OHIO ISSUE 2 EXPLAINED

ISSUE 2 EXPLAINED by Tom Zawistowski Executive Director of Portage County Tea Party      "I need to take some of your time to talk with you about some concerns I have about the Issue 2 debate in the TEA Party/Patriot movement. I have heard people talking about how Issue 2 is not our Issue and that we should focus on Issue 3 - which we should and which will pass. I have heard the talk about how Issue 2 is the Republican's problem, they created it and they own it. I have heard members of our movement say they are not for Issue 2 or they are not sure. I understand that we were totally unhappy with the way that Senate Bill 5 was drafted and passed. But I think we all need to understand clearly what is at stake here and that we, the TEA Party/Patriot movement, will be the big losers if Issue 2 does not pass - not the Republican Party or anyone else.      Senate Bill 5 is far from perfect, but all you have to do is ask one question, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "Are we, the tax payers, better of with Senate Bill 5 or are we better off with what we have now?" It's that simple. If you try to tell me that elimination of tenure, merit pay for teachers, hiring based on competency not seniority, transparency in negotiations, elimination of benefits from collective bargaining and elimination of binding arbitration are not better for the taxpayer than what we have now, then you are not being truthful. If you tell me that having Police and Fire and Teachers paying 15% of their health care cost while we pay 85% is a bad deal for government workers, when in the private sector our benefits are just the opposite, then you are not being honest. If you are going to argue that their paying 10% of their retirement benefits while we pay 90% is not "fair" to the government workers, you are being disingenuous. Even Teachers and Firefighters and Police Officers know in their hearts that these changes are long over due and will make their jobs better. They also know that even with these changes, they will have a better job than those of us in the private sector with better or equal skills. If that were not true, we would be worried about Teachers and Fire Fighters and Police leaving government for private sector jobs.        Do anyone think that will happen? Ask your husband or wife or daughter or brother-in-law who has a government union job if they can find a better job in the private sector and see what they say. So, forget all the Union BS. This is not about the rank and file, the union is more than willing to bargain away their benefits and salaries, as long as they can keep their power. They are using the members for their own benefit. They are lying to their members to scare them and keep them in line. But I promise you, many union members are going to vote for Issue 2 when they get in the voting booth, because they know its right and they know they have a great deal. They also know that a lot more of them will get laid off if Issue 2 fails than if it passes. Heck, if it passes there will be more jobs and more opportunity for better pay for those who are good at what they do - not less.      So, here is the point, Issue 2/Senate Bill 5 is more than fair to government workers and everyone one of us should be for it - just look at how Wisconsin is benefiting workers and tax payers. But for our movement, that is secondary, what is at stake here is nothing less than the very heart of what our movement is trying to accomplish. If we want smaller government, if we want less taxes, if we want less intrusion on our personal freedoms and liberty we MUST win Issue 2 because it is the path to making that all happen.      We are in the situation we are in, individually and as a nation, because we are the victims of a system of political extortion that is self perpetuating and is the financial engine of the enemies of freedom. It works like this. You Unionize government workers, then use them to extort Union dues from the taxpayers. The Union then gives 99% of what they don't keep to Democratic candidates, who win elections because they have more money and the union machine to get the votes. Those Democrats that are elected, and yes more than a few Republicans that are for sale, help themselves by growing government more, thus adding more union workers. which helps them and also helps the Union. Those new Union workers are then used to extort more dues from the taxpayers and the money grows and the power grows until "We the People" are economic slaves working to fund the system that destroys our rights, and liberty - all under the guise of compassion and government helping people because they can not help themselves. That is where we are right now. Understand that nothing we want, nothing our nation needs, is achievable until we break this chain of extortion! In fact, if we do not break this chain NOW, after finally waking up and understanding what is going on, we may never break it. We come to this fight just when they are about to reach critical mass. Where more than half the population would be dependent on the government and thus willing to vote for more government at the expense of the other half. This is our one shot, right here, right now. This November 8th we must take the fight to the enemy. I do not exaggerate when I say to you that the very fate of our nation hangs in the balance and depends on what WE do.      