In follow-up to Thea Shoemake and Heidi Huber’s Ohio-wide leadership on the issue of Common Core, I thought people may appreciate a belated Mother’s Day tribute for Ohio mothers to which we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude. I was inspired by a National Review article on two Indiana moms who lead their fight against Common Core to a successful conclusion.

You may not know Thea, Heidi and these Indiana mothers, but I can guarantee you would stand with them every day of the week.

Why? Because they ask nothing in return but to educate their children in the way they see fit. They want nothing from anyone in the process, give more than they ever should to their cause and if successful will be rewarded with nothing more than the protection of the rights they already possess.

At times, words like these sound melodramatic and hyperbole seems the order of the day. But, when so much of Ohio’s political leadership refuses to stand for what’s right – what choices do they have?

Ohio’s mothers are forced to protect their children, and goodness knows we need them to do so. It will be Ohio’s mothers and citizens who salvage the future for our children, because…

It was they who pushed the death and estate tax repeal, so we could keep our own wealth and property.

It was they who permanently prevented another Romneycare from ever forming in Ohio, Obama’s state exchanges from coming to fruition, employer mandates from happening and now stand against Kasich’s catastrophic embrace of Obamacare expansion through Medicaid.

It was they and a handful of good legislators who continue to oppose Kasich’s calls for higher taxes and more spending.

It is they who will advance Workplace Freedom in Ohio, and free workers from the bonds of forced union dues and unleash Ohio’s economic potential once again.

While Ohio’s future hangs by a thread, and the political future of the nation is at stake – it will not be elected officials who lead us to prosperity. It will be Ohio’s mothers and citizens who carry the day.

Thank you for all you have done, and will continue to do. Don’t give up the fight. Your sacrifice inspires me and many others to continue battling collectivism at every turn. Your commitment inspires us to never rest and never give in.

“Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito” – from Virgil translated as – “Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it.”

National Review Article – Two Moms vs. Common Core: How an eight-year-old’s homework assignment led to a political upheaval

UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE! Boehner and Congress think Obamacare is so bad, they want out of the system – but those of us who had (in my case) a 15% increase in my health insurance premium this year – we are screwed.

Higher costs. Worse coverage and care. Thanks government!

A real free market makes access to products easier and cheaper, all while bringing forth a better product.

Look at the most government influenced and controlled parts of our lives like healthcare and education, and you’ll see a worse product at a higher price.

By contrast look at all the products from computers to TV’s and mobile devices that have more variety, higher quality and more competitive pricing than ever. When government stays out – people win!!

Original article from Politico on Congressional Obamacare exemptions, “Lawmakers, aides may get Obamacare exemption”

Politics is sport.

For the general public – it’s like some terrible game being played where are all they get to see is a highlight reel edited by a producer whose agenda is rarely an honest representation of the game or players.

Three of us drove up from Cincinnati on April 11^th for the big lobbyist sponsored rally in support of Kasichcare-Obamacare at the statehouse. Our goal – talk to rally attendees about why they were supporting Obamacare expansion, and get a sense of the crowd’s make up and tone, accurately described in a recent post by Jason Hart. Here are some behind the scene snapshots and motivations in this Medicaid expansion fight most Ohioans will never see. I hope you’ll read this somewhat lengthy post that covers 3 major points:

1. Citizens can make a difference because we are willing to fight with all our heart and soul for our children and their future.

2. The Kasich administration prefers thug politics, and it continues to get worse.

3. Special interests manufacture perception, and the media is complicit.

#1 Citizens can make a difference.

For the millions of dollars that get spent in politics by lobbyists and special interests with their hands out for taxpayer money – citizens can still resist crony corporatism when it comes to their door.

While I was at the statehouse, Jim Heath from CBS Channel 10 in Columbus sent a very interesting tweet. It said: “The political reality is that Littleton probably has more sway with GOP senators than the coalition of 2,500 at rally.”

Within minutes of seeing Jim, I started chatting with the AP, only to be swarmed by media curious to hear perspective of Ohio Rising and grass roots efforts that have opposed Kasichcare-Obamacare expansion. I hadn’t planned to talk to the media at all at the rally, hence the t-shirt and ball cap. I merely discussed why Ohio Rising and freedom friendly people across Ohio oppose the Kasichcare-Obamacare expansion of Medicaid. Video of full interview at bottom of post if interested.

Whether talking with the media or debating on Facebook, those who question why people oppose Obamacare expansion always assume there is some kind of ulterior motive for our position. But there isn’t. We are asking for absolutely nothing other than common sense and good decision making from elected officials.

As you can see in the video, we simply explain that more government control in healthcare is worse for patients, more expensive than anyone can predict, will reduce insurance coverage in Ohio and is funded with future debt for our children.

The mainstream media does not understand our motivation, and regularly chooses to ignore the facts – until citizens engage and create a story they can’t ignore. On that day, the media wasn’t curious about me as a person. They were curious how citizens could be putting up a very sophisticated and multi-front fight that involved a TV, radio, mail and online ad campaign in addition to calls into representatives’ districts, calls to legislators and even door to door voter contact as well. They wanted to know how normal citizens were affecting elected officials and fighting the onslaught of special interest money for Obamacare expansion.

