Many suspect the cutoff is linked to the abortion debate. Komen has been under fire by anti-abortion activists, after its connection to the pro-choice organization was publicized.

I’ve ruined the trademark CBS subtlety by marking in bold the network’s refusal to frame the debate as “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice,” or “pro-abortion” vs. “anti-abortion.” Pro-lifers should be glad the reporter didn’t label Live Action and its allies “anti-choice,” I guess!

Unyielding sympathy for Planned Parenthood isn’t limited to fossilized media outlets and your NPR-loving Facebook friends. Many of the senators and representatives up for reelection this fall support abortion so strongly, they’ve voted repeatedly to make you pay for it.

The following Senate incumbents’ races are rated Toss Up or Lean D by The Cook Political Report.

All five of these incumbent Democrat senators are rated 100% by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Among the extreme pro-abortion votes earning Bill Nelson (FL), Claire McCaskill (MO), Sherrod Brown (OH), Debbie Stabenow (MI), and Jon Tester (MT) their perfect Planned Parenthood scores:

• All five voted against SCHIP language which, in Planned Parenthood’s words, “unnecessarily personified the fetus.” March 14, 2008, Allard Amendment to S. Con. Res. 70, Roll Call vote 81
• All five voted against reinstating the Mexico City policy, which – until President Obama abolished it by executive order – prohibited federal funding of foreign abortion providers. January 28, 2009, Martinez Amendment to H.R. 2; Roll Call vote 19
• All five voted against preventing Obamacare from subsidizing abortion coverage. December 8, 2009, Nelson-Hatch Amendment to H.R. 3590, Roll Call vote 369
• All five voted against ending federal funding of Planned Parenthood. April 14th, 2011, H. Con. Res. 36, Roll Call vote 60

With Obamacare looming larger every day, conservative voters must remember what Planned Parenthood is all about – and recognize how far outside the mainstream the group’s enablers are. Susan G. Komen for the Cure is right to stop funneling donations to the nation’s top abortion provider, and it’s past time for Congress to do the same with taxpayer funds.

If you live in Montana, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, or Florida, help make your incumbent Democrat senator’s pro-abortion record known by all!

Here are two of the most telling exchanges from the segment, which you can view in its entirety courtesy of YouTube user toddfein:

My favorite part of this clip is Sherrod’s self-contradicting statement, “this isn’t a liberal/conservative, left or right, it’s whose side are you on?” Sherrod is a Progressive, you see, so he’s not divisive – he just wants you to pick a side, and if you pick the wrong side he’s going to demonize you.

As reported in November at Third Base Politics, an Ohio conservative blog I help manage, Sherrod Brown’s campaign site even used the Occupiers’ “stand with the 99%” rhetoric for an email-harvesting web petition. Occupy Wall Street’s whiny demands that government do everything are a perfect match for Sherrod’s pitiful class warfare, and it seems obvious Sherrod had high hopes for the movement.

In an October 2010 USA Today editorial titled “How to fight Tea Party’s faux populism,” Sherrod was less excited about organized protest:

Tea Party populism is driven by anger at our government and at our country. Real populism fights for all Americans, while Tea Party populism divides us.

Republicans have always been good at coming up with catch phrases and slogans that traffic in fear and misinformation.

What changed between 2010 and 2011? Rallies against Obamacare’s unconstitutional overreach – for which Sherrod Brown was the deciding “Yea” vote – were replaced by riots against The Rich. Where is Sherrod’s editorial decrying the rampant violence and hatred we’ve seen from the Occupiers he endorsed on television not 4 months ago

By December, Occupy camps across the country had racked up more than 400 criminal incidents – leading the movement to win coveted Time “Person of the Year” recognition and the illustrious Breitbart “Ambiguous Entity of the Year” award. Last week, even Nancy Pelosi walked back her support for Occupy Wall Street.

Search for evidence of Sherrod Brown’s disapproval, and the best you’ll find is a snarky PolitiFact Ohio hit piece against his Republican opponent, Josh Mandel. As of this writing, Sherrod’s “Stand with the 99%” petition is still online.

It’s odd that Sherrod took to the pages of USA Today to wag a finger at Tea Party anger but is now giving the Occupiers a pass, don’t you think?

For the entire miserable picture, you can watch the full Hardball segment, review the transcript, and read Sherrod’s tea party smear in USA Today. When you’re done, I suspect you may want to send a few bucks to Josh Mandel’s campaign.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

According to the bill, a windfall tax of 50 percent would be applied when the sale of oil or gas leads to a profit of between 100 percent and 102 percent of a reasonable profit. The windfall tax would jump to 75 percent when the profit is between 102 and 105 percent of a reasonable profit, and above that, the windfall tax would be 100 percent.

"Hello, Congress? We must act quickly -- someone's earning a profit!"

