And I'm looking to verify some of the information he told me.
Background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Raga
He's the Lieutenant Governor Candidate for my (and myke's) state (Ohio) this November. I asked him a couple questions, as I don't often get the opportunity to speak to an elected official, especially for one running for a governor's post.
Bear with me, as I'm not sure I remember the questions (or his answers) precisely. I'll do my best to do his side justice.
1) What is the most important reason I should vote for your ticket this November?
(Tom Raga's-Paraphrased Answer) Economy and Schools. Blackwell's plan is to improve the economy through tax cuts, and improve schools by ensuring that 67% of funding ends up in the classrooms, rather than in the bureaucracy.
1a-Followup) How will tax cuts improve our economy, when there's no fiscal responsibility currently at the highest levels of our state government? We shouldn't spend more than we take in taxes.
(TR-PA) Blackwell has sponsored and endorsed a bill (which I supported) to cap state spending growth at 3.5%, and no higher. If state revenues are lower, spending should definitely increase, but with this bill, we'll never increase spending disproportionably.
1b-Followup) Why would a Republican candidate be the right person to turn the economy around, when we've had at least 16 solid years of Republican leadership already to put us in this hole? (My exact words were "Hemorrhaging jobs-especially manufacturing ones.")
(TR-PA) We're actually turning a corner already, in the last 18 months, we've added a net 33,000 jobs to Ohio, and we're still improving. (I then interjected "33,000 jobs isn't many across 88 counties." He agreed with me and said that they obviously would have preferred 200,000 (or more) jobs, but it's a step in the right direction)
2) What will you do about the culture of corruption in our state government right now? As you know, we have Rep. Ney, the first to plead guilty in the Abrahmoff Scandal, and we have (to my knowledge) the only sitting governor to be convicted of a crime (failing to report political gifts(I actually incorrectly called it bribery, and Raga corrected me))
(TR-PA) He was vague on this one, because it's obviously a difficult one to answer, and he wasn't as involved as Blackwell may have been. He did say that Blackwell was one of the Republicans who demanded investigations into the BWC scandal, the one Taft was involved in, and he helped bring the wrongdoing to light.
What I want to know, is how accurate are the jobs figures, how accurate is the claim about the spending cap bill, and how accurate is his description of Blackwell's involvement in the BWC scandal. I'm doing some of the research now, but we have some people here who are incredible at digging up facts. Sorry that the post was so long. I tried to remove non-crucial details. Let me know if you want to know that stuff.
Thanks!
Background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Raga
He's the Lieutenant Governor Candidate for my (and myke's) state (Ohio) this November. I asked him a couple questions, as I don't often get the opportunity to speak to an elected official, especially for one running for a governor's post.
Bear with me, as I'm not sure I remember the questions (or his answers) precisely. I'll do my best to do his side justice.
1) What is the most important reason I should vote for your ticket this November?
(Tom Raga's-Paraphrased Answer) Economy and Schools. Blackwell's plan is to improve the economy through tax cuts, and improve schools by ensuring that 67% of funding ends up in the classrooms, rather than in the bureaucracy.
1a-Followup) How will tax cuts improve our economy, when there's no fiscal responsibility currently at the highest levels of our state government? We shouldn't spend more than we take in taxes.
(TR-PA) Blackwell has sponsored and endorsed a bill (which I supported) to cap state spending growth at 3.5%, and no higher. If state revenues are lower, spending should definitely increase, but with this bill, we'll never increase spending disproportionably.
1b-Followup) Why would a Republican candidate be the right person to turn the economy around, when we've had at least 16 solid years of Republican leadership already to put us in this hole? (My exact words were "Hemorrhaging jobs-especially manufacturing ones.")
(TR-PA) We're actually turning a corner already, in the last 18 months, we've added a net 33,000 jobs to Ohio, and we're still improving. (I then interjected "33,000 jobs isn't many across 88 counties." He agreed with me and said that they obviously would have preferred 200,000 (or more) jobs, but it's a step in the right direction)
2) What will you do about the culture of corruption in our state government right now? As you know, we have Rep. Ney, the first to plead guilty in the Abrahmoff Scandal, and we have (to my knowledge) the only sitting governor to be convicted of a crime (failing to report political gifts(I actually incorrectly called it bribery, and Raga corrected me))
(TR-PA) He was vague on this one, because it's obviously a difficult one to answer, and he wasn't as involved as Blackwell may have been. He did say that Blackwell was one of the Republicans who demanded investigations into the BWC scandal, the one Taft was involved in, and he helped bring the wrongdoing to light.
What I want to know, is how accurate are the jobs figures, how accurate is the claim about the spending cap bill, and how accurate is his description of Blackwell's involvement in the BWC scandal. I'm doing some of the research now, but we have some people here who are incredible at digging up facts. Sorry that the post was so long. I tried to remove non-crucial details. Let me know if you want to know that stuff.
Thanks!
