That Didn’t Take Long: The Republican-Controlled Senate Caved
Update at 3:53pm- According to Gongwer, the deal is finalized and a budget compromised has been reached.
Yesterday, Senator Jon Husted was on the ORP’s YouTube account talking about putting gambling before voters. Perhaps they shouldn’t have posted that video, as the Senate appears to be caving by allowing Strickland to go through with his gambling proposal by executive order and will pass enabling legislation to make sure he has the authority to do so.
Politically, it might be wise to box Strickland in a corner and make him own a gambling issue which is sure to fall short of hopes.
However, shouldn’t the objective be to drag on budget debates and hack away at government spending? By caving, the Senate Republicans are allowing Strickland to move past this devastating issue, then set up Ohio with a multi-billion dollar deficit for the next budget, with spending increase mandates which are tied to the current one-time-only “stimulus” expenditures, and sets Strickland up to: 1) campaign as a fiscal conservative, and 2) pass a MASSIVE tax increase if re-elected.
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The problem, I think, was that Harris had a split caucus on gambling and maybe didn’t have the stomach to fight on cuts. This gets the budget passed and Strickland is left holding the gambling issue.
I too would have preferred more cuts and clear stand against gambling but I don’t think the Senate was prepared for that.
Mrs. Redfern is already celebrating. The happy couple will sleep tonight on a massive pile of cash.
It is bizarre as the issue isn’t about gambling- It is about fiscal discipline and giving voters a say on an issue which shouldn’t used as some sort of quick fix for fiscal emergency. The Senate Republicans could have scored big and made this a lingering issues for months for Ted.
I bet the Ohio Coin Machine Association is celebrating: http://www.the-ocma.org/
I wonder how much OCMA and its members donated to Ted Strickland. Can we look that up and post?