Details, details; Governor's ideas are good, not perfect
BYLINE: Thomas Suddes, Special To The Plain Dealer
Gov. Ted Strickland wouldn't have been ordained a United Methodist minister if he didn't know how to speak.
And his State of the State speech on Wednesday wouldn't have drawn cheers were Ohio not craving change after nearly a decade of drift.
Even allowing for those givens, Strickland did himself and his supporters proud last week, energizing even the jaded with excitement about what might be accomplished - as opposed to what couldn't be, which had been the recent Columbus hallmark.
The most significant of Strickland's ideas was his renunciation of Ohio's "peanut-butter theory" of state spending. That's when governors and legislators spread state money around so everyone gets something - but nobody gets enough. If he can break Ohio of that habit, he will truly have transformed the state.
On the other hand, Senate and House Democrats barked like trained seals when Strickland said he would end non-
Cleveland school-voucher plans and freeze the creation of community ("charter") schools.
Funny thing about Democrats: They ardently seek reproductive "choice," but oppose parental choice.
So, herewith, some "ahems" to balance last week's hosannas:
Remember that school-funding mechanism the Republicans wrote - and many Democrats denounced - after the Supreme Court's school-funding edicts? Strickland isn't junking that GOP formula; he's tweaking it, building on it. Evidently, the Republicans weren't all that bad in school-finance math.
Despite Strickland's common-sense rhetoric, his budget appears to spend one-time money - billions of dollars Ohio gained in a legal settlement with tobacco companies - on every-time costs. Example: a bigger tax break for elderly Ohio homeowners. Strickland and Budget Director Pari Sabety confirmed on Friday something not previously made clear: The tax break for the elderly might not outlive some of them; it expires after 20 years.
If the tobacco companies go belly-up, what happens to investors who buy into Ohio's tobacco-bond deals ("securitization" is the $20 word)? Supposedly, the state treasury would be absolutely shielded from irked bond-buyers. Yet the Ohio Tobacco Settlement Authority would be composed of Strickland, two of his Cabinet members and Ohio's auditor, treasurer and attorney general. In the eyes of a jury in securities-law legal action, that wouldn't be a lockbox; it would be an open door.
As higher education Chancellor Eric Fingerhut conceded Friday, Strickland's Ohio Compact plan might not be an automatic slam-dunk for every campus. Strickland wants to boost state aid to public colleges if they will freeze tuition. The rub is, higher-education funding is a Rubik's Cube, not a check register.
Strickland's proposed Medicaid budget shovels into next year a pot of Medicaid money that Ohio won't spend this year. The technical term is "encumbrancing," which a Sabety aide likened to cash management. But were that money not "encumbered," the General Assembly would regain control of (i.e., have to "reappropriate") it. The encumbrance also will make the 2007-08 increase in Medicaid spending seem smaller than it will be.
Back in executive power for the first time in 16 years, Democrats want to deploy the budget for the usual self-promotion; Republicans did, too. New Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner wants to create and maintain a "social health index." New State Treasurer Richard Cordray wants to add an "economic growth department" to his office.
And Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, who runs the state Development Department and wouldn't mind becoming a U.S. senator in 2010, wants to boost by 24 percent the budget of his agency's regional offices. (The regional offices are as much political outposts as job-growth engines.)
Compared to the buttoned-down aura of recently departed Republican Gov. Bob Taft's speeches and budget, yes, Strickland's are departures, though we're not talking New Frontier or Great Society.
Even so, this is the first time in a while that anyone has really set Ohio's table - and, to an Ohioan hungry for change, hamburger can look as good as steak.
Suddes, The Plain Dealer's former legislative reporter, writes from Ohio University. To reach Thomas Suddes
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