THE DEFEAT OF OHIO SENATE BILL 5
Taxpayers capable of sensible thinking would certainly desire an adequate and fully equipped police force, fire department, hospital or schools, including the best teachers. To think that anyone should want anything less is ludicrous. But what taxpayers and school children have in common is an aversion to bullies. That is exactly what has happened for the past 28 years with unionized public employees who have had virtually unrestricted access to taxpayer money. Senate Bill 5 (SB5) would have removed their foot in the wallet of the taxpayers in its attempt to control the spiraling costs of state spending.
Taxpayers capable of sensible thinking would certainly desire an adequate and fully equipped police force, fire department, hospital or schools, including the best teachers. To think that anyone should want anything less is ludicrous. But what taxpayers and school children have in common is an aversion to bullies. That is exactly what has happened for the past 28 years with unionized public employees who have had virtually unrestricted access to taxpayer money. Senate Bill 5 (SB5) would have removed their foot in the wallet of the taxpayers in its attempt to control the spiraling costs of state spending.
The drive of the unions to maintain their stranglehold on the taxpayer is evident by the terminology which they employ concerning collective bargaining: their power, their leverage – the old “might is right” mentality. Their campaign for the continuation of collective bargaining could be verbalized thus: “We want your tax dollars to increase our net income at the expense of your shrinking income, and you will have no to say in the matter.”
To illustrate their intense desire to defeat SB5, they collected a record 915,000 signatures and over $30 million dollars. It appears that these well-educated guardians of the rights of a few may have out-smarted themselves. If they could mount this type of crusade to get something on the ballot, than they could do it for anything else that would be in the interest of the public (or themselves). It wasn’t necessary to defeat SB5 if they had the resources to bring their issues to a taxpayer vote. Could it be that they don’t want the public to have a vote concerning their tax dollars contributing to the job security, pay and benefits of public employees? Are they hooked on their bullying tactics of collective bargaining? Society generally does not enable addicts and abusers. But it appears that the majority of voters have been successfully duped by the disingenuous ad campaign or they must enjoy sanctioning free access to their wallets by public employees.