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Is Ohio racing toward a financial cliff?

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Even before Gov. Ted Strickland signs the budget the legislature approved, analysts are warning that Ohio could be headed off a financial cliff just two years from now.

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Close corporate tax loopholes. Permit and tax hemp. Tax religion (the gods will make do somehow). Parole all non-violent drug offenders.

kett-sam
9:39 PM, 7/15/2009

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Dale: You can't reason with ignorance. There will always be a segment in society that needs help, but it's not Jennie. She needs to get her butt to work.

Lollipop10
5:24 PM, 7/15/2009

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I live in Dayton and I don't mind telling you that it is a scary sight to see all of our businesses leaving the area. There is nothing left here. The people are out of work and that causes a lot of crime. Raising taxes isn't going to help if no-one is working to pay them.

Sophia
4:47 PM, 7/15/2009

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I agree with the statement "at least half of the people currently on welfare that could get a job.". I was on SSI a decade or so ago after a major surgery. I was back at work and off of SSI within a year. Now half of the apartments where I live are HUD subsidized and all full. I see them partying and having a good ole time while while their 8 kids and 12 different fathers run around and act a fool. As I sit there and watch a whole paycheck+ go to rent that I actually pay. Put them to work I say.

Agreeable
4:39 PM, 7/15/2009

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Not my problem jennie. Period!

Dont have 8 kids with 12 different fathers!

kelly
4:05 PM, 7/15/2009

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"Is Ohio racing toward a financial cliff?"

Yes. It will probably also go over it as well.

Fred B
4:03 PM, 7/15/2009

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Jennie, I don't know any Replublicans that woould not support helping the needy so stop trying to twist their words. The low lifes are the many on Government assistance that do not have anything wrong with them. Based on experience I would say there are at least half of the people currently on welfare that could get a job.People like you should get more assistance. Also, I am sick of the Government not going after the fathers to force them to pay child support.

dale
1:44 PM, 7/15/2009

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"AMEN jack. You are a true american brother! Stop the low lifes from suckp-ing off of society!
"

so the disabled are low lifes and all those who are poor are low life's, i think you republican jerks are the low life's!! what's next off the offing the sick?? and letting children starve for the sake of your own wealth? i am disabled from heart disease on ssi raising a kid on 674.00 and the state don't make my ex pay support what happens to us without help?! no wonder there's so much hate !

jennie
1:37 PM, 7/15/2009

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Actually worked for an agency that produced commercials etc. to promote Ohio. We printed a booklet that the people at the Dept. of Development decided was too nice and that Ohioans might think it was too expensive so they had us scrap all of them and re-do them. This is the God's truth. They had plenty of money left in their budget, so no big deal. This is just a taste of how our tax money is wasted. Just one small example.

Neonmoon
1:28 PM, 7/15/2009

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AMEN jack. You are a true american brother! Stop the low lifes from suckp-ing off of society!

kelly
1:21 PM, 7/15/2009

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Why not save money and force prisons to becoem self sufficient once again? Prisoners can grow their own food and sew their own clothes.

Amber McCurdy
1:13 PM, 7/15/2009

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Please don't give "Jack" any more exposure. He's just baiting. As he must know, the only thing keeping this country from "the cliff" is programs like food stamps, medicaid, etc. These programs are insufficient to the need, but they are enough to prevent the catastrophic social chaos that would ensue without them.

Walt
11:53 AM, 7/15/2009

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Continued TO Jack..by the way, regarding your comment on "free tuition for moms on welfare", I do NOT know where you can get free tuition, but I paid $5,000 of my own money to renew my teaching license. OK? And my college was NOT paid by the state! The state continues to cut jobs for teachers and everyone else, so how do u expect a person to survive? Be humble and think of people who have financial hardships. Maybe Jack you could donate money to help people then??? Just a thought.

Rachel
11:19 AM, 7/15/2009

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TO JACK and others who thinnk like him, have you walked in a person's shoes who is on welfare? Are you a single parent who has to support 2 children yet can't find a job in Dayton due to the economy? I am college educated and can NOT find a job! Due to the economy crisis I have to use medicaid and food stamps to LIVE. Do you want children to starve? Do u want people who get sick, not have health insurance? JACK BETTER HOPE YOU don't lose your job or money in this economy and END UP ON WELFARE!

Rachel
11:12 AM, 7/15/2009

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Medicaid is the single largest component of the state budget. They can start by cutting ADC, food stamps, Medicaid and free tuition for welfare moms.

Jack
10:39 AM, 7/15/2009

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Jim,
Are you at all interested in facts. Last year, unemployment was 4.8%. Under Clinton it never got under 5%....so I guess Clinton had the worst economy since the Great Depression. Also, what was the market up to before the housing crises, 14,000? Quit reciting democrat talking points and check out the facts first. It's tiring. In addition, do some research as to who was in charge of Fannie/Freddie Mac. I won't bore you with the details....sure you can figure it out yourself.

gene w.
10:21 AM, 7/15/2009

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Not only is the state headed for a cliff so is the entire (formerly free) USA. We have lost our country not from foreign enemies, but from within.

We are now a socialist country - every bit as much as Europe. How sad.

Former American in OHIO

Jimmy
10:20 AM, 7/15/2009

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Jim... You're dead wrong! Bush didn't create this mess. The Liberals who took over the House & Senate in 2006 did it on his watch. While I agree that correction doesn't happen overnite, BO & the Liberals certainly aren't going in the right direction. He's gonna be a one termer just like Jimmy Carter.