Don’t ask what constitutes a “reasonable profit” – the bureaucrats will work it out! From the text of the bill:

The term ‘reasonable profit’ means the amount determined by the Reasonable Profits Board to be a reasonable profit on the sale.

To guarantee oil barons get the soaking they deserve, no one with a financial interest (read: no one with actual industry knowledge) would be permitted a seat on the new Reasonable Profits Board, whose members would be nominated by the president. Think of the National Labor Relations Board, but instead of union lawyers regulating unions we could have union lawyers regulating energy companies!

A panel of eggheads deciding how much profit a corporation is allowed to earn is socialism, plain and simple. This is no shock considering the bill’s primary sponsor, Progressive tool and potential Ron Paul cabinet member Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Kucinich appears to be taking a break from UFO spotting to show voters in his newly redrawn deep-blue district he’s the Democrat of choice in the upcoming primary. He aimed for “populist” and landed on “socialist,” but don’t expect his cosponsors to split hairs.

What’s saddest about this terrible idea is that it’s so common. Seven Democrat senators – including vulnerable freshmen Sherrod Brown (OH), Claire McCaskill (MO), and Jon Tester (MT) – joined Socialist Bernie Sanders (VT) to propose a windfall oil tax in 2007. President Obama embraced the policy during his 2008 campaign; “Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families” is the very first item on the old Obama for America energy issues page (view as a PDF).

Of course, I own a few shares of Marathon Oil, Marathon Petroleum, and Spectra Energy, so my concerns are invalid. I should be grateful the Progressives only want 100% of unreasonable profits! Since Washington knows best, the new Board could just as soon take all the money invested by fat-cats like me and stimulate ACORN, the windmill industry, or whatever Michael Moore’s working on.

At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey provides context for allegedly excessive oil company profits, and the Tax Foundation has decades of research wrecking this rickety Democrat hobbyhorse. While it’s fun to laugh at the economic idiocy of clowns like Kucinich, remember: socialist attacks on private industry are key planks in the Progressive platform beneath President Obama and Democrats in both houses of Congress.

My state’s National Education Association (NEA) affiliate, the Ohio Education Association (OEA), takes millions in fees from non-members each year. Operating on NEA’s model, OEA insists all teachers be forced to pay for the union’s non-political business. This would be well and good, if OEA conducted any non-political business.

From the union’s mission statement:

OEA believes that for those whose business is public education, activism is an obligation.

OEA has the same definition of “activism” as every garden variety leftist group: Demand bigger government under the guise of fairness and equality. For example, ACORN’s 2005-06 Political Program (hat tip: Publius’ Forum) lists OEA as a “Coalition Partner” -

We see the combination of these efforts as key to maintaining and expanding the level of electoral participation by more progressive voters in the state, along with playing a role in pushing voter alignment along axes of community concerns and economic security.

In other words, OEA worked with ACORN to push the entitlement mindset and get entitlement-minded voters to the polls. For… the children?

More recently, OEA was listed as a state partner of “Health Care for America NOW” (a lobbying group devoted to socialized medicine) and the Ohio Voter Fund (a coalition of leftists against voter ID).

NEA and its state affiliates are enthusiastic cheerleaders for Keynesian deficit spending, though I wouldn’t want the task of finding a math teacher who insists one minus two equals jobs!

Honestly, NEA’s entire “Education Votes” blog could be an Obama 2012 campaign site. NEA publicly endorsed Obama’s reelection last July, ending hours of heated debate among no one: every Big Labor affiliation and stump speech flies in the face of the lie that partisanship is limited to official campaign spending.

When the public union stranglehold was threatened in Ohio last winter, OEA’s class war machine went into overdrive at the expense of willing and unwilling dues-payers alike. Progressive talking points come easily to a group that instructs members to indoctrinate children on the glories of unionism!

NEA bosses take advantage of the goodwill teachers generate, paying themselves and Democrats handsomely while claiming credit for members’ hard work. Unless you look forward to the second Obama term NEA is sinking millions into, be sure your friends and family know teachers’ unions want higher taxes and bigger government.

There’s much more evidence than what I’ve listed here, and I’ll continue highlighting the ugly Progressive truth about NEA and its partners here in Ohio.

Following are some of Sherrod’s notable votes from the list tracked by the American Conservative Union (ACU).

