Doug Berger – Page 169

May 27, 2004April 18, 2020

When it comes to community needs, Wachtmann and Gilb don’t care

For the past three years Ohio has had issues with state funding the various things it funds from schools, to roads, to social service agencies.

Hancock county social service providers held a forum on May 11th and invited the county’s two state representatives. The events at the meeting were published in The Courier on May 18th (Agencies plead for state funding)

State Rep. Mike Gilb and State Sen. Lynn Wachtmann attended the meeting but I could not help but think from reading the text of the article published in the Courier that both elected officials weren’t listening and held on to their tired “too much spending” mantra.

The providers asked the two men not to support cuts in the state funding they need to help the people in Hancock county who need the help.

Gilb said: “but neither I nor the senator have proposed cutting them.” They just wouldn’t support any increase in funding.

But I need to point out that not increasing funding to meet the increasing costs of providing the services is the same as cutting the funding.

But then Wachtmann turns logic on its ear when he said: “We cannot afford to continue to drive jobs out of Ohio by raising taxes.” and then he stated he would be against increasing the financial burden on businesses that are trying to provide insurance that pays for alcohol, drug, and mental illness treatments.

A simple look at the facts prove both Gilb and Wachtmann wrong in their reasoning.

Business’ don’t have an unfair burden of supporting social services. A majority of funding comes from private donations, the state, and from levies passed in the local communities. Rarely has an ADAMHS levy been turned down at the polls. Obviously a majority consistently feels that such services are important.

Meanwhile the business inventory tax is being phased out, utility poll taxes were eliminated sometime ago, 81% of Ohio companies pay no more than $2000 a year in income tax, you are more likely to see tax breaks given to businesses for negligible requirements on their part, and Workers compensation taxes have been quite low for several years. I think businesses can afford to provide better mental insurance coverage for their workers.

Yet, ignoring those facts, Wachtmann said the state could trim expenses in other areas — like eliminating collective bargaining agreements with teachers’ unions. Why he wants to pit a group (who is on the low end of the income scale and who have little enough to give up in the first place) against another group in need of community help is anyone’s guess.

How about state legislators and other state elected officials taking a pay cut. That would allow for more funding for social service agencies. Or just increasing business taxes a few percentage points.

I think it is in the community’s best interests to see that those not able to afford it, get as much help as possible and the state plays a part as well.

One really has to ask if Wachtmann, and somewhat Gilb, is playing with a full deck. Have they become so detached from the community they were elected to serve that their decisions and actions have grown suspect? I think they have.

Originally posted on the blog “Hancock County Politics Unfiltered”

May 27, 2004April 18, 2020

Sometimes conservatives just don’t get it and it has nothing do with liberal elitism

I read the May 19th Cal Thomas column that appeared in the May 25th Dispatch (“Marriage Massachusetts-style“)

He comments that the so-called moral and cultural boundaries have been removed since the move to consumption and pleasure replaced restraint and acting on behalf of the general welfare after World War II. He thinks that the decision to allow same sex marriage in Massachusetts was just a wave in that movement.

I have not heard a single rational objective reason, from any conservative commentator, why there should not be same sex marriages allowed in this country. Hearing them drone on one would think that if heterosexual marriage was such a load bearing pillar of civilization there would be a good reason to keep gays out of it.

Instead we get the tired slippy slope that if same sex marriage is allowed then polygamy, incest, and statutory rape would be made legal. It is these tasteless conclusions Thomas would like you to draw from giving a group of people the right to marry.

The question has been about rights and who gets to establish those rights. I don’t have to read off the groups of people who have been denied their rights over the history of the country but the argument against giving those rights seem to always include the slippery slope doom and gloom collapse of civilization if those people are granted those rights.

Thomas, like many conservatives, claims that heterosexual marriage is an immutable truth. Immutable means unchangeable. But as marriage is a social construction, that has gone through many changes since it became part of human culture, Thomas’ claim is simply hot air.

The only part of his column that I sort of agree with is his statement:

If conservative religious people wish to exert maximum influence on culture, they will redirect their attention to repairing their own cracked foundation. An improved heterosexual family structure will do more for those families and the greater good than attempts to halt the inevitable.

Hypocrisy never wins an argument and religious conservatives who champion hetero marriage while having issues with divorce are being hypocritical. Several conservative Republicans, like Newt Gingrich, who have argued against gay marriage are on their second or third marriage.

Of course the result of fight on divorce has lead to draconian measures in at least one state where couples wanting to divorce are forced to try and save the marriage.

