Weird Times in Ohio

While most of the attention is on Wisconsin, things continue to be odd at the statehouse in Columbus Ohio.

Like Wisconsin, Ohio has a newly elected Republican governor. Both houses of the state legislature are also not Republican controlled. This is not necessarily a bad thing. And yes, I am trying to be open minded since this is what we have to work with ... at least until the next election. And even though I didn't vote for these people and apparently do not see anything close to eye to eye with them, not every Republican is by definition a bad person. Hell, there are plenty of Democrats and Independents I disagree with too! Mostly I choose to ignore the party label. However I have noticed that most of the things I disagree with tend to have a Republican label. 

Now, when one watches Mr. Kasich make a speech one has to wonder if he is all right. He bobs, he weaves, he doesn't look at the camera. He rants, he raves, if you look closely you can probably see spittle flying. He looks on the surface to be far more disturbed than the yelling fit that got Howard Dean in trouble during his run for the presidency. There is something about this person that makes me pause. Something is just wrong with this person. 

Then there are the words that come out of him. He's going to do this or that and give folks in Ohio more choices, better this and that... how? If you are cutting programs and services how are you going to take better care of low birth weight babies by taking better care of their mothers? How are mom and dad going to be able to stay in their homes and receive care instead of going to a nursing home? How is education for our children going to be better? 

Are we supposed to think that moving those services to the private sector are going to end up being services that the mother of a potentially low birth weight baby can afford? Are mom and dad staying in their home because without Medicare and Medicaid they can't afford to go anywhere else? How are they going to afford home health services? How is education going to improve if anyone and everyone can get a voucher and go anywhere they want? Won't the urban schools dwindle down to the handful of students no one else wants because even with a voucher they can't get to the suburban schools? How will the suburban schools handle the sudden increase in students? What if these students aren't the "kind" of student they want? If these are public schools can they turn people away? Will that be possible?

The state of the state address gave no answers. All it told us was that there was more to come, and we "ain't seen nothing yet". I am not entirely convinced that the budget to be announced next week will contain answers either. Our new governor served in the Ohio State Senate, the US House of Representatives and earned a salary more than $500,000 year at Lehman Brothers in 2008 before the economy took a nose dive. He understands bonuses and all the other goodies middle America now hates... from personal experience. That alone makes me nervous.

There are times when you look at a person and just get hit with that weird vibe that there is something "off"? That is the way our new governor hits me. We may need to brace ourselves because since we "ain't seen nothing yet" thing are going to get ... weird.