Meet David Pepper

Unions alone have already dumped over $500,000 into David Pepper's campaign. Why? Because they desperately want the Auditor’s office so they can draw new legislative districts that will ensure their big-government sacred cows will be spared, and because they’re trying anything they can to keep their stranglehold on state government to maintain the policies that have us on the brink of bankruptcy.

After watching this video, I hope you will consider making a donation to my campaign so we can keep the apportionment board fair and work to reduce the size of government.

Yost Out-Raises Opponent, Raises $230,000 in Six weeks

Today is a milestone - we filed out finance report with more than $230,000 raised in six weeks. Thank you to everyone who has supported my race to make that milestone - we've made serious progress in the last six weeks. A special thank you to those who answered our call this week; we raised more than $24,000 since Monday!

And that made the difference - we out-raised our opponent for the period.

But it is more than fundraising. Everywhere I go, there's excitement building about this race. More people are becoming aware of the importance of it, and the buzz on the street is that our team is gaining momentum - that the Team Yost is working hard, and we're everywhere.

News Release: "Yost momentum continues, finance filing showes" (August 4, 2010)

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Why Is Ted Strickland "Appalled" By Mary Taylor's Truth-Telling?

Gov. Ted Strickland is "appalled" - his word -- that Mary Taylor told the truth about Ohio's tax climate last week. Mr. Strickland's preference for rhetoric over numbers does not bode well for our state should he be granted a second term as watcher-in-chief.

Auditor Taylor said an unremarkable thing - that when she was a private CPA, she counseled wealthy Ohio clients to consider establishing residency in Florida or other lower-tax jurisdictions. That's common advice, according to Barbara Benton, vice president of governmental affairs for the Ohio Society of CPAs.

Although he probably did not get that advice from Mary Taylor, former parking lot magnate and Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum moved to Florida for those reasons prior to this death, according to the Wall Street Journal. This isn't about class warfare. It's about how money and talent is heading out of our state because it's economically smart to do so. As a friend once told me, "I never got a job from a poor man."(Read More)

 

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A story of hope, from chaos

I was heading to meet with the owner of Service Spring Corporation. Roads were out because of the tornado that had swept through Wood County, destroying the high school and killing six.

As I finally approached the company, where I was scheduled to take a plant tour, I slowed. Buildings were torn apart and there were huge heaps of rubble and uprooted, ancient trees strewn about. A steel I-beam was twisted like a piece of licorice and bent in half. One building was standing, but parts of the siding were stretched and distended or missing altogether, some patched with plywood.

I called the owner, Mike McAlear. He's a tough, barrel-chested guy whose card doesn't say "President & CEO." Just CEO. He gruffly told me he didn't need to cancel the visit, and told me come around to the south side of the building.

Service Spring makes springs for garage doors - everything from the spring that helps you raise the door of your attached two-car garage to the giant industrial doors in places of heavy manufacture. His company can make one or ten thousand, and they fill most orders the day the come in - but not from inventory. They make tens of thousands of different springs on demand from specifications stored in their computers.

The tour was fascinating, and debunked the myth that manufacturing is dead in Ohio. Service Spring has skilled workers who make a world-class product.

Mike and his eldest son told me they were back in production less than 72 hours after the tornado hit.

That's the hope for Ohio - people like the ones at Service Spring - people who work hard and don't give up, who take the hard knocks and push back even harder.

There's lots of people like that in Wood County. Up the street, hundreds of people were picking up junk off the lawn of the high school that had been devastated.

I asked Mike if he was insured.

"Yeah," he said, looking around at the chaos.  "But that doesn't make up for what you spent your life building."

I remember reading that the State of Ohio's Department of Administrative Services canceled a project to link the state's computer systems after spending millions of dollars. They just gave up. If a tornado hit DAS, they wouldn't have a damage assessment complete by Labor Day.

I'm proud of what Mike McAlear is doing in Milbury, Ohio. And I've met many more like him, all across the state, in towns large and small. In their work ethic, ingenuity and courage lies the true strength of this great state.

Posted on Jul 10, 2010

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