IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE: REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED LEGISLATURE - OHIO IS HEADING DOWNWARD?

Everyday Ohioans and Stark Countians need to readjust.  In the words of one book out on the market, we need to adopt the book's suggestions of 365 ways to live cheap.

Because the U.S. economy and, of course, Ohio's (probably accentuated) is headed downward and the financial standard on we live is - within the foreseeable future - in the process of a inexorable and dramatic drop off.

And who is to blame?

For Stark Countians, the SCPR says, blame from the Ohio perspective lies with the Ohio General Assembly.  Not all states of the 50 are in a downturn, but Ohio is certainly one of the leading one heading southward.

All one has to do is to look at the fact that Ohio has lost about 600,000 jobs going back a decade.  A time span which encompasses the likes of current state legislators Scott Oelslager (R - Senate - 29th; also formerly of the House and Senate going back to the 1980s), Kirk Schuring (R - House - 51st; also formerly of the Senate and of the House) and Stephen Slesnick (D - House - 52ns).  Moreover, the time span also includes Todd Snitchler (R 0- House - 50th for 2 years), John Hagan (R - House - 50th for 8 years), William J. Healy (D - House - 52nd; 2 years), Mary Cirelli (D - House - 52nd for 4 years) and Johnnie A. Maier, Jr. 50th for nearly 8 years).  Current representative Christina Hagan (R - House - 50th) and former rep. Michael Stevens (D - House - 50th) are not included because of the brevity of their stints in office.

Unemployment figures are abysmal.  Of Ohio 88 counties, Stark at 10% ranks 44th in terms of having the most severe unemployment problem according to official state of Ohio statistics for July, 2011.

As far as the SCPR is concerned, the current Ohio unemployment dilemma is owned by both parties and owned by former governors Strickland (a Democrat) and Taft (a Republican) and their respective majorities in the Ohio House (Strickland) and Senate (both for Taft who had a veto proof majority for a time) because they failed to exercise "for the good of the people" leadership and instead devolved into partisan wrangling over Republican/Democratic bromides for what ailed Ohio rather than "think outside the box" and act on bold new initiatives that long term could have spared Ohio the severity of the financial and economic mess which plagues most, but not all, of the nation.

Stark's current set of legislators like the cover of the national recession as an excuse for Ohioans and Stark Countians suffering the way they are.  But if they were anything but muckety-muck legislators, Ohio could have been the exception to the rule.  The fact of the matter is there is nothing distinguishing about any of the legislators listed in this blog and they along with Strickland and Taft should be remembered for having let all of us down.

What is perplexing about the list is that nearly all of them (the legislators) remain elected public officials to this day.  Of course, Oelslager, Schuring and Slesnick remain members of the Ohio General Assembly.  And you have Healy (mayor of Canton), Hagan (Marlboro trustee and who tried to become a Stark County commissioner in 2008), Cirelli (a Canton councilwoman) and Maier (clerk of courts in Massillon).

To The Report these folks are "career politicians" who are plagued with stagnant thinking and are lethargic in approach and action.  They are settled in and are personally comfortable being on the public payroll while untold numbers of Stark Countians and Ohioans suffer.

Todd Snitchler in particular is an interesting case.  Elected to replace John Hagan in 2008, he sought re-election in 2010,  knowing full-well that should Republican John Kasich be elected governor he was going to be in a Kasich administration in some capacity.  Kasich was elected and Snitchler (who Kasich described as being "wicked, smart") got a posh job (going from about $60,000 annual pay as a legislator to $124,500) as chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio; leapfrogging over a number of others with more compelling credentials.  However, the point is that it is obvious that Snitchler, like others on the list above, was looking out primarily for himself and his political future and not primarily the financial and economic well-being of Stark Countians.

Yes, while many Stark Countians do have to figure out 365 ways (if not more) ways to live cheap to maintain any semblance of their being used to a certain standard of living; those who stood by and let the financial/economic calamity settle in live - for the most part - rather large.

One would think that those who participated in bringing on bad times would have a hard time being elected to anything.

So if Stark Countians are going to pull out of the financial/economic hard times, they are going to have to quit electing "career politicians" time after time after time after time!!!