• 2005: Sherrod voted to block oil drilling in ANWR, hike fuel efficiency standards, and spend taxpayer funds on embryonic stem cell research. He voted against bankruptcy law reform, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac reform, tying UN funding to UN reforms, and requiring parental notification to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion.  ACU Rating: 4
• 2006: Sherrod voted to impose Net Neutrality. He voted against a capital gains tax cut, a death tax cut, and ending the offshore oil & gas drilling moratorium.  ACU Rating :25
• 2007: Sherrod voted to ban incandescent light bulbs, expand SCHIP, and spend tax dollars on embryonic stem cell research. He voted against death tax repeal, Alternative Minimum Tax repeal, extension of the Bush tax cuts, and improved earmark disclosure.  ACU Rating: 0
• 2008: Sherrod voted for more risky Fannie & Freddie lending, two separate $4 billion Fannie & Freddie bailouts, the auto industry bailout, TARP, and a tax hike on energy companies. He voted against missile defense, an earmark moratorium, and a discretionary spending cap.  ACU Rating: 8
• 2009: Sherrod voted for Obama’s “stimulus,” Cash for Clunkers, Obamacare, and Eric Holder’s confirmation as Attorney General. He voted against medical malpractice reform, D.C. school choice, and de-funding ACORN.  ACU Rating: 0
• 2010: Sherrod voted for New START, the DREAM Act, and Craig Becker’s appointment to the NLRB. He voted against an earmark moratorium, D.C. school choice, death tax repeal, and a fence on the southern border.  ACU Rating: 0

Sherrod Brown isn’t just a rubber stamp for President Obama’s failed policies – his entire career has been a tribute to stifling central government and weaker national defense.

Now in his twentieth year in Congress, Sherrod deserves no small share of the blame for the fiscal and moral bankruptcy of 2012 Washington. Seeing Sherrod Brown defeated in Ohio this November should be a priority for conservatives everywhere.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

Don’t get your hopes up; Sherrod’s lifetime American Conservative Union (ACU) rating is 7.77.

• 1999: Sherrod voted against impeachment proceedings, a broad tax cut package, medical savings accounts, and education block grants. He voted to delay missile defense implementation, and to continue funding the United Nations without demanding UN reforms.  ACU Rating: 0
• 2000: Sherrod voted against banning partial-birth abortion, eliminating the death tax, and cutting taxes to alleviate the marriage penalty. He voted to lift the embargo on Cuba, increase the federal minimum wage, and impose the federal minimum wage on the states. ACU Rating: 4
• 2001: Sherrod voted against making it a crime to kill an unborn child while committing another crime. He voted against school vouchers. He voted to allow taxpayer funding for abortions in federal prisons, lift the embargo on Cuba, tighten SUV mileage standards, and maintain the ANWR oil-drilling ban. ACU Rating: 4
• 2002: Sherrod voted against extending welfare reform, eliminating the death tax, banning partial-birth abortion, capping medical malpractice suits, and a broad 1% domestic spending cut. He voted to limit free speech in the months preceding an election, and to allow Homeland Security employees to unionize. ACU Rating: 4
• 2003: Sherrod voted against a partial-birth abortion ban, medical malpractice reform, class action lawsuit reform, death tax repeal, and DC school choice vouchers. He voted to fund abortions at military hospitals, keep ANWR closed from drilling, allow human cloning, and allow negligence suits against gun manufacturers when a gun is used to commit a crime. ACU Rating: 16
• 2004: Sherrod again voted against making it a criminal offense to kill an unborn child while committing another crime. He voted against medical malpractice reform, allowing small businesses to buy health insurance as a group, drilling in ANWR, and a 1% cut in non-defense discretionary spending. He voted to fund abortion at military hospitals, block “bunker-buster” development, and cut military spending in favor of green energy programs. ACU Rating: 4

Based on Sherrod’s 1993-2004 record, he was one of America’s worst representatives on pro-life issues, taxes, school choice, entitlements, and national defense. During his first 12 years in Congress, Sherrod Brown proved himself a worthy torch-bearer for the Progressive cause.

Think he’s improved in the years since? We’ll see next week!

Cross-posted from Big Government.

Ranked as the leftmost senator in 2009 and 2010 by National Journal, Sherrod has a lifetime 7.77 rating from the American Conservative Union (ACU). What sort of 19-year voting history gives someone a record left of Dianne Feinstein and Harry Reid?

Here are some of the lowlights of Sherrod Brown’s first 6 years in Congress, accompanied by his ACU rating each year:

