Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers:
We need the reasonable center to stand up for gun control
Akron Beacon Journal
Sept. 23
Gun control is having a bit of a moment in the Ohio General Assembly, but it won’t last long or go far if we have only one Peggy Lehner and one Stephanie Kunze - that is, only two majority Republican lawmakers who see the need for reasonable restrictions on deadly weaponry and have the political courage to say so.
Lehner, a senator from Kettering, was the sole Republican to testify Tuesday in support of five Senate bills aimed at reducing gun violence. She and Kunze, of Hilliard, are co-sponsors, with Democrats Cecil Thomas of Cincinnati and Sandra Williams of Cleveland, of one bill requiring background checks for almost all gun purchases and another that would allow courts to order the seizure of guns from people the court finds to be a danger to themselves or others.
Lehner’s testimony Tuesday was heartfelt and personal: “I can no longer be on the sidelines of gun safety. I’ve been there too long… doing absolutely nothing is simply not an option.” She was moved, she told senators, by the fact that one of the nine people shot to death while enjoying a Saturday night in Dayton’s Oregon district last month was an employee of her neighbor and close friend.
If only there were any hope for action on gun control at the federal level, all Americans could look forward to a future with less needless carnage. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell show no signs of defying the national gun lobby. The mere mention by Attorney General William Barr of universal background checks prompted the National Rifle Association to declare that exceedingly sensible idea “a nonstarter.”
We suspect that the gun-safety sidelines are all too crowded with Republicans who don’t share the ideological blindness of gun rights zealots but are unwilling to court their wrath by supporting any gun control legislation whatsoever.
Those zealots are the weapon absolutists use to impose a minority agenda on a large and ideologically diverse state. The NRA and other gun rights groups have members who prioritize that issue over any other and can be deployed to campaign and vote against any officeholder who dares to differ.
But that advantage may be starting to fade. Maybe the national revulsion over mass shooting after mass shooting is cumulative - perhaps, even if public attention still dips between incidents, it returns stronger each time. Perhaps more people on the sidelines are ready to support laws that could make gun suicides, domestic homicides and deadly efficient mass murders harder to carry out.
That’s where reasonable Republicans have to come in, along with all gun owners who don’t subscribe to the paranoid notion that any restriction on lethal weaponry threatens the Second Amendment. A related distortion is the idea that denying private citizens ownership of unlimited firepower makes them more vulnerable to government tyranny.
Yes, the Founding Fathers likely did have government tyranny in mind when they included the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights. In 1789, armed farmers and townspeople probably could put up an effective fight against the government of the day.
The same is nowhere close to true today. The real weapons against tyranny in the U.S. are still the vote and the First Amendment.
A gun that can fire hundreds of rounds in seconds won’t hold off the U.S. Air Force, but it surely can enable one disturbed person to inflict enormous suffering. Refusing to even try to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill, suicidal or violent people provides no check on government tyranny, but it makes needless tragedy more likely. That is the cost of indulging gun rights extremism, and it is too high.
Reasonable people need to stand up for such reasonable ideas, because gun unreason at the Statehouse is loud.
In Ohio it has been especially so this year with the arrival of Ohio Gun Owners, a group led by people who think the NRA is too compromising. Leader Chris Dorr and his two brothers have started similar groups in several other states. Reporting by The Associated Press showed that the Dorr groups’ main activity is fundraising, not supporting or opposing legislation, and that they disclose little about where the money goes and what they’re paid.
Critics accuse the brothers of using the gun rights debate as a family business - generating controversy by picking fights with other gun rights activists and using that controversy to stoke donations. A Google search shows a trail of such accusations in Iowa, Minnesota, Florida and likely elsewhere.
Dorr, a talented stump speaker who makes bombastic videos soliciting cash, has made headlines with frequent use of nasty metaphors - Ohio Gun Owners will leave “political bodies lying all over the ground” and a legislature weak-kneed on gun rights is “the killing fields” for gun rights supporters. He heaps insults on everyone from liberals to pro-gun politicians not in his camp.
Dorr may be a repugnant sideshow, but he has followers; several hundred showed up at a Statehouse rally a week ago to protest gun control bills. As always, they threatened dire political consequences for Republicans who don’t toe their line.
They don’t represent most Ohioans or most Americans. They, the NRA and other gun extremists have hijacked the issue long enough. It’s time for reasonable Republicans and gun owners to leave the sidelines and speak out so that change can become possible.
Online: https://bit.ly/2m8q9l0
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Cutting edge research
The Toledo Blade
Sept. 22
Northwest Ohio has taken a few steps forward in the nation’s energy development, with recent federal research grants on hydrogen.
The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Oak Harbor, which was slated to close until an Ohio General Assembly bailout bill passed this summer, snared a $9.2 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to develop a hybrid energy system with a light-water reactor to produce hydrogen.
Separately, the University of Toledo received a $750,000 Energy Department grant to develop a process using sunlight to separate hydrogen from oxygen in water so that the hydrogen can be used as fuel.
