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Congratulations to Ken Blackwell

By Robert Butler

Secretary, Libertarian Party of Ohio

Congratulations to Ken Blackwell and his campaign staff.  This may be the

first time in history a politician has broken his central campaign promise to

cut state and local taxing and spending BEFORE getting elected.  Backroom

negotiations with his own Republican Party have led to a deal to prevent

proposed tax cuts at the local level.

According to media reports, "Blackwell met privately with the Senate GOP

leadership team and Senate Chief of Staff Matt Schuler for about an hour

yesterday to heal some wounds from the primary campaign, discuss the campaign platform and explore ways to remove the TEL amendment from the ballot and find an alternative. Blackwell, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, has said he would ditch his Tax and Expenditure Limitation ballot issue - a cornerstone of his campaign - if a suitable alternative could be found. "

The precipitous rise in local taxes has placed Ohio somewhere among the top seven highest taxed states.  The Taxing and Expenditure Limitation amendment to the Ohio Constitution would have placed strict limits on the growth of state and local government.  The Libertarian Party of Ohio has endorsed the amendment, while Republicans are scrambling to find a way out of it.  The Libertarians are now Ohio's only political party to clearly support local tax and spending cuts.

There is a clear disconnect between Republican leaders who overwhelmingly endorsed Jim Petro, and the Republican electorate who favored the fiscal responsibility they thought they were getting with Ken Blackwell.  I encourage disappointed Blackwell supporters, and anyone who favors small government, to vote for Bill Peirce for Governor, and support their local Libertarian Party.

See also:  The Blackwell Revolution – by Star Parker Blackwell decisively defeated Jim Petro, Ohio's attorney general, garnering 56 percent of the vote, and now has a shot at becoming the first black Republican governor in the nation's history. …Blackwell's clear and honest conservatism is the answer to the concerns about the state's economic problems and the problems with government corruption. The point is that corruption is the product of big, undisciplined government, and this is exactly what Ohioans have gotten from their current regime. It is a joke to think that the way to solve corruption is to throw out a big government Republican and replace him with a big government Democrat. http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/StarParker/2006/05/08/196478.html

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