Some campaign adviser committed a major gaffe; an actual idea has entered the presidential race. Good on John McCain for at least nodding at the idea of breaking the health insurance-employer link.

There’s no good reason to tie insurance to employment, apart from the obvious one that it’s the easiest place to catch the cash, the same rationale behind withholding. But if that’s your reason, then you’re just using employers to do dirty work you don’t want to be seen as having the government do. That’s the opposite of transparency and accountability in government.

Instead there are very good reasons to break the employer-insurance link. It’ll give consumers more choice, producers more opportunity, and both employers and employees more freedom to focus on, you know, work.

Sounds like a recipe for success to me.

Now let’s see if Sen. McCain can stay on this message for as long as a month, or whether the first sneeze from either Obama or the New York Times will knock him off it.

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Cheers to 19 state representatives who have proposed to eliminate altogether Ohio’s individual income tax, applicable also to trusts and estates.

No committee assignment yet and no formal analysis of the bill has been prepared by the Legislative Service Commission — a dollar says those things won’t happen — but credit is due to these 19 leaders. It’s the biggest free-market idea out of the Ohio General Assembly since vouchers.

The honor roll:

John Adams, R-Sidney

Thom Collier, R-Mount Vernon

Arlene Setzer, R-Vandalia

Jeff Wagner, R-Sycamore

Tom Brinkman, R-Cincinnati

Matt Dolan, R-Novelty

Matt Huffman, R-Lima

Diana Fessler, R-Bethel Township

James Zehringer, R-Mercer County

Bruce Goodwin, R-Defiance

Kevin Bacon, R-Minerva Park

Courtney Combs, R-Hamilton

William Batchelder, R-Medina

Jay Hottinger, R-Newark

Cliff Hite, R-Findlay

Joseph Uecker, R-Miami Township

Lynn Wachtmann, R-Napoleon

John Widowfield, R-Cuyahoga Falls

Bill Coley, R-Liberty Township

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The Ohio Rail Development Commission is using $50,000 of your tax dollars to subsidize biodiesel for railroad companies. Liberty Fuels of Ohio will receive this corporate welfare to

purchase equipment to improve its ability to move and/or load and unload train cars, according to the release. By utilizing existing railroad, Liberty will have a greater ability to use different feed stocks to produce biodiesel…

As Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute noted:

Business subsidies, which are often said to be justified because they correct distortions in the marketplace, create huge market distortions of their own. The major effect of corporate subsidies is to divert credit and capital to politically well-connected firms at the expense of their less politically influential rivals.

There is also the problem that this corporate welfare is subsidizing biofuels, which pose their own economic and environmental problems:

U.S. farmers have taken 4.6 million acres out of the 36 million acres of farmland put aside in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to raise fuel crops. Switching land from the CRP to ethanol production will obviously effect wildlife, water usage, and soil erosion….

According to [a Cornell University and Univeristy of California] study, “Ethanol production using corn grain required 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.” And the news was even worse for cellulosic ethanol using switchgrass, which requires 50 percent more fossil energy than it displaces; woodchips needed 57 percent more; and biodiesel burnd 27 percent more fossil fuel than it displaces.

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As part of the debate over the Congressional budget resolution, Ohio Senator George Voinovich introduced an amendment to curb “emergency” spending. Trying to eliminate the abuse of this type of spending is long overdue.

The federal budget process is a complicated one. If Congress wants to spend money, it must comply with a variety of rules. However, there are a variety of loopholes that make federal spending easier. One of the most abused is “emergency” appropriations. By labeling something “emergency” spending, Congress can bypass ordinary rules and essentially spend money “off budget.”

Senator Voinovich’s office put it in this way:

If spending is designated as “emergency,” it is exempted from budget controls and spending limits. An example of the sort of emergency spending that concerns Sen. Voinovich is the designation of funding for the 2000 Census as emergency, even though the U.S. Constitution has required a census every 10 years since 1790.

Congressman Ron Paul describes it in these terms:

Congress funds the federal government through 13 enormous appropriations bills, but even an annual budget of more than $2 trillion is not enough to satisfy Washington’s appetite for new spending. As a result, a new category of spending bill has emerged, known as the “emergency supplemental” appropriation. There’s no real emergency, however; Congress simply needs a 14th spending bill as a grab bag filled with hundreds of pages of goodies for countless favored groups, industries, individual companies, and foreign governments. It’s common for dozens of amendments to be added to the supplemental bill, all with more money for somebody.

So-called emergency supplemental spending bills, once a rarity, have become the norm over the last ten years in Washington. There’s always some excuse why Congress cannot stick to its budget, so supplemental bills are passed to permit spending extra “off-budget” funds. “Emergency” spending now has become routine, planned spending.