To further peak the curiosity, none of our effort involved national organizations, any political party or corporation with a special interest in this fight. For us and the donors who supported our campaign, the special interest was freedom. We merely want the economic freedom to provide for our families, and the personal freedom to choose the life we want to live.

Fighting to stop the government takeover of healthcare is really a fight to provide a freedom friendly future to my children, so they can be as prosperous as they desire. And in this battle for our children’s future, I know that we will be protecting the same opportunity for millions of other Ohio children and families. We know that a future full of potential is not possible when an irresponsible government seeks to tear down our healthcare system and further indebt every one of us.

I recently wrote a piece for Ohio Rising called, Why We Fight, which largely focused on the moral and societal decay brought about by government control of people’s lives. And while I have personal experience working with families and a healthcare system being ruined by more and more government control, and definitely fight to prevent this problem from getting any worse -

at the end of every day I look into my children’s eyes, and know I’d give anything to make their lives better.

In 2008, when I first jumped down the rabbit hole called grass roots political activism, my almost 4 year old son came up to me one night before he was about to go to bed, and simply asked me, “What are you doing?” He didn’t understand why I was coming home from work every day, jumping on a computer or attending meetings. All he knew was that dad wasn’t there to play with him like he used to.

I could see it in his eyes, a little heart broken and a little annoyed, since he’d asked that question almost every night that week only to receive dad’s calloused response of, “I’m just busy, Jacob. I’ll play with you tomorrow.”

To answer the question that evening, I guess I felt compelled to have a better of explanation. So, I sat him on my knee, looked right into his eyes and tried to explain that I was doing this for him, because a future without freedom and opportunity was no future at all. I knew that he wouldn’t understand this for years, and there would be plenty more moments like this, but what can you say to a 4 year old who just wants to play with his dad?

Over the last few years, I have missed more moments with my children than I can count, and goodness knows my wife hates the hardship that this work has become. In fact, I hate having to lead these fights because all I really want to do is provide for my family in peace and have time to enjoy life with them.

But I can’t. We can’t. We don’t have that luxury. If we do not fight for our children’s future, no one will.

Our country is ailing because we have unnecessarily pitted people against one another. The motivations to abandon the truly catastrophic redistributive system become weaker and weaker each day, exasperated by politicians who use debt financed spending to bribe people into liking them.

Public money for personal gain is wrong whether it is for a politician’s personal career or special interest’s crony dependence on taxpayers to finance their fortunes.

We must turn from a world financed by the theft of any one person’s future and heed the wisdom of the idea that – I own no man, and no man owns me. This means that I have no right to steal someone else’s future, and no one has a right to steal mine or my children’s future.

For this reason, I will fight with every bit of my heart until the very last possible moment. Shouldn’t you?

#2 The Kasich administration prefers thug politics, and this does affect people in Columbus.

Prior to the Obamacare expansion rally, we spent some time in the building that houses Governor Kasich’s office, the Riffe Center. On our way in, we crossed paths with top Kasich advisor and all-around bully, Jai Chabria.

As we crossed paths, Jai tried to give me the intimidator stare. You know the one – when someone stares at you for the exclusive purpose of saying I’d like to kick your butt, I hate you and you should fear me. I simply met Jai’s laughable attempt at intimidation by saying, “You going to the rally? Have fun!”

While these tactics make me laugh and simply serve as blog fodder – the stares in the hallways, furious phone calls and arm twisting meetings with Jai or other members of Kasich’s staff have become standard in Columbus. More than one legislator has told me that “Everyone knows Kasich is a bully. He is losing support every day.”

The simple truth is the reason I or any average citizen is not intimidated by such silliness is because John Kasich holds no strings on us. He doesn’t matter to my career or future. I want absolutely nothing from him or any elected official but to let me provide for my family and live our lives in the way we see fit. For a legislator who desires to have a political career, values re-election or to advance a certain piece of legislation – they have to work with these people, and I feel sorry for them.

Can you imagine working in an environment where co-workers used thug tactics to get their way all the time? What if you were regularly threatened by people who fought to consolidate power under just a handful people, and now those people were regularly telling you how they were going to make your life a living hell if you didn’t do what they wanted.

It’s not pretty, but this is how politics works in Columbus.

I highlight this one little moment and explain this background, because people don’t know that Ohio politics has become less of a battle of ideas, or more of a battle of wills and interests almost never for the reasons the public assumes. We aren’t fighting policy battles so much as battles of ego and ambition most of the time. The tools regularly employed have become the promise of greatness or the fear of obscurity. So sad, but so true.

#3 Special interests manufacture perception, and the media is complicit.

A huge portion of the group that showed up at the rally showed up in buses right on schedule. If you have never seen a rally for progressive ideas in action, it is truly an organizing masterpiece. Special interests like CareSource, Ohio’s biggest government funded managed care plan, often pay for the coordination of such rallies to produce the desired photo opportunities they say is proof the people of Ohio are behind their multi-million dollar campaign to push for expanding socialized medicine. The media happily goes along.