Both investments show the federal agency has confidence in research in the Toledo area.
At Davis-Besse, which also will receive $2.3 million from four other partners, the project is to determine whether production of hydrogen at the plant is feasible and economical. If the testing in the pilot program proves fruitful, it could lead to a reliable alternative energy source for the country and a new revenue stream for Davis-Besse and other nuclear power facilities nationwide.
The Ottawa County plant applied for the funding this year, as its survival hung in the balance. Ohio lawmakers decided to keep it and another FirstEnergy nuclear plant in northeastern Ohio by tacking on a fee on every state resident’s electric bill to subsidize the plants. This Energy Department project likely would not have happened at Davis-Besse if not for the passage of that bill in Columbus.
The UT grant funds a three-year program by its physics department to develop new ways of separating hydrogen in water, using a crystal structure that is good at absorbing sunlight and efficiently splitting out hydrogen.
UT was among 29 universities and organizations receiving a piece of the $40 million the Energy Department awarded for hydrogen research.
UT’s photoelectrochemical water splitting technology, if it can be perfected, can provide affordable and reliable large-scale hydrogen generation and possibly be used in the United States as fuel for vehicles and for electric grids servicing homes and businesses.
Both local projects are part of a potentially vital evolution in the nation’s power supplies. The country produces 10 million tons of hydrogen, nearly one-seventh of the world’s supplies, primarily for oil refining and fertilizer. But the local research may provide for many other uses.
Northwest Ohio has helped develop successful solar technology and these latest research projects show we may play a key role in hydrogen energy technology for the nation.
Online: https://bit.ly/2mDoO69
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Use caution in drug decisions
The Marietta Times
Sept. 20
Critics of legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes warn that doing so can result in an onslaught of requests for prescriptions from people who want the drug solely for recreational purposes. Good for the Ohio Medical Board for rejecting one potential avenue of such attempts at deception.
On Wednesday, board members voted against adding anxiety and autism spectrum disorders as grounds for seeking medicinal marijuana prescriptions. Ten states allow purchase of medicinal marijuana for anxiety. Another 22 permit its use by those diagnosed with autism spectrum.
Board members are right to be concerned not just about people faking anxiety to get marijuana, but also about how the drug affects some people. In rejecting that petition, the board noted marijuana can provide temporary relief from anxiety for some people - but it also can cause panic attacks.
Regarding use of the drug for those with autism, board members also are on solid ground. They cited concern about marijuana’s effects on children’s developing brains.
Good work. It takes little imagination to conceive of the reaction to permitting patients being treated for anxiety to obtain medicinal marijuana. An increase in the number of Buckeye State residents scheduling doctors’ appointments with claims of experiencing anxiety all the time would result.
Medical board members left open the door to reconsidering their decisions in the future. That, too, is wise. No one knows what scientific evidence may come up in the future. For now, however, the right decisions were made.
Online: https://bit.ly/2maFqSt
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Tax cuts are helping
The Marietta Times
Sept.17
It is mind-boggling some people believe allowing us to keep more of our own money, instead of sending it to Washington, is a bad idea. Yet some, presumably those who believe politicians are the best people to decide how our hard-earned cash is spent, say the 2017 federal tax cuts were a bad idea.
They were not. Beyond any reasonable doubt, they did more to help lift the nation out of recession than did all the “stimulus” spending employed during former President Barack Obama’s administration. Americans have more money in our pockets - and we are creating new jobs by spending it.
U.S. Sen. Rob Portman was asked about that during a recent conference call with reporters. He was asked about tax cut critics who say depriving Uncle Sam of some revenue is bad because it increases the federal spending deficit. Of course it does, to some extent.
But the critics intentionally fail to take into account the fact that not every tax cut dollar adds to the deficit. Some of the revenue foregone generates new economic activity that results in added revenue for Washington.
The national debt, at $22.5 trillion and continuing to explode, is a genuine concern, of course.
But Portman, R-Ohio, put his finger on the real driver of the deficit. “The reason the debt and the deficit are exploding is spending,” he said, according to The Columbus Dispatch. “Seventy percent of the spending is on autopilot and that’s by far the fastest growing part of the spending.”
He was referring to so-called “entitlement spending” on programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, of course.
The current $4.4 trillion federal budget includes about $1 trillion for health care programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. And, though the about $1 trillion needed for Social Security is offset by revenue earmarked for that program, the balance is very close. Within just a couple of years, Social Security outlays will top income.
Everyone in Washington knows Portman is correct. The truth has been obvious for many years. Yet no one, including President Donald Trump, has shown any inclination to do anything about entitlement spending.
Portman is right: Tax cuts do help the economy. They benefit each and every taxpaying American - and some who have no income tax liability. The deficit is not a problem because government is not taking enough from us - it is because Washington, unlike our families, has not learned to balance a budget.
Online: https://bit.ly/2l4PsUT
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