• 1993: Sherrod voted for the Brady Bill, D.C. statehood, missile defense cuts, preventing employers from replacing strikers, and Clinton’s “Emergency Stimulus” spending and tax hike package. He opposed school choice funding and missed a debt ceiling vote. ACU Rating: 9.00
• 1994: Sherrod voted for the assault weapons ban, a $30 billion Omnibus Crime Bill jammed with pork, and a motion to kill the House Post Office ethics investigation. ACU Rating: 14.00
• 1995: Sherrod voted for “family planning” funding ultimately given to Planned Parenthood, and for enforcement of vast EPA and FDA regulations. He voted against the partial-birth abortion ban, welfare reform, tax & domestic spending cuts, and the “Mexico City Policy” restricting U.S. dollars spent on abortion in foreign countries. ACU Rating: 32.00
• 1996: Sherrod voted to increase the minimum wage and in favor of killing school choice vouchers. He voted against the GOP budget, welfare reform, repealing the assault weapons ban, overriding Clinton’s partial-birth abortion ban veto, and making English the official language of the U.S. government. ACU Rating: 0.00
• 1997: Sherrod voted for national education testing and B-2 bomber budget cuts. He voted against the Hyde Amendment, tax & domestic spending cuts, school choice, and converting federal housing programs into block grants. ACU Rating: 12.00
• 1998: Sherrod again supported national education testing, and voted to allow a minor to be transported across state lines by a non-parent for an abortion. He voted against tax cuts, the partial-birth abortion ban, D.C. school vouchers, opening impeachment hearings, and ending racial preferences. ACU Rating: 4.00

With a few commendable lapses, Sherrod Brown spent 1993-98 as a foe of fiscal prudence, the Second Amendment, and national defense. Sherrod was an equally consistent supporter of Big Labor, bigger central government, and the abortion lobby.

Next week we’ll look at Sherrod’s record from 1999-2004 to see if the late ’90s and early 2000s prompted any shift towards common sense. I hope my previous mention of his lifetime 7.77 ACU rating doesn’t wreck the surprise!

Cross-posted at Big Government.

For the group funded by George Soros and founded as a Progressive counter to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s most Progressive senator is a perfect fit. Curious about the policies promoted at the 2011 J Street conference, where Sherrod Brown was one of just three senators in attendance? Hear from several of the event’s participants in this video:

Where would these folks get the idea J Street welcomes their radically anti-Israel beliefs? From a J Street founder, for one:

If we’re all wrong, if we’re all wrong and a collective Jewish presence in the Middle East can only survive by the sword, it cannot be accepted, it’s not about what we do. Sound familiar? They hate us for what we are, not what we do. If that’s true, then Israel really ain’t a very good idea.

Emphasis mine. That obscure quote suggesting Israel shouldn’t exist if she has to defend herself is from… the 2011 J Street conference.

J Street is a vehicle for every leftist argument against Israel, routinely pushing moral equivalence between Israel and the enemies eager to push Israel into the sea. In less than 4 years, J Street has lobbied for a UN judge who libeled the Israel Defense Forces as war criminals, hosted a speaker best known for suggesting Israel may have caused 9/11, and lied extensively about the sources of their funding.

Jennifer Rubin reports that Sherrod has already received more than $86,000 from J Street in a summary at her Washington Post blog:

This is the outfit that called on President Obama not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel, organized 54 of the most virulently anti-Israel House members to sign the “Gaza 54” letter urging a lifting of the Gaza blockade, provided assistance to Richard Goldstone (and opposition to a congressional resolution condemning the Goldstone Report) and voiced support for continued funding of UNESCO despite its admission of “Palestine” as a member state.

If President Obama’s Israel policies aren’t far enough left for you, J Street’s endorsement and fundraising are great reasons to support Sherrod Brown next November. Otherwise, add this to the list of reasons Sherrod’s got to go.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

The case for union reform is tough to make due to Big Labor’s dishonestly political nature. Claiming to speak for all teachers/mechanics/factory workers/Middle Class Americans, unions have a rhetorical curtain thick enough to hide tens of millions in partisan spending. Democrats gain loyal constituents, union bosses get to make unsustainable promises, and corporations take the blame when jobs are cut or shipped overseas.

Take a look at this Center for Responsive Politics chart of top campaign contributors (view PDF screencap):

When Progressives respond to union reform with cries of “racist!” and every victim card in the book, keep this in mind: 3 of the 11 biggest political donors in the nation are public unions.

• AFSCME – 3rd overall, with 94% going to Democrats
• NEA – 6th overall, with 82% going to Democrats
• AFT – 11th overall, with 90% going to Democrats

They’re in good Big Labor company, with 76% of SEIU (5) donations given to Democrats and each of these unions giving more than 85% of their contributions to Democrats: IBEW (9), Laborers Union (10), Teamsters (12), Carpenters & Joiners (13), CWA (14), UFCW (17), UAW (18), IAMAW (20).

Union bosses outspend by millions the corporations whose political influence they get rich demonizing. Democrats are expected to toe the union line as a matter of principle, while any Republican attempt at reform is framed as political payback. When GOP leaders are cowed into silence by this ridiculous double standard, union bosses win – and everyone else loses.

In Ohio, voters recently demonstrated their willingness to buy union talking points. This is why conservatives must work to inform our fellow citizens, and why 2012 is an awful time to push a state Right to Work amendment.

The chart above is one angle of what the GOP presidential candidate will be up against next year. Whenever you hear a Democrat complain about the corrupting influence of money in politics, agree with them – and then present this chart.