The irony is that CareSource and other “non-profit” and taxpayer funded managed care plans and hospitals are the primary drivers of the Obamacare expansion push because they have billions to gain from the expansion. These taxpayer funded non-profits have CEO’s begging for taxpayer money so they can perpetuate their million dollar salaries and compensation packages. I’m not kidding – CEO’s like Pamela Morris and James Pancoast are making over $2 million dollars a year through “non-profit” and taxpayer funded entities and then have the audacity to demand that our children be further indebted to perpetuate their lifestyle.

You can’t make this stuff up.

So in the sport called politics, what’s the takeaway?

A prosperous and opportunity filled future is worth the battle. Never stop fighting because when the citizens’ interests of personal and economic freedom align with the politician’s desires, a very bright future becomes possible.

Politics is a sport. I just choose to be in the game, rather than watch from the stands because I realize it will be played with or without me. I choose to make a difference, I hope you will too. When citizens choose to get in the game, the very nature of the contest changes and anything becomes possible.

Video of press interviews at Ohio Statehouse regarding Obamacare-Medicaid expansion

For many years and in multiple states, I worked in the healthcare industry for a company that specialized in care of medically fragile children in the home. Our primary payer source for this type of work was Medicaid. I negotiated contracts, worked with care providers and built operations teams all designed to facilitate the best possible care for medically fragile children. For this reason, I am extremely familiar with Medicaid from a variety of perspectives.

This experience further informed my views on the largely negative role of government in people’s lives, and can be summed up in a story about a real family and a real little girl who for privacy purposes, we’ll simply call Chantelle. Her story can be told time and again as it is representative of so many children and families across Ohio and the United States.

Chantelle was born prematurely because her mother made the mistake of doing drugs before and during the pregnancy, leading to a very problematic pregnancy and doing irreparable harm her child in the process. Like many children whose mother’s make the wrong decision with regards to drug and alcohol abuse, Chantelle was born severely premature. Her lungs were underdeveloped at birth, facilitating months in the hospital before she was even strong enough to go home.

Underdeveloped lungs normally give way to two horrible realities – first, the child, as was the case with Chantelle, will be ventilator dependent for an extended period of time (sometimes their entire life), and as a result of this dependence they are often forced to receive nutrition from a g-tube in addition to being particularly susceptible to all types of infections and disease that will result from this medically fragile state.

In Chantelle’s case, despite the fact that she was born to a mother with some drug problems, she did have a father, which quite tragically is far too rare in these stories. With that said, it was nice to have a father involved. At this moment in time, mom was not employed and dad was employed in a rather low paying job looking for more stable work.

Our company provided a variety of services to Chantelle for an extended period of time, and a number of things became infinitely clear in Chantelle’s story as in countless numbers of stories just like her.

1. Chantelle was a tough little critter capable of beating many of the challenges to which she was born. She was a fighter, and an adorable child.

2. But, mom resented being in this situation and created a horrible destructive environment which regularly ran nurses and a variety of care providers away. She refused to follow care plans designed by her doctor and our clinical director. She was regularly non-compliant with doctor’s orders, and was on multiple occasions reported to social workers by our clinical team as that was our course of action when we saw non-compliance or threats to our patient.

This back and forth became all too common. As an ongoing fight, and against doctor’s orders, Chantelle’s mother would regularly move away from prescribed nutritional regimen and feed her daughter horrible food in high quantities via g-tube. This resulted in an unnecessary case of childhood diabetes further complicating care in the home.

In fact, anytime tough little Chantelle showed significant signs of improvement, mom stepped in to (consciously or unconsciously) sabotage the progress. I truly wish this was not true, but it ended up being the reason Chantelle was discharged from our care – non-compliance and endangerment.

Over months of time, as our staff talked to mom about why she was doing all of this – it became clear that she didn’t really want her daughter to get better. She’d come to rely on staff at her home all the time, regularly leaving the house unexpectedly and for hours at a time using our staff like babysitters for even her other children.

Chantelle’s mother was a user, and not just of drugs, but of people. She was using Medicaid to perpetuate a lifestyle that would be gone if her daughter’s health improved.  Chantelle’s health could have improved and she could have beaten her childhood COPD and her life of g-tube feedings, but mom’s behavior and lack of responsibility and self-ownership made this impossible.

And, the sad thing is – Chantelle’s father was not much better. At one point he had an opportunity to take a job that had much better pay and solid benefits including insurance, but the insurance wouldn’t cover the around the clock nursing care and he wouldn’t have qualified for some additional need based benefits currently supplementing family income, including Medicaid, so he passed.

The mother had the skills and training to take care of this child, and the father could have embraced another life which would have provided greater prosperity for his family with a little extra work and sacrifice. But neither wanted to do this. They had become dependent on this system. It was a way of life they were unwilling to give up.

I lived and breathed every part of this story and many like it for years talking to families, doctors, care providers, case managers and everyone else involved in complex care of this kind. The story of self-destruction and terrible and costly health outcomes is all too common. The abuse of the system is even more common – doing just enough to remain qualified for care, but never enough to require discharge. Parents often know the right answers to the important questions that always keep them eligible for the respective benefits.

