The other middle class

The other middle class

Columbus Dispatch: “Dear Supporter, Now is the time. If ever there was a time to show up, stand up and let our voices be heard, it is now. The fate of Ohio’s middle class is on the line at the Ohio Statehouse.”

So begins a mass e-mailing from former (Ohio) Gov. Ted Strickland, calling on members of public-sector unions to attend (a Feb. 22) Statehouse rally opposing Senate Bill 5, which would eliminate collective bargaining for state government workers and restrict the scope of bargaining for schoolteachers, police, firefighters and other local-government employees.

The idea that the bill is an attack on Ohio’s middle class is one being repeated not only by Strickland but by other Democratic leaders and officials of the state’s public-sector unions.

The assertion is a flat contradiction of reality.

A class by themselves

Not only are the public-sector workers affected by Senate Bill 5 not representative of the majority of Ohio’s middle class, but the comfortable wages, automatic raises, benefits, pensions, job protections, sick-day payouts and negotiating power enjoyed by many of these public-sector workers comes at the expense of the vast majority of Ohio’s middle-class taxpayers. Most of these taxpayers have nothing remotely like these benefits nor the economic security that the public sector takes for granted and regards as a right.

There is no question that Senate Bill 5 is about the middle class. But it is not an attack, it is an attempt to restore to Ohio’s middle class the control of the government it pays for and elects.