Finding a way to curb this abuse of the budget process is an imortant step in restoring fiscal discipline.

Crossposted at the Buckeye Institute blog.

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AP and others are reporting that the Capitol Square Review & Advisory Board is seeking $200,000 immediately and another $800,000 eventually for upgrades to the 96 security cameras state troopers use to keep tabs on people in and around the Statehouse in Columbus.

The CSRAB said:

“We need to protect the governor, who is now making his office at the Statehouse; the legislature; and the citizens who visit the Statehouse daily,”

While they are upgrading cameras for security purposes, wouldn’t it make sense to put cameras in places where legislative activity takes place and stream these feeds on the web so that citizens might better keep tabs on their politicians?

After all, the legitimacy of government depends on the consent of the govern. This consent doesn’t mean as much when the deliberations of Ohio government are as difficult and time-consuming to acquire as they stubbornly remain in our information age.

Putting web cams into legislative committee rooms - where the real work of the General Assembly takes place - would put 11 million pairs of eyes into nearly every legislative hearing. The benefits would include a state government more accountable to its citizens and probably a lot more explaining to constituents by legislators of their ways of their work in Columbus. Unless, of course, the politicians figure out how many people really don’t buy the same excuses for spending over $56 billion a year that fly at the Statehouse.

I haven’t scoured legislative websites but it didn’t take too long to come up with two examples of legislatures already providing more transparency for their citizens than what the Ohio General Assembly gives to its citizens. Just this morning I dropped into a Senate Finance Committee meeting in Austin Texas, and then I paid a visit to a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in Phoenix featuring some 20 witnesses on a particular tax bill. Not literally, but via streaming web video provided by these states’ legislatures.

The ‘production values’ of the Arizona committee web cast were pretty impressive, but the simple web cam stuck in the corner of a Texas legislative meeting room opened that hearing to interested citizens across that vast state just as well.

Both of the sessions I found this morning were archived, but it appeared that real time streaming broadcasts of key committees was a regular part of the transparency services provided by Texas and Arizona for their citizens.

These Republican-controlled legislatures seem to be comfortable with greater scrutiny, unafraid to show their work, warts and all. Sooner or later it will happen here in Ohio. It would be a good thing for the Republican-controlled General Assembly to take ownership of the wave of transparency that’s penetrating governments across the country.

A taxpayer in Toledo or anywhere else in Ohio should be able to find out about what spending and taxes and other laws being actively talked about in Columbus as easily they might follow along with similar deliberations in Texas and Arizona.

The proposed security upgrade, while a reasonable action on its face, it still an example of government thinking of itself and its interests before that of citizens. Let’s be equally quick to point cameras on the meetings of the General Assembly (and other offices and agencies) for Ohioans to better follow the work of their government officials.

(Cross-posted at The BuckeyeBlog)

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In light of Ohio’s current budget issues, the Columbus Dispatch had an interesting story about how one agency hasn’t been paying its bills:

Some employees at the Ohio Department of Development got a surprise when they tried to leave the City Center parking garage with state cars late last year: Their state passes weren’t accepted, and they had to pay $9 each to get out.

That’s because the parking garage canceled the department’s account when bills for the 24 fleet cars that are parked there were not paid for five months, spokeswoman Kelly Schlissberg said.

A department clerk was responsible for not processing the bills, she said. No disciplinary action has been taken, but the agency’s human-resources department is reviewing the situation.

This is the agency that’s supposed to “guide Ohio’s growth?”

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The federal government has launched a website, www.usaspending.gov, detailing a myrad of details about apparently every federal contract issued. I’ve spent just a short few minutes on it, but it appears to be a revealing look into the line-by-line transactions in a large part of the national treasury’s checkbook. You know, that big checking account you pay into first before depositing what’s left over into your own personal account.

This website is the brain child of Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R), together with Barak Obama (D-IL). Kudos to them and to Ohio Senator George Voinovich (R) who co-sponsored the legislation, and to Rob Portman, who as OMB director, spearheaded the effort to compel the federal bureaucracy to deliver in good faith on the promise of the Coburn-Obama measure. Namely that overwhelming transparency of government is every citizen’s right and thanks to technology, now a feasibility. And that with 300 million eyes reviewing the nation’s checkbook, it will be a bit more difficult for Duke Cunningham’s and Bob Ney’s and William Jefferson’s (although there may be an honest explanation for that ATM built into his freezer) to get away with violating the public trust.