When I think about it, even in these moments, it breaks my heart. Why?

Because it’s an unnecessary story.

Drug abuse was the beginning of the problem, a riddle which government law, oversight or funding has been unable to solve. Because of the horrible personal decisions made by Chantelle’s mother, and the enabling environment in which they lived where this type of behavior is far too common and far too accepted – a series of events was set in motion. Crisis and higher cost pregnancy, extended and regular hospital stays, incredibly high need for care, staff, treatments and much more.

And maybe the most heartbreaking part of all is that when a little child could and should get better, her mother pushed against improving her health to perpetuate the government funded world on which she had come to depend.

Medicaid and welfare dependence for them wasn’t a safety net that helped them through a tough time – it was a way life. It was a way of life for them, and far too many in their community. Frankly, I’m not sure they knew any different. I never saw any sense of guilt or remorse over the scenario, and what became crystal clear over a year as Chantelle’s mother became more and more demanding was that she felt like these services and this care was owed to her.

So let’s talk about the really difficult things that no one wants to talk about. Government has become an enabler of these terrible scenarios. I just explained how Chantelle’s family had problems before she was born, but her life made those problems even worse. She later became the means to facilitate such behavior in her family for a much longer period of time.

Chantelle’s mother had lost all incentive to take over permanent care for her own daughter and see her future to its fullest potential. And with mothers and fathers like this as role models, what do you think will be the course of action for Chantelle’s siblings?

Medicaid is supposed to be a temporary welfare program, and we all hope that it isn’t a way of life for anyone. But it is, and it has become a way of life for so many. We understand when people are caught by a temporary social safety in the worst of times, but must always be facilitating an environment that is conducive to long term prosperity and growth for as many people as possible, so they rarely – if ever – need such a system.

By putting more people into an environment with no incentive to improve, prosper and change – we are creating a dependent, not independent society of people. Government dependence is an absolute last resort, not a way of life or anything people should embrace. Higher numbers of people less dependent on government in their day to day lives creates a healthy and vibrant society, not the other way around.

Only through personal responsibility and self-ownership can one create the pride, skills and ambition to lead a successful life and break the shackles of poverty.

A brilliant scholar who, to use his own words, was raised in the “ghetto,” understands and articulates the horrors of long term government dependence better than most.  Walter Williams wrote a book called “The State Against Blacks” where he outlines in horrible detail the abandonment of individual and community responsibilities that long term government dependence has facilitated in black, urban neighborhoods.

He argues that expansion and extension of the welfare state since the 1960’s actually prevented black communities from making the logical and expected socio-economic jump in a post-civil rights era that should have taken place. Many black communities, entrepreneurship and home ownership were on the rise until the welfare state was introduced. He chronicles the difficult but eventually successful launch of countless rounds of other minorities that always made the leap to prosperity after a generation of struggle.

He shows how long term government dependence is a personal and economic suicide pact. It literally eats await at the soul, for what is left of a person when they have ceded every bit of their pride by allowing someone else take on their responsibilities. What is left of a community who has lost the will to control its own destiny?

If you don’t think this world exists, it’s because you have not sought out the real plight of so many people in our world. Go to the areas with the highest Medicaid populations. Talk to the local care providers and social workers about non-compliance, enabling and destructive behavior and they will tell you the real story. Money does not solve this problem. Expanding already failed programs does not solve this problem.

This does not make the work of any us who have battled in this arena any less noble or any less necessary. It just means we need to give these individuals a better chance at winning – a chance at leaving that world and life behind. That requires incentives for leaving the system and making those who qualify for the care temporary, not long term recipients of that care, and it certainly does not mean putting more people in the cycle of destruction.

Qualifying more and often healthy and able bodies into a system that will enable the abandonment of personal responsibility perpetuates the destruction of society and is both suicidal and unsustainable. The moral reasons to stop investing into a bad system are crystal clear.

But once we are past the moral reasons, we at some point must discuss hard numbers and real policy. And in this area, we have tremendous problems as well. The discussion to expand Medicaid is occurring on a flawed premise for 2 major reasons.

1. With regards to taking money to expand Medicaid with a hybrid/federal exchange program, the legislature is assuming the PPACA provides a loophole that doesn’t exist. There is no such language of legislation in existence for this flexibility, which will necessitate creation of policy through bureaucratic means. This has no place in a society whose foundation rests on rule of law.

2. With regards to sustainability of a multi-billion dollar program, the legislature is looking at taking federal money that doesn’t exist. This is hard, simple and unfortunately very cruel math.

A flaw in this hybrid model people are discussing using the federal exchange is that – the federal healthcare bill does not provide a path to taking the money under outlined terms and conditions and then building your own customized solution. There is no law, definitely not PPACA, that provides this path.

That solution is predicated on the idea that we should trust the federal government and massive bureaucracies to do the right thing – bad idea. History shows us the flaw in that type of trust as bureaucratic lawmaking is always subject to the latest round of appointed bureaucrats, not rule of law with definite expectations, legal foundation and predictability.

But, even if it was possible, and even if Ohio could customize the program and funding in the way it saw fit, it would still be morally wrong as it would not incentivize independence, but enable more dependence.

