Electric Deregulation?

>  Do you find it a coincidence that the Republicans and Kasich slash the funding for the Ohio Consumers Counsel and now they are trying to deregulate electricity in the state?

JDSupra has the details about Speaker Batchelder's plan.

*   Columnist Eugene Robinson puts the blame on the Republicans for the S&P downgrade of the country.  Washington Post:

....Republicans in the House, using the Tea Party freshmen as a battering ram, threatened to compel a default. More accurately, they demanded big budget cuts as the price of raising the debt ceiling. If the Senate and President Obama did not comply, the Treasury’s access to capital through borrowing would have been cut off.

The government’s cash flow would have been slashed by 40 percent, leaving not nearly enough to fund essential operations, pay entitlements and also service the debt. Somebody was going to get stiffed. Paying interest to bondholders could have been given priority over competing obligations such as salaries for our people in military service and Social Security checks for retirees. But for how long?...

....S&P, however, gave a host of largely bogus reasons for its action. Why am I not surprised? This is a firm that aided and abetted the subprime crisis — and the devastating financial meltdown that ensued — by giving no-risk ratings to dodgy securities based on mortgages that should never have been written. The firm’s credibility is spent, as is that of the other ratings agencies, Moody’s and Fitch.....

As Robinson said in his piece, "....Eric Cantor should never have planned to use the debt ceiling vote as “leverage.”

The Republicans are playing games and we'll all suffer because of it.

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>>>>>  Republican Gov. John Kasich is pushing forward with his unpopular plan to sell/lease the Ohio Turnpike.  Business-Journal:

The state Office of Budget and Management, in consultation with the Ohio Department of Transportation, is launching a process that officials describe as considering possibilities for "leveraging" the Ohio Turnpike.......

With the financial failures of the Indiana Turnpike, will Kasich get his wish of $3 billion?  Why does Kasich want to sell/lease the Ohio Turnpike when it clearly makes a profit every single year? Our tax dollars and tolls paid for its construction and maintenance for many years.  How does he have the right to sell/lease it?

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****  Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (Oh-15th), a former bank lobbyist, is holding a townhall meeting tonight, Tuesday, in Marysville, 7-8pm, at the Union County Services Building, 940 London Avenue, Marysville.  Once again, Stivers is staying out of the heavily Democratic areas of his district for one of his meet the people sessions.  For more information, see the 912 meetup or call the Stivers office to verify info:  (614) 771-4968.  Don't you wonder why Stivers has kept this townhall meeting so secret?????