NOW…if only Ohio government ($52 billion a year in spending and counting) could similarly open its checkbook for us to examine! State Representative Tom Brinkman (R-Cincinnati) has legislation in the works which would get the state moving in this direction. Watch for its introduction sometime next year.

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According to Gongwer News Service:

Governor Ted Strickland should urge federal environmental regulators to revise proposed air quality rules that could bring about devastating impacts on the state’s economy, a manufacturing industry leader said Tuesday.

Former Michigan Governor John Engler, now president of the National Association of Manufacturers, asked Mr. Strickland during a Statehouse meeting to get involved in the U.S. EPA’s ongoing rulemaking process, saying the changes, if implemented, would force massive job losses.

NAM said the proposed rules, which would lower allowable ozone levels could cost the state upwards of 28,000 jobs and $3.7 billion in regional gross product.

Several other organizations, including the Ohio Farm Bureau, International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental & Reinforcing Ironworkers and the cities of Zanesville, Massillon, Steubenville, New Philadelphia and East Liverpool have also urged changes.

Buckeye Institute analyst Marc Kilmer makes the case for caution on these ozone regulations here.

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In light of all the issuess facing Ohio policymakers — weak economic growth, an unfriendly tax climate for business, health care, to name a few — what do 22 of your Representatives think is a pressing need? Whether or not cable companies carry the Big Ten Network and the NFL Network. Representative Lou Blessing, a Republican from Cincinnati, has introduced legislation “to require cable operators to participate in arbitration regarding disputes with providers of competing video programming.”

Representative Blessing justified this bill by saying, “When cable operators like Time Warner refuse to consider offering expanded programming because they are more worried about protecting their bottom line than serving Ohio customers, I’m deeply troubled.” This is coming from a member of the Republican Party, which is ostensibly the party that is in favor of a free market. I guess in Senator Blessing’s view, the free market is good except when it comes to watching sports on TV. At that point the government needs to step in and ensure cable companies carry programming that football fans want. Maybe if this bill fails he can ask Attorney General Marc Dann to file suit against the cable companies. It certainly seems they share a similar philosophy.

Of course, what Representative Blessing fails to note is that his (il)logic can easily be applied to the businesses he is trying to help with this legislation, The Big Ten Network and the NFL Network. Isn’t Representative Blessing concerned that these two networks are more worried about protecting their bottom line than serving Ohio sports fans? Where’s his outrage over that? After all, these are multi-million dollar corporations. They are seeking a profit just as much as Time Warner or any other cable company. There is nothing wrong with that. There is, however, something wrong with using government power to benefit these companies.

The bill would set up binding arbitration if a network does not like how a cable operator treats it. The secion in the bill reads this way:

If the provider of competing video programming has reason to believe it has not been treated in a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory manner by a cable operator concerning carriage of the provider’s competing video programming by the cable operator, it may submit a request for commercial arbitration…

You know, now that I think about it, this may be a good idea. Sometimes when I go into a store to buy, say, a box of cereal, I don’t think I’m being treated in a fair or reasonable manner when I have to pay $5 for some Fruit Loops. Maybe Representative Blessing and his colleagues can introduce legislation so that I can submit a request for arbitration between myself and the grocery store. Or maybe I can just go to another store and look for a better deal.

Buckeye Institute Marc Kilmer had an analysis of the situation with the Big Ten Network here.

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The Cleveland Plain Dealer had an article yesterday exposing millions of dollars in waste at Ohio’s nursing homes. It seems that nursing homes are approving care for patients who do not need it and who do not qualify for it, and the are sticking taxpayers with the bill through the Medicaid program:

Some Cuyahoga County nursing homes have become warehouses for the homeless and mentally ill, using millions of taxpayer dollars to house patients who often don’t qualify for the care. Medicaid pays nursing homes to take in hundreds of Cuyahoga patients discharged every year from hospital psychiatric wards. The mentally ill are eligible for admission to nursing homes only if they need 24-hour supervision or hands-on assistance. But 60 percent of the psychiatric patients admitted into Cuyahoga nursing homes, most on Medicaid’s dime, don’t need the care, the state found.

More here.

Eye on the Statehouse touched on this issue earlier this year when it bestowed the “Porker of the Week” on Ohio’s House members for inserting an additional $50 million in new funding for nursing home care.

Even when they are not fraudulently billing Medicaid, nursing home long-term care still costs more than long-term care in home or community settings. Ohio has one of the highest rates of long-term nursing home care. Taxpayers would be better served if the state’s long-term care needs were shifted towards home care, which is also more attractive to patients. And, of course, the state needs to ensure that those who do receive nursing home care actually need it.

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