Cross-posted at Big Government.

At a September 2009 Organizing for America rally in Columbus, Ohio, Sherrod promised to pass a health care bill with a public option — because Saint Teddy knew it was good for us:

When discussing the late Ted Kennedy, “He easily could have walked away” is an unfortunate choice of words.

As we saw last week, Sherrod Brown’s take on Christianity features a central government equal parts asphyxiating and unaffordable. If citing Ted Kennedy is Sherrod’s idea of bolstering a faith-based argument, Sherrod is not a person we should defer to on “moral issues.”

Aside from the implication that Jesus hates limited government, why should we resent the Ted Kennedy standard for socialist healthcare? Teddy himself said it best after the 1969 drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne: “I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately.”

Ted Kennedy was a contemptible man whose name yielded Progressive victories logic and basic mathematics should have rendered impossible. Whether his failings are glossed over by the likes of Sherrod Brown out of Christian forgiveness or partisan convenience, Kennedy should serve as a moral gauge for no one.

OFA rally footage from YouTube user jmknapp. Clip transcript:

SENATOR SHERROD BROWN: But, what struck me is the kind of life that Ted Kennedy could live and was living… and he didn’t need to stay in public service for 47 years. He easily could have walked away. But, you know, like Pastor [??], Ted Kennedy understands that Progressive government and social justice and economic issues and health care are moral issues.

And as Pastor [??] hap– he and I happen to same, uh, share the same faith, as Lutherans – Pastor [??] talked about, Senator Kennedy understood that part of his faith was the question, the moral questions, and the issue of equal justice, and the issue of health care for all. That’s why he never quit, that’s why nobody in this crowd is quitting, that’s why we’re gonna get health care with a strong public option.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

By analysing ancient algae found in deep-sea core samples, Professor Matthew Huber and his colleagues determined that the mile-thick ice which now covers the south polar continent formed around 34 million years ago. At that stage the atmosphere held much more CO2 than it does now, some 600 parts per million (ppm) as opposed to today’s level of 390 ppm.

Although the Antarctic ice sheet formed while CO2 levels were more than 33% higher than today, Washington spends heaps of cash on CO2-reduction boondoggles each year. Antarctica isn’t the only icy show in town, but Prof. Huber described the threat of CO2 melting an ice sheet in terms that would make Al Gore spew brimstone:

“If we continue on our current path of warming we will eventually reach that tipping point,” he says. “Of course after we cross that threshold it will still take many thousands of years to melt an ice sheet.”

Evidence or not, President Obama, the EPA, and congressional Democrats know their priorities: We have seen the enemy, and his name is Carbon Dioxide. Evil activities like “producing energy,” “building things,” and “going places” need to be taxed and regulated further, or Carbon Dioxide wins! If this means the sort of government control Progressives wanted anyway, well, shucks, we’ll just have to make government bigger.

How well are “deniers” countering the decades-long drumbeat from global warming alarmists? A 12/01 Pew Research Center report tells the sad story:

The science isn’t nearly settled enough to slaughter thousands of jobs and billions of dollars on the enviro-altar, as Climategate 2.0 should prove (again). For more, refer to the work of Anthony Watts, Steven Hayward, Jeff Id, and Dr. Tim Ball, who makes the following point:

Few, including skeptics, want to confront the problem that temperature increase precedes CO2 increase in absolute contradiction to the major assumption of the AGW hypothesis. [...] Science must be about skepticism, otherwise the science is settled, but then it isn’t science.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

The Progressive fringe is Sherrod Brown’s wheelhouse (he is, after all, America’s left-most senator), so here is Sherrod’s response to complaints about Becker’s work for the union bosses NLRB oversees:

Whining that conservatives call his Socialist beliefs Socialist is a well Sherrod visits often, and Becker has helped Sherrod look ridiculous yet again. Poor, moderate, sensible Becker, before his recess appointment and subsequent bureaucratic rampage, was described thus by The Hill:

He is an adamant supporter of card-check legislation — a proposal that allows unions to form more easily, supported by the White House — and has done considerable work for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union.

Republicans pointed to Becker’s glaring conflicts of interest, and Sherrod Brown’s rebuttal was to cry foul and call names. Anyone following the NLRB for the past two years knows how that turned out.

C-SPAN 2 clip transcript:

SHERROD BROWN: If, if no arguments work, it’s time to trot ACORN out and tie Craig Becker right to ACORN, whatever ACORN is. And, it’s just, it would be amusing if they didn’t use it time, after time, after time. “He must be a bad nominee because he worked with somebody from ACORN,” or, “He worked with somebody from the Service Employees International Union,” or, “He worked with Governor Blagojevich in Illinois!” That’s, that’s the kind of guilt-by-association that I thought this institution stopped doing 55 years ago when Joe McCarthy was censured.

