With Ohio in the hole by $8B, and the state house, state senate, and supreme court full of GOPers, long-time government-hater and new state Governor John Kasich is in a perfect situation to do the maximum damage to Ohio, as it still reels from the Bush economic failure.
When Ohio took its anger out on every sitting pol in the 2010 cycle, voters couldn't have made a poorer choice when it elected John Kasich the state's governor.
Imagine a guy whose first order of business was to reject a stim grant of $400M, intended to create passenger rail between Ohio's three largest cities, after he'd mocked the program ad nauseam during the campaign.
Now picture a guy who spent eight terms in the US House, then left government in a huff after he couldn't get anyone interested in his 2000 Presidential campaign platform that included such time-honored GOP scams like a 10% across-the-board income tax cut. Yes, there would be a privatized Social Secutiy program funded by a 2% "payroll tax," you know, all deducted from the employee's wages, because employers pay too much taxes and that's fair! Had Kasich and his his GOPer clowns enacted this legislation, just think about what the employee's plan would be worth now. Or maybe not.
OK. Same guy, different deal. After his wretched run for president, there's only one thing a body can do after such a failure. That would be to...go to work for Lehman Brothers, the successful Wall Street investment firm. And use his government contacts and background to convince the state to invest $400+M of its pension and WorkComp funds on Wall Street.
Which, um, doesn't work out so well for the state of Ohio, on account of the fact that most of the $400M was "lost," a euphamism for being sucked up by Wall Street.
Luckily, Kasich suffered a better fate. He cashed a $400K bonus check for his fine work with the then-Taft Republican administration in convincing them to invest with Lehman Brothers.
Close your eyes for a moment, and think, well, at least he didn't work for Fox News!
Oh, wait. He did. For several years.
That's quite a resume.
So meet Ohio's new governor, John Kasich, who is the beneficiary of a perfect storm to do serious damage to democracy in Ohio.
Kasich is likely to try to cut the heart of activities that clearly are legitimate state activity. According to a gleeful George Will, Kasich will try to privatize the state turnpike system and the state lottery program. It's somewhat surprising that Will could actually use a typewriter or keyboard to write his story, given the fact Will was hungrily feasting on Kasich's balls as he wrote the story.
Oh, and did you know that Kasich's plan to emasculate government is called "Jobs Ohio"?
I've never met Kasich. But if you combine freemarket economics, anti-government, pro-Wall Street, union hater and baiter, and major hubris into one person...and throw in a compliant State House and Senate, this is not a recipe that will fix Ohio.
One can only hope that Ohio's labor people, progressives, and folks who care about Ohio's future start pushing back. Now. Because this guy is scary.