Mindless voting
To the editor: I read a recent letter to the The Press entitled “Thanks for the Laughs.”

While I wholeheartedly agree that Joe the Plumber would not be a good candidate for Marcy Kaptur’s job, I can’t believe that a solid opposition candidate would win election.

It amazes me that with the long downward spiral of the area – especially Toledo – the mindless voters keep pulling the voting lever for “good old Marcy,” regardless of the fact that the area has been in an economic free fall for the last two decades.

If almost any other area than the solidly Democratic 9th district were served so poorly with such a job loss, the opposition party could run Joe the Plumber and probably win. However, we will continue to be represented by Marcy and she and the local Democrats run Toledo right into the ground.

Sadly it makes me want to cry rather than laugh like you.
Eric Horvath
Martin

At what cost?
To the editor: As November draws near, you can almost hear the bad ideas pouring out of Columbus. One such idea is a new law that would require drug testing for anyone receiving public assistance. On the surface it sounds good. Think of the money we could save if we could just get drug users off the public dole.

Unfortunately, such a law will only serve to increase taxes. First is the initial expense of administering the drug tests. In Florida, the estimated cost is around $78 million per year (around $40 per person). This is in addition to the actual cost of public assistance programs, so Florida is paying more to save less.

Second, what exactly will happen to those people that are kicked off public assistance? Are they suddenly going to find jobs in an economy where hardly anyone find a job - especially one that pays enough to live on? I don’t think so. So what will they do? Turn to crime? That is a likely answer. In fact, it’s a very high probability isn’t it?

So they commit crimes to survive, and the crime rate increases. What happens when the crime rate increases? We hire more police to go catch and lock them up, of course. So we pay more taxes to hire police, but how much?

Now that we have paid more to test them, paid more to police them, we have to pay more to imprison them. The average cost of keeping one person in jail is about $20,000 a year. The average amount a person gets from public assistance is around $10,000 a year including medical care – a net savings of negative $10,000 per person per year, plus the additional costs of testing and policing.

The cost of getting drug users off welfare will end up being at least twice as expensive as not testing them, let alone the negative social impact

How about a law to drug test politicians instead, because somebody is high on something.
Jim White
Oregon

A clerical error
To the editor: Recently, my election petition for village council of Elmore was “disqualified” because certain dates on my petition written last July didn’t jibe.

I will not be on the ballot this November, not even as a write-in candidate. I was informed of this and asked for an appeal hearing with the Ottawa County Board of Elections and Mark Mulligan, county prosecutor. After re-defining my case, they collectively stood behind the Ohio Revised Code.

I understand we do need rules, regulations and laws or life would be chaos. This particular code, in my opinion, was not written to be used against a nine-year incumbent councilmember. There was no intent to defraud the election process.

I asked the board and Mr. Mulligan if they could help in any way with the Secretary of State. Once again, they stood by the Ohio Revised Code and everyone present offered no help.

I apologize to the residents of the Village of Elmore. It was a stupid clerical error on my part. I got into politics not to settle a personal agenda, but for the love of my community. I will finish my term.

Good luck to council and the future sewer project.
Tom Deitemyer
Elmore Village Council

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