Do you have a minute to make a difference?

I wrote a letter to our Ohio State Senate Representative, Kevin Bacon. Have you written your senator too, to urge him/her to support Senate Bill 5?  You can do it quite easily.  

 Feel free to use any of my wording if you'd like, or write yours from scratch.   It will only take a few minutes, but it may be a crucial difference in turning our state toward fiscal responsibility, or keeping it on track to join blue states as their citizens flea to more sane states. 

Write your Senator today!

Best Wishes,

Bernie Iven

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Dear Mr. Bacon,

I just wanted to take a moment to urge you, and encourage you, as you  already are, to support Senate Bill 5 to reform Collective Bargaining. 

With the state in a fiscal crisis, and 8 billion dollars in debt, it's time the public sector too, made some sacrifices.   Many of their perks and benefits were leveraged by unions seeking concentrated benefits, while the public is unable to react to its disbursed harms.   But those harms add up-- especially during tough economic times.  Also, unions have taken advantage of situations where their liberal allies are in office, and where they can offer to trade votes in exchange for additional benefits.  

It then falls on Conservatives to pay the bills after the liberal politicians are long gone.  Sure, we're willing to stand up and take responsibility We'll have to pay the bills, but it makes sense to put into place systems that restrain the future bills, so that we get our money's worth. The paymaster for the public sector unions are the taxpayers, and as taxpayers we demand that our money is spent responsibly.  We, as the boss, would like to have some slim control over how our money is spent.

Yet unions recklessly ignore our pleas.  They'd rather see the entire state in fiscal turmoil than make the modest adjustments that would save the very jobs of their own membership.   And why should state employees be forced to join unions?   Unions support many causes that the rank and file oppose, and unions dictate uniformity and banal equality on work.  They demean the dignity of work.  To them, it's not how hard you work (or poorly) that determines your pay, it is only how long you've served.  Let's replace this socialist paradigm with a system that tips its hat to merit.  

Then, and only then, will the taxpayers have an efficient public sector work force that earns its keep

Please support Senate Bill 5.

Best Wishes,

Bernie Iven

Columbus Ohio