And, maybe the easiest point to understand if it was legally possible and morally appropriate – there is no federal money for any form of expansion. Regardless of the model or perceived effects, America is broke. Ohio does not have an account with the federal government just filled with money. Ohio taxpayer dollars are not sitting on a mythical lock box waiting to be reclaimed. We are not missing any mythical fair share of money we have saved up.

These proposed expenditures and expansions are being financed with debt and my children’s future. My children did not ask for this and don’t deserve it.

The national spending problem has grown so out of the control, that the Federal Reserve literally pushes for printing of additional dollars out of thin air to help fill the gaps. It then buys the US treasuries, effectively monetizing and financing debt through inflation, which is even more destructive to the economy and average person’s way of life as this effects the buying power of the dollar – cost of gas, food, etc. The debt burden isn’t being picked up by “the rich,” – it’s being picked up by working people most effected by the costs of daily goods in the market.

This can be more easily described as the debasement of the US dollar since there are literally trillions more dollars in circulation since the printing of the dollars and the monetization of debt that started occurring on a massive scale thanks to President’s Bush and Obama both. Working class people are hurting more than anyone else because of horrible spending decisions by elected officials.

Bottom line on Medicaid expansion – stop trying to figure out a way to take money that doesn’t exist without massive debt.

After you’ve said absolutely NO NEW FEDERAL DOLLARS (because we are broke and will only increase our debt), and you stop relying on a nod and a hand shake deal with bureaucrats that have no legislative authority – then and only then, can we begin discussing fixes to Medicaid, which almost everyone acknowledges is broken.

Pull the damn thing out of the budget, and let’s have all those discussions over administration, formulary, eligibility criteria and health outcomes in a much more substantive way.

Trying to hang this mess on the budget, as if it’s the only time to discuss Ohio’s single largest long term liability, stinks of strong arm tactics from Governor Kasich. You are good, independent thinkers and should not be forced to make a decision on someone else’s timeline or for someone else’s political career.

Is it even responsible to make a world changing decision for millions of people in a few weeks with all the wrong motivators driving you?

This legislature has options. Do not let Governor Kasich force you into false choices. Do not add any form of Medicaid legislation to the budget right now, and let’s have this discussion for as long as it takes.

Half-completed solutions made on an artificial timeline never end well. This is no reason to rush or make a decision we will regret.

A few weeks to discuss a change that will affect millions of people for decades to come, most Ohioans would advise you to – slow down. Breathe. Let’s actually get serious about this and not just slap something together for the sake of expedience.

For moral and societal reasons – I urge patience.

For legal and procedural reasons – I urge caution.

And for financial and sustainable reasons – I urge more consideration.

We all agree the existing system needs to be fixed, but this is not the way to do it. Don’t steal from our future.

Looking forward to a 4th re-posting in 2014 where the same fake debate will continue, and both parties and the American people will somehow express shock or surprise that no cuts in spending eventually led to a need for more debt. My 2nd grade son could solve this math problem in about 1 minute. Spend less money than you take in. Enjoy. I’ll see you in 2014 with no changes to the status quo. Enjoy!

From my post update on May 14, 2012 Congress punted on the last debt ceiling debate predictably delaying any real decision making on spending and debt, therefore leaving us with the so called “sequester” which is supposed to guarantee deep cuts to the military and entitlement programs. So here we stand today, talking about the same thing we were a year ago. And mark it down – these big changes will not come to fruition and the chances of this being resolved are basically non-existent as neither party has the will power or common sense to do what is right.

Sadly, my editorial below still rings true despite the fact that it was published in the July 21, 2011 issue of The Hill. Time has passed, but DC remains the same – liars, thieves, frauds and demagogues. The Republic is burning, yet their actions (or in-actions) remain as predictable as ever. Change will not come from DC. Only individuals, through the states re-establishing federalism, can solve the problems which lay before us.

From my original post on July 21, 2011 in The Hill: To President Obama and members of the House and Senate leadership

Long ago, you plunged a dagger into the heart of the American dream, and began to kill the most precious gift we have preserved for each generation: liberty. It is our freedom to choose, our freedom to succeed and even our freedom to dream. For what dreams remain in a country wrought with debt, burden and unwanted obligation to the unrelenting, unflinching hand of force, our own government. You are stealing our future, and it is coming to fruition in the current debt and budgetary crisis.

The problem begins on the island of misfits, known as Washington D.C., where you have become spoiled brats more obsessed with personal gain and self-preservation than short or long term solutions for the American people.

Out in the real world, we are tired of your ridiculous talking points meant to achieve political objectives for your respective side, and we are done with hollow promises about getting government spending under control. You know why it’s not under control – because none of you want it to be under control. Because giving an inch on your sacred cows means weakening your own power, your own influence and your own means to that god-like position.

Like every family in this country understands, you must live within your means. So when you don’t have the money, you cut back. Yes, it would require trimming, but we could live on the same income we had a few years ago, and that is exactly what we are demanding of you.

Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Defense and the Treasury (mostly payment on the debt) – these 4 areas of expenditure eclipse all federal tax revenue before we even consider any other departments that make up the remainder of the budget.

