Should states be able to account for tax payer money?

United States
March 15, 2013 8:17am CST
Here in GOP controlled Ohio, the governor decided shortly after he was elected, that he would create a public/private company to deal with job creation. Of course this new company was only going to get start up money from the government of $1 MILLION, but seeing how half of the 26 employees were making six figures a year they needed more money so now the state has dropped $5.3 MILLION total into the company. But, that is a drop in the bucket when you look all of the grants, and state liqueur money which has been redirected to this public/private company (put to $165 MILLION, but no one knows because the governor won't allow it to be audited). The best part of this whole story is that a year a go Democrats tried to point out that it would be very difficult to audit this company because it takes private money. Republicans countered that with the State Auditor saying "To put it simply, the Auditor of State’s authority follows public money wherever it flows – including to private entities." Many other republicans including the speaker of the house attacked democrats saying: ”he believes many of the transparency concerns raised by Democrats were either misleading or misunderstood. He said the state auditor has the ability to audit JobsOhio.” However, it is now audit time, and guess what is happening? The governor is now saying "The problem gets to be when you get into private companies. Any time there’s public money, we’re absolutely in favor of that being audited. Hopefully, we’ll get this all worked out," The speaker of the house who attacked Democrats idea that it could be hard to audit a public/private company is now saying of the audit by fellow republican Yost: "If there’s clarification needed in the law, maybe it’s because there isn’t any power for him to do what he’s doing …,” "I drafted most of that [legislative language]," the Speaker noted, adding that Mr. Yost doesn’t have that authority to go into a private corporation and audit it. "I’m waiting for him to get into Chrysler Motors or Fiat. You know we bought a lot of those cars this year." One of the reasons that Yost wants to audit the JobsOhio is that it received $6.6 MILLION in contributions from unidentified donors. It appears that the stat of Ohio has $170 MILLION in taxpayer dollars tied up in a public/private company that was created by the speaker, who according to his own words, to be above any audit by the state, while saying that the state would be able to audit it. Sound like a someone should be investigated? http://www.plunderbund.com/2013/03/10/five-prominent-republicans-insisted-jobsohio-could-be-publicly-audited/ http://www.examiner.com/article/ohio-auditor-yost-gov-kasich-clash-over-jobsohio-financial-records
1 response
@andy77e (5156)
• United States
15 Mar 13
I'm against all socialism. *all* Socialism. Democrats are far worse on this, but even when other people do it, it's still wrong. Socialism is bad. Socialism always fails. This is just another example of that.
1 person likes this
• United States
15 Mar 13
I personally believe that this country works best when we have a 50/50 mix of socialism, and capitalism. To much of either has shown to destroy the country.
@andy77e (5156)
• United States
15 Mar 13
Name one country that has too much Capitalism, and it destroyed the country? USA does not qualify as either.
• United States
16 Mar 13
Name me a country that has ever tried full capitalism? The US doesn't count because both know it is a mixture of socialism, and capitalism.