Nov. 8th, 2011: Historic Ballot Vote to be Held in Ohio

In a little over two weeks there will be a Statewide ballot initiative in Ohio that is of major importance to every single American citizen. This should in fact, be a National vote for all affected citizens as opposed to it just being a State ballot vote due to it’s wide-ranging implications.

On Nov. 8th the voters of Ohio will go to the polling stations to vote on an attempt by Big Labor Unions to repeal the democratically passed Senate Bill 05, which was  signed into law by Governor Kasich back in March, 2011. ( Known on ballot as ** Issue 2**)

Before the ink was even dry after the signing of SB 5 into law, big labor was on the march, creating another community organizing group to demand the law’s repeal, this one with the catch-phrase title, We Are Ohio. I guess the 85% of the working folks in the State of Ohio that chose not to belong to big Labor Unions are now being told they are no longer Ohioans. If big labor Unions are Ohio, just what are the other 85% of the Ohio public supposed to be? Michiganders? Doesn’t their vote count too? Is this what the democracy looks like that Unions so love to chant about at these protest rallies that are designed to…..ignore the majority of the voting public and the laws that their elected officials pass? Democrats and their Union bed-pals are desperate to hold onto power in 2012 and that is exactly what this ballot initiative is all about.

I invite everyone to check out the above-linked We Are Ohio page. They put out what appears to be a white paper in a fact-checking form, yet their “facts” leave a lot to be desired. We will just visit one blaring piece of misinformation that proves that We Are Ohio is nothing more than a left-wing-big-Union-promoting-propaganda media outlet designed to fool the good people of  Ohio into repealing SB 5. ( Issue 2 on the ballot) Here is what the Union power-brokers would like you to believe: ( from the Union propaganda page, We Are Ohio)

MYTH: Public employees are overpaid, and their salaries need to be brought in line with the private sector.
TRUTH: A recent Rutgers University study found Ohio public employees earn 6 percent less on a yearly basis than their peers in the private sector. They earn 3.5% less on an hourly basis. The average OAPSE (Ohio Association of Public School Employee) makes $24,000 a year and retires with an average pension of $900 a month. Public employees do not pay into or receive Social Security.  ( emphasis mine)

In a scathing rebuttal to the ludicrous claims that Ohio teachers earn less than the private sector and “retire with an average pension of $900.00 a month, we see a retired Ohio teacher explain how the Union gimmickry is being used to against the Ohio taxpayers in a Columbus Dispatch editorial:

We had an administrator who retired at $80,000 a year, was rehired at the same salary he had just left behind, and then got another $40,000 a year from the State Teachers Retirement System, making him $120,000 a year. ( emphasis mine)

For the mathematically-challenged propagandists over at We Are Ohio, that equates to a pension of $10,000.00 a month, a far cry from the $900 that We Are Ohio wants you to believe. The retired teacher went even further in showing why he thinks this is bad for the taxpayers of Ohio:

So, when he was rehired, 85 percent of his $80,000 was paid by the taxpayers of Ohio. In this one simple action by the local school board, every taxpayer in our state was held liable for his salary.
Members of the public should have some say in the matter, since it’s their money.

I believe Ohio Senate Bill 5 would put the power of spending their hard-earned dollars back in the hands of the taxpayers, just where it should be. Submitted by, DAVID A. KUNKLER

Unlike the Wisconsin Union recall effort, conservatives are not taking this fight lying down and created a group titled Building a Better Ohio. On that website we see several examples like that of the retired teacher above that debunk the propaganda of We Are Ohio. Here is another well-explained example of just how disgusting the misinformation being put out by We Are Ohio truly is, from an editorial in the Canton Repository titled, SB5 Needed to Fix Bizarre Compensation:

Now let’s look at the “average Stark County resident;” bear in mind that public-sector employees are included in this average. If an average resident earns $25,285 and benefits provided by the employer cost $13,660, the total cost to employ the “average” county resident is $38,945, but compare that to a (Union) teacher in the Jackson Local Schools who has a base salary of $65,031 plus $23,895 paid by the “employer” (taxpayer), or $88,926 for a year of their “labor,” which is about nine months. (emphasis mine)

There we have it. An average Stark County Ohio resident’s total compensation, including wages and benefits is right at $39 grand a year, while a union teacher in the very same county ‘s package totals a whopping $89 grand a year for a difference of $50 grand a year. This is why responsible State legislators across America are scrambling to install some sort of fiscal sanity back into their budgets and curtailing big labor Union costs by passing laws such as Ohio’s SB 05. Now Unions are on the March to deny the working folks the right to say how there tax dollars will be spent once again.

Let’s hope Ohioans will vote YES ON ISSUE 2 on Nov. 8th. This will affect States across America if the good people of Ohio do not step up and vote yes, and conservatives across America should try to help out by making donations to help Building a Better Ohio    to help fight back against the big labor Union misinformation campaign now know as We Are Ohio.