According to a new poll conducted by The Columbus Dispatch, Gov. Bob Taft's approval rating among Ohioans has fallen to a historic new low - 15 percent. Ohio's governor finds himself among dubious company: Taft's rating is worse than President Carter's numbers after the Iran Hostage Crisis, President Nixon's during Watergate and President Truman's after he fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur. That is just the latest turn of events in the long line of failures seen under the Taft administration, and further proves that Ohioans are fed up with him.
Before the poll was released, another notch was added to the already lengthy belt of ineffective policies set by Taft - only that time, needy children were the victims of his embarrassingly unsuccessful attempts to revamp Ohio's Head Start program. The state-funded program's enrollment has declined by 77 percent since Taft took office in 1999. Such an alarming decrease in the programs enrollment should call Ohioans attention to Taft's failures. Along with Taft's conviction for improperly reporting received gifts and favors, Ohio has been in the news for even more scandals with the investigation into the millions of dollars unaccounted for from a rare coin collection meant to fund the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation. The current misdirection of general revenue to federal welfare funding for the Head Start Program - a main reason for the decreased enrollment - has, among other things, proven the inadequacy of Taft's leadership. Those major mistakes in Taft's performance have blackened Ohio's name, as he is the first Ohio governor to face criminal charges while in office as well as being given the lowest grade of F last March in the performance reviews of the Cato Institute's fiscal policy report card, which rates every U.S. governor's economic policies.
In a time when Ohio's most vulnerable citizens are falling victim to bureaucratic mishaps and harmfully misjudged decisions of Taft, he needs to take a look at the harsh numbers that are standing against him and fix the problem. However, it is likely too late to stanch these failures, and Taft's successor will inherit the problems.
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Taft's failures merit dismal numbers