True leadership requires making tough decisions on: benefit criteria for Social Security and Medicare, reduction and block granting of Medicaid funds to the states while at the same time eliminating the extortion process that ties their hands through federal mandating, reductions in defense spending (foreign and domestic) and significant cuts in every single other federal department.

Cut those things, cap the spending and balance the budget – a simple starting point. Without definitive and long term purpose in solving this crisis, you are risking much more than a simple default.

Here are some important concepts for you through the negotiations:

1. Stop blaming each other.  Each side can take blame for respective parts of this mess. No one is perfect and everyone knows it, so stop acting like spoiled brats playing with other people’s toys.

2. Everything is subject to being cut and significantly reformed. There is no money, so across the board cuts are needed. It doesn’t favor any interests over another. In fact, if you cut 15 percent a year for the next three years and cap and balance, the budgetary crisis is solved.

3. Just for the Republicans: the military has tons of waste, abuse and flawed priorities. Saying this does not make one “unpatriotic.” It is reality. Worldwide spending of billions of dollars does not equate to providing for our common defense or keeping Americans safe. In fact, our best “defense” right now is financial solvency.

4. Just for the Democrats: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security have broken formulas for solvency. Because these programs require significant reform does not mean anyone wants to abandon the elderly, poor or medically fragile. In fact, if significant reforms to these programs don’t occur immediately – you won’t be looking at a gradual change more easily absorbed. You will be faced with overnight collapse of the economy – meaning all those people lose in a much bigger way.

By the way, if it can be done at the state level – it should be, and that’s almost everything. Sending money to DC through a multi-billion dollar filter is complete lunacy. For this idiocy to work, you make the assumption that you or some other random bureaucrat knows how to run my life better than I do – in my own state, in my own town. Ridiculous.

Lastly –government doesn’t create jobs. Entrepreneurs create jobs. Even when you open a new government building or department, you are taking money from the existing work force and making that money far less productive than it would have been if left in the hands of citizens. You have no ability to produce anything, and are by definition of your very existence, a restriction on freedom and prosperity to all citizens. The best thing you can do is to stay out of the way.

There is one single fix to our problems: the fundamental limitation of government, and therefore the protection of personal and economic liberties for every American – the freedom to choose one’s own destiny without inhibition.

Personal Liberty + Economic Liberty = Prosperity. I call it the prosperity formula, and it’s obvious you never covered this in the real halls of education known as daily life.

Look at your yearly tax totals and you’ll see a huge chunk of your money goes to pay for local government and schools. But on what specifically is that money spent?

Answer – government employees salaries and benefits. In almost every school and municipality, this is the number one budget driver and fastest increasing cost. In many schools, staff salaries and benefits account for over 75% of the entire budget.

Look up your teachers and state government employees’ salaries with a new tool from Opportunity Ohio – upper right hand corner of this website: opportunityohio.org

Shockingly, the numbers focus on salaries and do not include the total benefits package which is tens of millions of more dollars for each school district and municipality.

The news talks about national debt and spending problems in DC, but the state and municipal spending problem is just as dangerous and just as real.

Bottom line: if Ohio and its municipalities do not fix their top driver of spending, staff salaries and benefits, Ohio truly is what Forbes Magazine called, a “Death Spiral State.”

Something to look for in this breakdown: rarely do the tools the Obama campaign used pay the equivalent in huge commissions, favors and handouts of traditional campaign methods with almost no metrics for success: mail, media buys, etc.

By contrast, these older methods keep high powered Republican consultant counterparts extremely well paid and all but unaccountable for results and effectiveness. As we have seen too many times, statists are using free market principles and tools to advance anti-freedom ideas. Ironic.

A few interesting pieces of information from the report and Obama campaign:

• 21% of the $411 million spent on ads for team Obama were digital – meaning not on mail, TV, Radio or Print
• 404  fundraising e-mails were sent by team Obama in 2012, most of which were finely tuned and message tested for maximum effect by an 18 person team
• 1 out of every 75  people in the United States (yes, that’s counting every man, woman and child in the population) donated to the Obama campaign – over 4 million people
• 16 million people were on the Obama e-mail list vs. the 3 million on Romney list

Read the whole report here called: “Inside the Cave: An In Depth Look at the Digital, Technology, and Analytics Operations of Obama for America”

Really fascinating stuff. I’m proud to be working on similar projects for liberty minded causes and people!

Simple question: Is this good or bad?

Watch the video below for some perspective before you answer.

Earlier this year, Indiana became the 23rd workplace freedom state. Now, Michigan will be embracing workplace freedom – AKA “right to work” – to become the 24th. You can see the Michigan Governor’s video message here.

The time has come for Ohio to join the 24 other states, and become a workplace freedom state as well.

Apart from the simple morality that every worker should be free to choose whether they pay dues to a union or not just to have a job, recent reports from Media Trackers in Ohio confirm what Workplace Freedom has meant to other states with regards to job creation and rising wages.