Cross-posted at Big Government.

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Like the first half of Sherrod’s answer to a question about whether privatization of government programs is a Wall Street conspiracy, there is so much stupid in this clip that it’s tough to begin. To his credit, Sherrod Brown is consistent! Sherrod consistently glosses over exploding federal deficits, consistently attributes the worst motives to anyone who tries to limit government’s power, and consistently brags about the wonders of failed Progressive governance.

Even with crippling tax hikes, the government programs whose praises Sherrod sings will bankrupt the nation by mid-century. Even if Medicare did amazing things for every American it served, only a fool or liar would fight reforms to a collapsing system.

This is why I ask, earnestly, my question from the end of the video: Is Sherrod Brown an idiot, or a dishonest idealogue? The brutal effects of Washington spending on America’s economy are plain to see, and unfunded entitlement liabilities total in the tens of trillions. Yet, as our fiscal canoe sloshes toward the falls, Sherrod Brown attacks with a straight face anyone who dares paddle backwards.

Sherrod’s mathematically outrageous and transparently political scare tactics are, like most every policy Sherrod has ever pursued, wrong for Ohio and wrong for America. Next November, Ohio should send Obamacare champion Sherrod Brown packing… along with the guy that awful legislation is named for.

The agitators at the top of the union pyramid can now justify for awhile longer “earning” six figures by taking it directly from public employees’ paychecks. However, the scare tactics that worked for Issue 2 weren’t so effective when local voters considered higher tax levies. This means the gravy train will leave the rails a bit faster than expected – but the unions have a solution!

Months before Governor Kasich balanced an estimated $8 billion deficit without raising taxes, unions were demanding we cough up more money to fund their unsustainable benefits and backwards policies. Unions rallied for higher taxes despite a state and local taxation trend that looks like this:

Somewhere along the way Ohio’s “safety net” wound up around our necks, which isn’t especially comfortable for those of us unwilling or unable to flee. It’s hard to argue Ohio’s taxes should be higher, so the unions and fellow Progressives focus on attacking Governor Kasich:

1. It’s Kasich’s fault for discarding the Strickland school funding model! (Never mind that most districts are in the red, not just a handful on the margins.)
2. It’s Kasich’s fault for cutting local spending in the state budget! (Ignore those Strickland-era forecasts that prove local deficits have been on the horizon for years.)

In both cases the alternative is cloaked in Obamaesque euphemism about needing a “balanced approach,” if an alternative is mentioned at all. There’s not enough state money because of evil Republicans and racist mathematics, and Ohio’s union bosses need us to refill the tank. Until we do, they’ll force local governments to slash jobs and services, with the occasional face-saving concession for the sake of the Progressive cause. Over the next few months I’ll highlight districts forced into layoffs by untenable union contracts!

This is the system we have. Thanks to the Ohioans who let a cynical union campaign cloud their judgment, this is the system we’re stuck with for the foreseeable future. Ohio can still pull out of this tax-and-spend tailspin, but local and national unions won’t make it easy!

Cross-posted at Big Government.

Executive summary: The unions spent several boatloads on dishonest class warfare, and Ohio voters failed to see through it.

First, some theories I don’t subscribe to. With the future of Issue 2 looking bleak leading up to yesterday, there have been rumblings that Governor Kasich and/or the Ohio Republican Party backed away from Issue 2 for fear of getting egg on their faces. I’ve seen no indication this is true.

A fairer guess is that including police and firefighters doomed Senate Bill 5; I hesitate to jump to this conclusion, if for no other reason than I advised excluding police and firefighters. It’s worth noting that police and firefighters figured heavily into the union smear campaign, but the bill’s reforms would have been assailed by unions of all stripes regardless of who was affected.

Perhaps the worst explanation – popular with that special brand of Ohioan whose motto is, “I’m a lifelong Republican, but” – insists Senate Bill 5 was an overreach. Ohio’s existing government union law isn’t a little broken; it’s completely broken. Republicans attempted to reform the Democrats’ 1983 bill in a single shot rather than spend the next 3 years fighting with unions. Blaming Issue 2′s defeat on this calculation misses the bigger picture.

What does the bigger picture look like?

Out-of-state union donations, grossly understated by Ohio media, far exceeded the “Yes on 2″ campaign’s entire budget. The Ohio Education Association (OEA), a despicable band of hypocrites whose average pay in 2010 was more than $95,000, took an extra $54 from every member to kill Senate Bill 5. OEA alone dumped more than $5.8 million into “We Are Ohio.”

Did the unions spend $30 million exposing an ill-advised portion of Senate Bill 5, or pushing some compelling argument about the need for powerful public unions? Hah! The unions spent more than $800,000 collecting signatures for the referendum; bragging that this constituted “grassroots” support was the most honest aspect of their campaign.

