The big dollar DC union money has paid for a lot of TV ads for their front group “We Are Ohio”. The latest one is called ‘Promises’ and like its predecessors the ad is a new assortment of innuendo and lies designed to shield Ohioans from the truth about Issue 2. The script of the ad is as follows:
John Kasich promised to make Ohio great again. But he gave over 100 million of our tax dollars to big corporations, while Ohio continues to lose jobs. Now Kasich is using Senate Bill 5 to destroy collective-bargaining rights for Ohio workers. Kasich and other politicians took over 3 million in campaign contributions from corporate special interests who could profit from Senate Bill 5. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can stop Senate Bill 5 by voting no on Issue 2.
I’m sure it was hard for their writers to wait until sentence #2 to start distorting, but once they start they go all-out. Let’s look at some of these lies and distortions.
– “But he (Kasich) gave over 100 million of our tax dollars to big corporations, while Ohio continues to lose jobs.” Our friends at BizzyBlog do a great job dissecting this statement and the ad as a whole. The truth is Ohio has added over 80,000 jobs since Kasich took office. While there was a loss of 700 jobs from July to August that followed month after month of employment increases statewide. One month of a very slight decline aside, claiming that Ohio has continued to lose jobs is just wrong.
– “Now Kasich is using Senate Bill 5 to destroy collective-bargaining rights for Ohio workers.” This is the lie the unions keep repeating to Ohioans. No one is “destroy[ing] collective-bargaining”. Government employees can still bargain on wages, hours, terms and conditions of employment, passing Issue 2 would simply provide a better definition of those terms and conditions.
– “Kasich and other politicians took over 3 million in campaign contributions from corporate special interests who could profit from Senate Bill 5.” This one was well-dissected by The Columbus Dispatch’s ad watch. Here’s the Dispatch’s write-up from the mouth of We Are Ohio’s propaganda director spokeswoman Melissa Fazekas on how the $3 million figure was calculated (emphasis added):
Asked to clarify, We Are Ohio spokeswoman Melissa Fazekas said the ad counts (dating back to 2007, three years before Kasich was elected) $2.3 million in contributions from for-profit education groups, about $365,000 from the health-care industry and $315,000 from private prisons and public-safety groups.
In other words, We Are Ohio combined contributions made to Republican state legislators (currently there are 82 of them) and Kasich made by these interest groups over the past 4 years.
The “creative accounting” of We Are Ohio aside, how exactly would private companies profit from changes to government collective bargaining? Fazekas says it would come from potential privatization of state agencies, a connection the Dispatch said was “slight and tangential at best”. What the Dispatch worked so hard not to say was this: it’s a complete lie. Corporations aren’t going to profit from Issue 2: the ones who will profit are Ohio taxpayers.
‘Promises’ is just the latest in the series of ads made and paid for by We Are Ohio and its big union contributors that refuses to deal with the facts of Issue 2. As the polls have shown Ohioans like the reasonable reforms of Issue 2 piece by piece, so the left has engaged in this ongoing web of misinformation aimed at keeping voters in the dark long enough to win in November.
With early voting underway, it’s more important than before to fight back against the We Are Ohio deception campaign and let people know the truth. Asking government employees to contribute a fair share isn’t unreasonable, and it’s why you should Vote Yes on Issue 2.