these promises. On that we agree, and I trust that the Governor made sure he had the means before he laid out his very exciting plan.
He wants to spending on programs that work and will save money in the long run (health care for kids, educational intervention and expanded home care for seniors) and he proposed cutting money for things that have a proven record of being wasteful: charter schools, school vouchers and excessive use of bond sales.
How will the "fiscal conservatives'' who got us in this mess respond?
I eagerly await the elastic logic they'll employ to criticize it.