“We Are Ohio” claimed passing Issue 2 would mean fewer firefighters and nurses, leaving Ohio houses to burn and patients to perish. They released a radio ad saying Issue 2 would “take us back to the days of Jim Crow,” misrepresenting at every turn the effort to limit union power as an attack on Ohio’s middle class. They lied that Republican politicians exploited a “loophole” in the bill, though elected officials have never been subject to collective bargaining. They insisted local budgets were dandy before Kasich’s election.

Even without spending unprecedented amounts to mislead Ohio’s electorate, unions are built for fighting reform; union bosses become millionaires on the strength of their class warfare. In my opinion, Issue 2 came down to two questions:

1. How many Ohio government employees see through the Progressive narrative shoved down their throats courtesy of their mandatory dues?
2. How many Ohio taxpayers with friends & family in public work think for themselves when told Governor Kasich is out to steal workers’ benefits and punch their babies?

OEA & Co. don’t have to lumber into a defensive stance when their stranglehold is threatened. They just keep doing what they do every day – painting themselves as victims and taxpayers as villains. Yesterday it worked, to the detriment of everyone except the union bosses.

Sadly, a majority of Ohio voters were guilted into ignoring fiscal reality. In return for killing Issue 2, Ohio can expect:

• More tax hikes than would have been necessary with Senate Bill 5
• More layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police than would have been necessary with Senate Bill 5
• More service cuts than would have been necessary with Senate Bill 5
• None of Senate Bill 5′s drop-dead obvious reforms to benefits & automatic pay hikes
• More lost House seats as employers and citizens flee

Those who voted No on Issue 2 have guaranteed the results they were told their votes would prevent. This is bad news for anyone who doesn’t get rich from the government union racket, especially the thousands of young public workers whose jobs will be sacrificed on the altar of union demands.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

As public record proves, many of these folks get rich portraying big government as a moral imperative:

You have a chance right now to help a Midwestern swing state escape leftist control! Two Ohio ballot measures up for a vote on Tuesday deserve the full support of conservatives nationwide.

Issue 3 represents an unprecedented citizen-driven effort; its passage would amend the state constitution to block Obamacare’s individual mandate in Ohio. Conventional wisdom is that Issue 3 will pass, but efforts to kill Issue 2 may claim Issue 3 as collateral damage. If conservative Ohioans stay home Tuesday, union propaganda could prevent a repudiation of Obamacare.

Issue 2 has been the focus of a $30 million smear campaign, with an alphabet soup of unions framing government union reform as an “attack on The Middle Class.” There are many reasons to support Issue 2, but the best is also the simplest: Issue 2 restores a little power from union bosses to taxpayers.

Ohio’s status quo ensures that unions – instead of our elected officials – set the rules of public employment. Public wages are garnished for union propaganda and professional agitators’ pockets, while taxpayers are demonized over any effort to restrain spending. Their own employees describe Ohio union bosses as “rife with hypocrisy,” but $30 million buries a whole lot of dirt!

Far from theoretical, Ohio’s need for reform is rooted in fiscal urgency. Based on forecasts prior to Kasich’s election, 260 Ohio school districts will have deficits amounting to more than $500 per resident by 2015. Passing Issue 2 would ensure fewer layoffs, fewer tax hikes, fewer service cuts… as well as fewer six-figure union salaries. Any questions as to why AFL-CIO, NEA, AFSCME, and SEIU are dumping millions into a state ballot issue?

Like the broken law Issue 2 amends, I’ve been part of Ohio since 1983. Will you help me do good where decades of bureaucracy have done so much harm? Will you encourage Ohioans to free themselves from President Obama’s terrible policies and dishonest financiers?

Citizens of the Buckeye State, vote Yes on Issue 2 and Yes on Issue 3. Everyone else, please help counter union lies on your social media network of choice!

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted at Third Base Politics and RedState.

If NEA is genuinely concerned about Ohio teachers, they are saints compared to their Ohio affiliate, the Ohio Education Association (OEA). Don’t believe me? Consider OEA pay, the words of OEA staff, the treatment of OEA retirees, and smears against non-union teachers, for starters.

Maybe NEA is different…

Why is NEA desperate to keep Ohioans from voting Yes on Issue 2? In addition to instituting merit pay, putting a stop to last-in-first-out firing policies, and requiring government workers to pay for a small portion of their benefits, Senate Bill 5 ends mandatory “fair share” dues taken from non-members.

Take a look at NEA pay and tell me it’s not about the money:

View complete spreadsheet, pulled directly from the union’s 2010 report to the U.S. Department of Labor.