Two must read articles on the economic impact of workplace freedom here:

Ohio’s Abysmal Job Growth Compared to Workplace Freedom States

Compared to Ohio, Wage Trends Favor Workplace Freedom States

We can’t let Ohio fall behind. We must create freedom of choice in the workplace, and by doing this provide Ohio businesses with more flexibility in the workplace which means more profitable companies, more job growth, increasing wages and more investment in Ohio.

Now is the time to free workers from the shackles of forced union dues. Give Ohio workers freedom of choice.

Please support the Ohio Workplace Freedom Amendment efforts, and help us bring this issue before voters in 2013 by giving to them today.

Every Ohioan should have freedom of choice on this issue. Let the people decide!

Why should you listen to Matt Mayer? He called the Obama win in Ohio within 2 tenth’s of a percent of the final number. To say he has credibility on analyzing this election would be an understatement.

Part 1: Candidate Problem = Base Problem

The base never solidified behind Romney, and you could see the problem in the primaries. My personal belief is that he stood on a precarious record and fit too easily into the stereotype for a rich, white, country club, pro-Wall Street, anti-Main Street, out of touch Republican. Like it or not – most Americans, including much of the GOP base, never embraced him for both principled and emotional reasons.

To see this in numbers, let’s look at primaries of 2008 vs 2012

• 2008: 2,386,945 Ohioans cast ballots
• 2012: 1,213,879 Ohioans cast ballots
• Santorum won 69 of Ohio’s 88 counties in 2012

In 40 out of the 69 base counties that Santorum won, Romney received fewer votes than Mike Huckabee received in 2008 in a largely uncontested primary.

In the end, the numbers speak for themselves. Romney received 93,200 fewer votes in Ohio than McCain did four years earlier.

Part 2: The Slow Death

• Ohio Republican Party in-fighting set up Ohio for failure – Kasich’s GOP takeover gutted experienced operatives from recent Ohio election cycles. This meant that the Ohio GOP was rebuilding when it should have been firing on all cylinders.
• A long drawn out primary kept the appropriate ground game from ever being formed – with Romney not securing the nomination until late in the year, no network, ground game or infrastructure could be built around a candidate.
• Team Obama fortified ground network – Obama never shut down Ohio operations after 2008, even hiring their campaign team for 2012 in March of 2009. They ended up with 137 offices in Ohio when all was said and done, in addition to having years worth of voter identification on key issues.
• Team Obama defined Romney early – while Romney was mired in a primary, Obama took a bet that Romney would be the nominee and started defining him early in key swing states with almost no resistance.

For these reasons, Ohio’s polling was incredibly consistent throughout the campaign showing Obama holding a small but solid lead from Spring until November.

Part 3: Obama had a Superior Ground Game

• Aaron Pickrell, Director of Obama Campaign in Ohio said after the 2008 campaign – they “never shut down.”
• Obama: 137 offices vs. Romney: 40 offices – Obama invested heavily into ground operations. Romney campaign didn’t do near as much, near as early.
• Unbelievably sophisticated voter ID program and messaging program – Romney campaign focused on candidate based questions very late in election cycle. Obama campaign worked through layer after layer of issues based ID over a longer period of time, giving them better insight into voters and messaging.
• Ground game – unequaled. Last weekend of the campaign Romney hits 70K doors, Obama hits 376K doors.
• Obama won the game of turn out because they controlled their losses.
• Obama won the air game because they understood what they should say to voters.

As the Obama campaign manager in Ohio explained – Romney and Obama reached parity in TV, radio and mail ads, so the Obama campaign chose to invest heavily into the ground game because they felt it would be the difference maker. They were right.

Part 4: Obama Won the Media Narrative

Most Ohioans don’t get their news from the NY Times or Washington Post. They watch and read local media, and in these mediums Ohio has a serious problem. From Mayer’s article and book, some comments on JINO’s (Journalists In Name Only):

“These JINOs give the impression that they present both sides of the story, and you’ll find conservatives quoted in many stories. Conservative quotes, however, typically appear at the very end of the story. Many readers never make to the end of most stories and thus miss the other side of the story. This end of the story treatment is used only to provide a thin veneer of presenting “both sides.” Naturally, these stories were selected by the JINOs based on their priorities and not on the work done by conservative.”

“This failure on the part of those entrusted with the responsibility to fairly and accurately provide readers with news important to them puts taxpayers at an enormous disadvantage when it comes to making informed decisions.”

In two distinct instances, a failure to report important information meant voters didn’t have the right info:

1. Ohio has lost more workers from its labor force from 2010 to August of 2012 than any other state in the US.
2. Media ignored reports which detailed the impact that President Obama’s war on coal and Governor Kasich’s proposed tax hike on oil and gas would have on Ohio.

On two key issues of the election, the media narrative was Obama friendly. Why?

Summary: Kasich and the GOP had no interest in highlighting Ohio’s problems, because they wanted to protect their image and plan for re-election in 2014 and a Presidential run in 2016. In fact, they did the opposite causing a messaging nightmare for the Romney campaign. Obama had no interest in highlighting Ohio’s problems because it would have reflected negatively upon him. And, media has no desire to report on these stories because they are missing them and have a proclivity to report in a way which discounts conservative talking points.

