Statehouse Zone: A land of imagination

COLUMBUS — (Start scary, grating music, spiraling outer space imagery and ominous voiceover here.)

You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. That’s a signpost up ahead, your next stop ... the Statehouse Zone.

(Enter the narrator, a man in a fancy suit, speaking in a halting manner for emphasis and standing in the Rotunda of the People’s House. He’s extinguished his cigarette, because it’s illegal to smoke in public places.)

For your perusal, a building — a majestic structure of limestone and doublespeak.

Within its walls are men and women — people of power and money. Their task: determining how to spend billions of dollars provided by people of lesser power and money.

They use words like bold and transformative. They talk about stakeholders and collaboration. They claim to be living within their means and making difficult choices.

All of which makes sense to everyday people who don’t frequent its hallowed halls. The ones who are losing jobs or taking home smaller paychecks, going without medical treatment and buying fewer groceries to make ends meet.

But in this place, the laws of mathematics do not apply.

And in this place, there are people with magical powers who can make money materialize as needed. At least on paper.

Spending increases

With their help, the men and women in control pass budgets that authorize future spending increases. At a time when most citizens are cutting costs, they’re actually increasing what they plan to spend in the next two years.

They will acknowledge that they don’t have enough money to pay this year’s bills. They say they may have to use nearly $1 billion in state savings to fill the gap. There’s even some chatter about making deep cuts now to avoid tax increases and deeper cuts later.

But then, with a straight face, they flash graphs with repeatedly incorrect economic projections. They talk about lights at the ends of tunnels and glimmers of economic hope while businesses continue to go belly up and more Ohioans join the ranks of the unemployed.

Come stand at their door — the one you unlock with the key of imagination.

Beyond it is another dimension — a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind.

You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.

You’ve just crossed over into ... the Statehouse Zone.

X Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. E-mail him at mkovac@dixcom.com.