Deep cuts, privatization fill Kasich’s first budget

[upstatecajun]

Source: Dayton Daily News


By Laura A. Bischoff 
and Christopher Magan, Staff Writers
Updated 6:14 AM Wednesday, March 16, 2011

COLUMBUS — Gov. John Kasich’s two-year, $55.5 billion operating budget calls for cutting funding for local governments, capping college tuition increases, refocusing the massive Ohio Medicaid program, selling off five state prisons, and injecting more choices in how K-12 schools are run.

The spending plan, which must be approved by the General Assembly by June 30, does not include tax increases


Read more: http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/deep-cuts-privatization-fill-kasichs-first-budget--1109000.html

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[sabbat hunter]

1. sounds like

he is relying on one shot gimmicks like selling the prisons. To whom is he selling them? A state agency ? (which just really moves the debt around) To a private company? If so how much will they charge to run it each year?

[highplainsdem]

3. Please see my other reply here, which links to a general topic I started about ALEC last week.

The private-prison industry has a lot of influence on the American Legislative Exchange Council. There's a prison-industrial complex in this country, and ALEC seems to be the main group responsible for the legislation privatizing prisons. Kasich has been a member of ALEC for many years.

ALEC is also behind the three-strikes-you're-out and minimum-sentencing laws which mean more people in prison more days, which benefit the prison-industrial complex.

ALEC was also behind the radical immigration law in Arizona, and the the CCA, Corrections Corporation of America, was on the ALEC task force which helped write the model legislation.

The US has the highest incarceration rates in the world because we have a prison-industrial complex benefiting from that high incarceration rate, at taxpayer expense and great cost to our society in general.

[highplainsdem]

2. He's following the American Legislative Exchange Council blueprint. See these links:

This is the topic I posted last night about ALEC's "State Budget Reform Toolkit":

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x658572


This is the more general topic I started last week to try to make sure everyone here knows about ALEC. According to Wikipedia, Kasich has been a member since its formative years:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230


This is the group behind the rightwing legislative blitz we're seeing this year. These are not isolated "reforms" -- ALEC is basically a giant lobbying group in the guise of an "educational charity" where corporations help draft pieces of "model legislation" that are taken back to state legislatures by ALEC's thousands of conservative state legislator members, who get "scholarships" to help pay for travel to ALEC conferences with lots of nice perks.

[truth2power]

4. Thank you, highplainsdem, for these links. I'm in OH and I'm keeping a file..

First I heard about ALEC was back in the summer during the AZ immigration mess. I had no idea the private prison industry was behind that.

These people really are like a cancer that's metastisized. They're everywhere.