WOSU 12/07/2011

http://beta.wosu.org/news/2011/12/07/new-ohio-drivers-licenses-has-commentator-seeing-pink/

JobsOhio head Mark Kvamme must be the god-send that Governor Kasich told us he would be. You see, clearly Ohio’s financial and employment recovery is complete. I mean, Kvamme’s got so much freetime governor Kasich asked him to redesign our drivers’ licenses. I’m sure Kasich wouldn’t ask Kvamme to waste his time on something so trivial if there was real economic work yet to be done, right?

Earlier this year I laughed at Kasich’s insecurity about his manhood. It was funny when he suggested he’d look into changing out the pink from the drivers’ licenses because it somehow offended his tough guy image – but now that he’s actually doing it – changing the color to blue – suggests a significant flaw in our governor.

By his pursuit of a personal agenda at the state’s expense, instead of dealing with the real pain Ohioans are facing, Kasich continues to add insult to injury.

Consider the cuts to the local fund Kasich championed. He asserted that municipalities could then make their own choices about their own money (what money?!) so state funding wouldn’t be necessary.

And how’d that one work out? Well, in Kasich’s own school district, Westerville, there are at least 62 fewer jobs due to cuts after the most recent school levy, meant to shore up budgets against those cuts, failed.

You might think that would wake Kasich up, given that he lives in the district – but Kasich isn’t worried, he sends his daughters to private school.

And those jobs? Kasich doesn’t fear adding more people to unemployment, Kvamme will find them jobs.

Of course JobsOhio is claiming it’s created jobs – unfortunately the jobs it’s referring to came about before Kvamme’s organization existed. Even the Columbus Dispatch hypothesized that JobsOhio has yet to actually do anything, that current successes were achieved without them.

But I digress. What about those drivers’ licenses?

The current State driver’s license contract, according to public records, is with a company out of Massachusetts for an estimated cost of about $14 million – no small change. How much is this design change going to cost the state? I mean, just consider the recalibration of every drivers’ license printer statewide alone; what about reprogramming the system, etc.? And since this is a Massachusetts company doing the work, how many of those dollars are staying in Ohio?

Which brings me back to Kvamme. Let’s tally up his record so far. Kvamme claims credit for jobs saved or created by the Department of Development – which according to Kasich is broken – thus the need for JobsOhio, now, instead of hiring an unemployed professional, Kvamme got free labor from a college student for unnecessary design work, and may be sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to Massachusetts, just to change the gender of our drivers’ licenses.

Phew! Personally, I hope Ohioans give Kvamme and Kasich another pink to worry about – a pink slip.