Part 5: Obama Won Hearts. Romney Tried to win Minds

Obama effectively used the auto-bailouts to shape Romney and appeal to the right voters. For him, it was never about principles or economic realities – it was always about a feeling of saving Ohioans from a much worse fate. He was successful.

The “right” moved off topic and onto Benghazi – big mistake. This was an incredibly complex issue, with lots of changing information on an area where voters weren’t focused. From Mayer –

“Would a foreign policy event trump jobs and the economy, especially when the national media — JINOs — would do its part to protect President Obama? There answer, of course, was no. The Ohio exit poll showed that so few voters named foreign policy as a top issue that it couldn’t even determine which candidate prevailed on that issue. For 59% of voters, the economy was the top issue and Governor Romney carried those voters by just 2 percent, despite the sluggish economic growth and job increases over the last year.”

Kasich factor again: Romney could not message to Ohioans on struggles in the local economy (very heart driven issue), because Kasich had to protect his own image taking away one of Romney’s greatest potentially emotional messages.

Healthcare was also off the table as a campaign message: with Romney having RomneyCare (an early version of Obama’s healthcare plan) in his past – the highly emotionally charged issue of the government takeover of healthcare was removed from the equation.

And what a shame – just one year before, 66% of Ohioans rejected Obama-style mandates at the Ohio ballot box. From Mayer – “Approximately 20% of Ohioans named health care as the top problem, with President Obama winning those voters with 73% of the vote.”

Summary: In Mayer’s words, “Republicans chose to fight on issues that wouldn’t help Governor Romney in Ohio because (1) reality beats theory, (2) our own team undermined the message, and (3) this wasn’t a national security election.”

Part 6: Concluding Why Obama Won

“Finally, due to all of the items discussed above and in Parts I-V, Ohioans simply liked President Obama more than Governor Romney. On some of the key questions, Ohioans saw President Obama as more like them. Here is what the Ohio Exit poll showed:

• On who is more in touch with them, President Obama bested Governor Romney 50% to 46%;
• President Obama’s favorability-unfavorability rating finished at 55% to 43%, a 12 point positive margin;
• Governor Romney favorability-unfavorability rating finished at 45% to 50%, a 5 point negative deficit;
• Ohioans felt President Obama’s policies favored the rich, the middle class, and the poor at 10%, 43%, and 36%, respectively;
• Ohioans felt Governor Romney’s policies favored the rich, the middle class, and the poor at 56%, 35%, and 1%, respectively;
• On who cares about people like me, President Obama won that question 84% to 15%.

It simply is too hard to win when you are seen as more out of touch, less liked, and more interested in helping the rich versus the rest. It doesn’t matter if that last item is actually true, in presidential politics, perception crushes reality. And that, dear readers, is the only story that really mattered on Election Day.”

How should we move forward?

I wrote this in a previous blog called “Obama Won – What Now?” but Mayer says even more.

“As one large conservative Ohio donor said, “We don’t need more [expletive] reports!” We don’t need more research. We do need more strategic and specific, policy based action.

We need ongoing support and infrastructure for groups “like Ohio Rising that do the spade work across Ohio week after week, month after month, and year after year to identify and to educate millions of Ohioans. This activity is exactly what Obama for America Ohio did over the last few years very effectively.”

If not, all of the money invested in political ads during the last four months of a campaign will continue to hit hardened soil. The “left” does not shut down after elections. They build on their experiences. In this way – the “right” is doomed to repeat its failures. We rely on elections to change things. The left does not. Mayer’s point on a non-party, non-candidate model can not be overstated:

“Importantly, this effort cannot be controlled by a political party, as then it becomes about a candidate. The lesson from the Kasich-DeWine fight discussed in Part II is that politicians will try to control political tools. This effort expressly is not and cannot be about candidates. It must be about advancing the freedom agenda in Ohio to make our state a leader among the states, which will benefit candidates who advocate that agenda.

This effort also will allow grassroots Ohioans to push for issues that the political establishment doesn’t have the will to pass. Imagine what a difference it could have made in last year’s government collective bargaining battle in Ohio. Because Ohio has a veto referendum tool for voters, controlling all levers of government only gets our side so far. The Left will continue to challenge laws enacted and place issues in front of voters. We must be ready.

The key is to begin this work as soon as possible so that it can be a force in 2014 and the determining factor in 2016. The foundation for this effort already is in place. We must now expand it dramatically. As more and more Ohioans are brought into the growing network, it will serve as distribution network for our freedom agenda.”

In order to successfully accomplish these goals, citizens (not politicians or political parties) must push ideas forward.

We must also learn how to focus on people’s hearts, and not just their minds.

We must build up the alternative media so Ohioans are not dependent on JINOs (Journalists In Name Only).

I am in 100% agreement with Mayer in his closing comments:

“The path to a better Ohio and a better America does not begin in Washington, D.C. –  it ends there. We must renew America from the grassroots by re-embracing the power of federalism to find the best solutions to America’s toughest challenges. By leveraging our fifty laboratories of competition, we will fix our states and, by doing so, fix America.

It is time to get over the regrets of the last election and get to work advancing freedom.”

Matt Mayer’s articles in their original form can be found at the bottom of his articles page at Provisum Strategies here.