36 NEA employees & officers were paid more than $200,000 last year. 97 NEA employees were paid more than $175,000. 183 were paid more than $150,000. 441 were paid more than $100,000!

Let me make sure I’ve got this right:

1. Teachers are grievously underpaid.
2. Corporations – who make “products” and “services” and sell them in a “marketplace” where people have “choices” – are to blame.
3. Teachers in Ohio and across the country pay NEA hundreds of dollars every year so NEA can elect big-government politicians, cheer on deficit spending, agitate for higher taxes, and become millionaires in the process.

Does NEA even allow math teachers to join?

Like all government unions, NEA is in the business of self-preservation at taxpayer expense. Opposing Senate Bill 5 won’t help get Ohio back on track… but that’s of no consequence to D.C. union bosses. Vote Yes on Issue 2!

Cross-posted at Third Base Politics and RedState.

The deals, which were originally negotiated during the Bush administration, would boost U.S. exports by $13 billion a year; both the White House and congressional Republicans have touted the three pacts as a means of creating tens of thousands of jobs without requiring additional federal spending.

Our own Senator Sherrod Brown is clear about his stance on free trade: he’s against it.

“With an exploding trade deficit that has caused massive job loss, now is not the time to pass more wrongheaded free- trade agreements,” Brown said in a statement released after the White House sent the measures to Congress on Oct. 3.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a frequent pinata for Senator Brown, as it was for candidate Obama. Sure, the preponderance of evidence supports NAFTA and makes Brown & Obama look like demagogues, but there are competing figures for any issue. Sherrod also finds it convenient to talk about China instead of out-of-control spending – and to smear every trade partner as if they were the Chinese.

While common sense suggests we should do our best to compete in the global marketplace, Sherrod Brown would rather spend more of your money on union bailouts:

“This extension of Trade Adjustment Assistance and the Health Coverage Tax Credit is long overdue,” Brown said in a statement.

Sherrod Brown rails against free markets as if the purpose of government were to smother everything else, but there’s one industry Sherrod adores: unions. Maybe D.C. union bosses have a Sherrod-Signal on the roof! Whenever union clout is threatened, they throw the switch and Sherrod swoops in – with bags of taxpayer cash.

"Competition?! Light the Sherrod-Signal, boys!"

Senator Brown acts concerned about the trade deficit with China, but his only answer to much worse federal budget deficits is to soak the rich. At the moment, Ohioans can’t do much to prevent Sherrod from fighting free-market policies while throwing our money at union bosses… but 2012 is right around the corner.

Cross-posted at Third Base Politics.

President Obama may be hedging on the EPA’s righteous destruction of American polluters, but that doesn’t mean dirty corporations are off the hook. Sure, we’ve already soaked several of the oil & gas giants, but the ill-gotten gains of a few more polluters will cover the nation’s budget deficit. Electric companies rely heavily on coal-powered plants… electric companies must pay!

Now Soaking: Exelon Corp.

• Reuters lists Exelon Corp CEO John Rowe’s compensation as $9,418,400. Rowe has been an Exelon executive since 2000, so he’s got enough money. His $9,418,400 will be much better spent by Sherrod Brown and Barack Obama!
• Exelon’s 2010 income statement lists $1,658,000,000 in corporate income taxes. We’ll double that amount to fund the spend-a-riffic Obama/Brown rebound!
• Doubling Exelon’s corporate income tax and taking their CEO’s pay will reduce the 2011 U.S. budget deficit by 0.103%.

None of Exelon’s 19,214 employees will lose their jobs if Sherrod Brown and Barack Obama work their not-at-all-socialist magic. The only funds & individuals holding Exelon’s 662 million outstanding shares of stock who suffer will be the ones who deserve to.

Don’t worry: this punitive tax policy won’t increase utility costs for the millions of Americans who buy electricity from Exelon subsidiaries or competitors!

We, The People who support Sherrod Brown’s fiscal policies, hold these leftist conceits to be self-evident.

As right-wing kooks warned long before Obama’s inauguration, the president has nothing to offer besides unsustainable government dependency. His latest spending bill is another case study in how to be Campaigner-in-Chief: a huge pander to unions and public employees, with just enough temporary tax relief to provide a centrist veneer.

In Ohio and throughout the country, local governments are grappling with the reality that governors can’t continue shoveling money their direction, because Washington can’t keep throwing money at the states. We can barely argue about spending public funds on “guns” versus “butter”: years of butter-budgeting have us buried in debt.

On this key issue, the Obama administration has been an abject failure. Congressman Paul Ryan, a Miami University alum, sets this fact into stark relief in a series of videos discussing his Path to Prosperity budget. Check them out, if you haven’t already – the third was just released this week:

Compare the GOP plan with Obamanomics, which hinges on complete denial of the most avoidable financial crisis mankind has ever seen.

Cross-posted at Third Base Politics.