So, let me be clear. Everyone else can have whatever motivations they want to support Issue 2, but for the TEA Party/Patriot movement our number one goal is to de-fund the union leadership and thus their exclusive partners in the Democratic Party and take back control of our government. The key element of Issue 2 for us, is that it prohibits forced unionization for government workers and makes those who want to stay in the Union pay their own union dues out of their own pocket. In Wisconsin there are cases of 90% of the prison workers have dropping out of the union once they found out how much they were paying in dues, because after the law passed, it was now in their checks. Before, like here in Ohio, the government was forced to deduct the union dues from the paychecks before the workers would see it. Once they saw the money in their checks, they kept it and dropped out of the union. Projections are that 60% of Ohio teachers will drop out of the union after we pass Issue 2. This breaks the money chain. All those tens of millions of dollars in union dues will be gone and un-available to elect pro-government growth candidates. Which will enable us to elect candidates that will shrink government, reduce our cost of government, reduce government regulations and its interference in our lives. When we pass, Issue 2, and the Democratic Party and the Unions are defunded, they will not have the money to compete in Ohio next year. Barack Obama and Sherrod Brown will lose Ohio and be thrown out of office in November 2012. The Governor and the Ohio Legislature will be emboldened and thus willing to introduce more conservative legislation like Workmans Comp reform, Right to Work, School Choice, and much more. All of which revives Ohio's economy as we create a business friendly environment. Even former Democrats, will start to move right because they will need to attract conservative votes to get elected without the union money and machine on their side. This is what our movement is all about - moving from Tyranny, the fear of our government, to Freedom, where our government fears the power of the people. Winning Issue 2 demonstrates the power of our movement.      If Issue 2 fails, we will not see another piece of conservative legislation come out of the Ohio House or the Senate for the next two years at least and perhaps for much longer. You hear talk about them just re-introducing individual parts of SB 5 as separate bills if they lose SB 5. I would not count on it. We passed SB 5 with 1 vote to spare in the Senate. An SB 5 loss will make many Republicans move toward the so called "middle" to protect their political careers. They will say to our movement, "We gave you what you wanted and you did not back us so we have no choice but to form a broader coalition of support." The unions will be emboldened and will have more power and money than ever and Barack Obama will win Ohio, as will Sherrod Brown, and President Obama will get a disastrous second term. The Democrats will hold the Senate and Governor Kasich will be a one term governor. Those are the stakes and they could not be any higher for all of us and for our movement. This election is the single most important election in our lives, not 2012, because this election will determine if we will have any chance to restore the Constitution and it will decided the 2012 election. That is why $30 million in Union and liberal money is going to be spent here in Ohio. They must be all in, they have no choice, because this is the whole ball game for the unions and the Democratic Party. If they lose they are done. They will do anything to win and we MUST do everything in our power to defeat them. There is no other choice on Issue 2, we must fight or our movement will die - and our state and our nation along with it.      I ask that you pass my argument in support of Issue 2 on to everyone you know so we can ignite this movement. Then take action. Go to the BetterOhio.org website and print out the PDF's about myths and facts and hand them out and email them to everyone you know. Get to our Portage County TEA Party call centers and start making the crucial voter ID calls we need to get pro-Issue 2 voters to the polls. Do the absentee calls that the campaign will ask us to make. Then get volunteer to take materials door to door.      My hope is that this email helped you understand that this is our fight and we need to take ownership of it. We can not leave this fight to anyone else, even though we will have plenty of allies fighting with us, because our future depend upon it. I am asking you to join me in winning this historic battle for our children and our grandchildren; for our state and our nation; and for the hopes and dreams of freedom loving people all over the world who will know what we do here in Ohio this November for the cause of Liberty or they will never know Liberty for themselves."