By Matthew Mayer
 
As payday loans vanish from Ohio storefronts in the next few months because of HB 545, I thought I would provide some perspective on the issue. 
 
The great irony here is that prostitution is illegal, yet Ohio’s legislators have lawfully rented themselves out in exchange for votes.
 
Darn.  I promised myself I wouldn’t get puerile.  Oh, well.  Best intentions and all that.
 
Anyone who believes in a heliocentric planetary system recognizes HB 545 as being an oozing cancerous tumor on the body of Ohio’s legislative history.  In a move only a confederacy of dunces could love — with all the facts laid before Ohio’s Assembly and Senate — Ohioans learned that their elected representatives were either too stupid to understand the basics of credit, or (more likely) simply ignored what they were being told, like a child about to place his head in a spittoon of boiling acid.

By getting rid of payday loans, they believe they’ll look good to everyone who buys into the scurrilous mendacities vomited forth by mercenary outfits like the CRL (think of them as Drug-Dealers) and its obtuse stooges like Bill Faith of the Coalition on Homeless and Housing in Ohio (The Mule).
 
The problem is these treacherous scoundrels don’t realize Ohioans are smarter than that. It’s going to backfire on them, like the thieving rentboy who tries to grab the client’s wallet before delivering the goods and finds the door locked.  Ohioans don’t like having their trust betrayed, and they’ll punish those who did by preventing their re-election to any public office.

Let’s name names.  First, there’s Rep. Chris Widener and Speaker John Husted who will be putting their wares on display for voters this fall.  Voters are advised to look under the hoods of these Capitol streetwalkers before wasting your valuable votes.  Ignore the goods they advertise.  It’s classic bait-and-switch.   You think you’re getting one thing, but when the action begins, you’ll find it’s the – how shall I put it — opposite of what you purchased.
 
Then there’s Sen. Jeff “Wormtongue” Jacobson, the goose-stepping toady of Senate Finance Committee Chair John Carey.  Senator Carey yanked a member off the committee who understood the necessity of payday loans and replaced him with ol’ Wormtongue.  True to form, the slithering sycophant did his Master’s bidding and supported The Drug Dealers by echoing their deceit in a public forum.
 
The fact that those that deal in this illicit trade call themselves “distinguished gentlemen” when on the floor seems – I don’t know – delusional.  I mean, you can call a high-class hooker an “escort’, but if you put lipstick on a pig…
 
But there is some wisdom at the Capitol.  Senator Ray Miller said, “We need to save people from themselves”.  Amen to that!  Let’s start with Ohio’s Legislature and Governor!  In fact, I volunteer to save Sen. Miller from a lifetime of being branded the intellectually lazy dunderhead that he’s made himself out to be.  That’s the only description I can think of for a man who said he was “elated” that 6000 Ohioans are going to be out of a job.
 
I guess Cleveland Plain-Dealer columnist Thomas Suddes had it right after all.  This is indeed, “Government at its best!”
 
Ah well.  None of us are perfect.  Indeed, to quote a character from David Milch’s “Deadwood”, “I am a man of many sins, some unforgivable.  But at least I am not a politician!”

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