May 13, 2004April 18, 2020

Poor Findlay City Councilman David Cliffe

All Councilman Cliffe wanted was to chair a public hearing on a proposal to ban smoking in public areas in the city of Findlay. A group of students from Glenwood Middle School were to present their ideas on the ban as part of a class project.

The proposed smoking ban has been a hot topic of late in the city and an ad hoc committee chaired by Cliffe has been holding a series of public meetings to get community opinion on the issue. The committee has mostly private citizens participating.

Crews from several Toledo television stations showed up to cover the hearing and the students presentation. Toledo’s council passed a smoking ban that has caused a lot of reaction from the bar and restaurant owners there.

Councilman Cliffe, acting on a misunderstanding, decided to kick out the news crews after the student presentation. The city law director had advised Cliffe that the city shouldn’t record the meeting but Cliffe took it to mean that he could close it to the media as well.

He found that wasn’t the case.

A reporter from WTOL 11 in Toledo refused to leave. It was a public meeting concerning a topic of interest to the public. Councilman Cliffe then adjourned the rest of the meeting.

In the Courier report of the incident Cliffe tried to justify his action. He said, “I think it’s very sad that a media group from Toledo has come down and undermined Findlay folks’ opportunity to express their opinion.” and he also thought since the ad hoc committee is mainly comprised of private citizens they shouldn’t have their faces publicized.

He is wrong on both issues.

One great thing about our democracy is that we require our governmental bodies to have their meetings open to the public. The media is part of the public and they report on the meetings for those who can’t attend. Ohio has an open meetings law, aka the “Sunshine Law”, that has been on the books for 30 years. The only governmental meetings that can be closed to the public are those dealing with personnel matters or competitive bids.

If you are a private citizen and don’t want your face in public then don’t participate on governmental committees.

Councilman snuffs out smoking ban hearing

Access spat shuts down forum on smoke ban

Findlay Leaders Back Away from Dispute

Originally posted on the blog “Hancock County Politics Unfiltered”

May 13, 2004April 18, 2020

Prison abuse is disgusting (addendum)

The Islamic insurgents in Iraq beheaded a American hostage as revenge for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops.

Killing is NOT revenge for abuse.

The morass expands.

Will there now be Apache gun ships streaming missiles into residential buildings to target the insurgent leadership?

May 11, 2004April 18, 2020

Prison abuse is disgusting

The Iraq prison abuse story keeps spinning out of control and it seems to highlight what is wrong with humans today.

From conservative pundits comparing the abuse to fraternity hazing to the family of one soldiers who is in the pictures telling the world that the soldier was just following orders to Secretary Rumsfeld sitting on the reports for months, it seems everyone involved or who have knowledge of the abuse don’t want to take personal responsibility.

The National Guard unit that lacked the proper training and who carried out the orders given by superiors who should have known better will end up taking the worse heat while the commanders in charge all the way to the Secretary will go on in their jobs as if the incidents were just bumps in the road.

I wrote the following in a letter to the editor of my local paper to express how I really feel about the issue:

I am writing today to comment on the Dispatch editorial “Keep it in perspective The U.S. will atone for its human-rights sin, but what of the world�s other sinners?” and the related Cal Thomas column “Keep despicable photos in context of a despicable enemy” that appeared in the May 7, 2004 edition of the Dispatch.

It is simply unconscionable for anyone to even try to rationalize the despicable actions of the soldiers who appeared in those Iraqi prison photos.

Humiliating and abusing prisoners, not just POWs, is dead wrong. There is no justification nor rationalization for those actions.

All though the build up to the war and even during the war the Bush administration took great pains to explain that our values and actions were better than that oppressive regime in Baghdad that we needed to remove. Was that a lie too? It seems it is to the average Iraqi, not to mention the other Muslims in the Middle East, who saw the pictures of the smiling and laughing Americans while “playing” with their charges. What better recruiting material is there than having proof that Americans are despicable people.

The argument used by the Dispatch and Thomas that they did it first or what about the other people just doesn’t hold any water.

Remember our playground days when the bully would cause you to lash out and hit him? You almost always got in trouble for hitting him yet you might say to the Principal, “He hit me first…” or “Why am I in trouble? They were doing the same thing…” Did such excuses work. Of course not and it doesn’t work here for this issue.

You leave the moral high road as soon as you start the “Yes, but…..” explanations. We should know better. That’s what we tell everyone else.