I'm glad to see that Ken Blackwell is showing his true colors when it comes to feelings about education and the welfare of Ohioans.
Columbus - Surprises are buried in the complicated language of a proposal to limit Ohio's government spending.A constitutional amendment whose prime mission is to cap government spending also contains a "supremacy clause" allowing it to prevail over all other sections of the Ohio Constitution, according to a Policy Matters Ohio report out today.
"It's an unusual thing to do, to write a clause that says this provision of the Constitution is going to trump everything - whatever it is," said research analyst Jon Honeck, the report's author. "Whether it's municipal home rule, anything to do with education, it really doesn't matter."
Honeck said the ballot issue, which Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is championing for the November ballot, also contains a "giant disclaimer clause" that would require billing any attempts to revise the provision as an all-out repeal of spending caps. [...]
Dale Butland, a spokesman for the bipartisan Coalition for Ohio's Future, which opposes the proposal, said Colorado's so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights did indeed create a mess - and that the proposal more closely resembles it than any other state's tax expenditure limitation, or TEL, plan.
He said the supremacy clause would have major consequences, particularly for Ohio schools.
"The TEL would trump the provision in the Ohio Constitution which says the state has the obligation to provide a thorough and efficient education, among other things," he said.
The provision, which also would apply to county and city governments, would have shrunk Cuyahoga County's budget by $755 million over the past decade, a recent study by the Center for Community Solutions found.
This one sounds like a winner for sure. In a time where large increases in college tuition are keeping students from finishing their degrees, this proposal makes Ohio decompose even faster. And it's really starting to stink around here.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for responsible fiscal policy. But that should never take precedence over things like education or human welfare. Blackwell is really going after the fringe conservative support. If you have any doubts, read this little bit buried at the end of the piece.
The single largest donor to Citizens for Tax Repeal, according to reports filed so far, is the nation's premier anti-tax group, Americans for Tax Reform.ATR, run by influential flat-taxer and Blackwell ally Grover Norquist, gave the Ohio group $62,500 in a four-month period ending in April 2004.
Make no mistake, my conservative Ohio peers. Any friend of Norquist is no friend of ours.