Pete
10:03 AM, 7/15/2009

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All government (Republican AND Democrat) is incapable of living within its' means. It's fairly simple--don't spend more than you make. Politicians (our "ruling class")are consumed with not irritating some interest group by a budget cut.

dave
9:57 AM, 7/15/2009

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Yocum is trying to warn the lemmings of the impending cliff ahead and Sykes is yelling louder for the lemmings to continue the charges toward the cliff.

Are you listening?
9:30 AM, 7/15/2009

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Ethel,
Obama was handed the worst economy since the depression, and it's unrealistic to expect an instant turnaround. Give the guy a chance, he's only been in office a few months. Bush is the one that got us in this mess by spending trillions on a bogus war. Bush had a budget surplus when he took office and look what he did.

Jim
9:29 AM, 7/15/2009

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Sarah,
Just a quick search, but I can't find anything specifically about the Old Red Barn and Bingo, except for one link indicating it is for sale because the charity that owns it is going out of business. Here are links relating to local crime and bingo:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/techno...

http://www.bizbuysell.com/cgi-bin/a...

http://www.ag.state.oh.us/press/08/...

kls
9:24 AM, 7/15/2009

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If you can't afford to pay your bills you need to cut services that are not necessities but are nice to have. Do we need 1 law eforcement officer for every 1000 citizens (which is a very high estimate in my opinion)? Do we really need to put non paying parents in jail increasing the amount of people to house, feed and supervise them? Do we need a state CSEA when we have 88 county CSEAs? Do we need to continue to give custody to mothers who can't afford to support them without public assistance?

Panman
9:04 AM, 7/15/2009

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I dont understand why people are so against Casinos/slot machines coming to Ohio. We need jobs and revenue. Indiana and West Virginia are getting rich off Ohio players. When you go to the casinos in Indiana there are hundreds/thousands of cars from Ohio. We need to change our way of thinking and our ideas if we are to pull ourselves out of this recession. We have lost so many jobs in Ohio and someone is throwing us a life line.

Sarah
8:34 AM, 7/15/2009

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Can someone please tell me why The Old Red Barn closed for Bingo?

Sarah
8:31 AM, 7/15/2009

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A quick place to trim some money is to trim the department budgets for promotional items and other "swag". There was a story last month on the State Treasurer's spending on these items. Does the State Treasurer (and other elected officials) really need $70,000 worth of self promotional items like water bottles, pencils, and other "swag" at a time like this? I would assume that other departments have similar budgets for promotional items.

Jerome
8:30 AM, 7/15/2009

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If the country ever needs to give itself an enema we know where to put the hose.

cowboy
8:29 AM, 7/15/2009

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“It’s a possibility that the economy will get worse and we’ll be challenged as leaders even more so to try to take additional measures to help us bridge that gap,” Sykes said.

This is the warning that casinos are coming to Ohio in spite of the fact that voters have rejected it 4 times. Slots will not bridge the gap. Casinos are next on the list. We started down this slippery slope when we approved the lottery.

We need to find real revenue from from real jobs created by real leadership.

Jim
8:19 AM, 7/15/2009

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Well, if OH goes the same route as CA, the only difference is that CA can fall into the Pacific @ any moment w/ the next earthquake & no one would give a quack. OH, on the other hand, @ least has WV, PA, IN, KY, & MI to hold it up. Then again, maybe it'll just slide into Lake Erie under all of the polluted crud.

Pete
8:14 AM, 7/15/2009

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Producers moving out, dole queue staying constant or growing.

It's not a difficult equation. Politicians especially Dems love to dress their dolly up in terms like 'empathy,' 'fairness' and 'justice' but in the end it's simply more people EXPECTING handouts except now the tab's come due.

Patchy
7:26 AM, 7/15/2009

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which of us can balance our household budgets by delaying debt payments?

steve
5:59 AM, 7/15/2009

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California saw it coming and didn't do anything about it either - Ohio is heading down the same road.

Our state is a freight train out of control and crashing & burning is inevitable.

oracle
5:00 AM, 7/15/2009

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No kidding, Sherlock. Ptesident Obama promised transparecy and he gives very confusing messages about our economy. One day, there is progress, the next there is unexpected higher unemploymen, and then the next announcement is that stimulus plan is working. What is so alarming about the future of our state is that the Dems have already spent trillions with very little results. Then BO wants to spend more on health care and cap and trade. We simply cannot aford BO's policies any more.

Ethel S
12:08 AM, 7/15/2009

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I have seen govn't funded programs say that they have excess monies left over from the bugdet. So they say they need to find a way to spend that extra money (waste it). The reason is so they can say that they need at least that much money during the next budget. What's wrong with sending that money back if it's not needed unstead of wasting it.

Resident
12:00 AM, 7/15/2009

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Stop giving handouts to all the lazy bums in this state and country, and we'd have money.

freedom
11:51 PM, 7/14/2009

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As long as Ohio keeps bulldozing repairable school buildings and constructing expensive temples of education it will have financial problems. Some building have needed to be replaced but not all of them.

Annie
11:38 PM, 7/14/2009

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that tells me the state needs to cut spending real fast and bring on the slots twice as fast

ARTICLE
10:58 PM, 7/14/2009

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They're trying awfully hard to do it, like Monroe wasting their residents money for a useless attorney.

Hornet 07
10:12 PM, 7/14/2009

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