Stealing for the sake of bigger government

State-level Republicans and governor and Dispatch are trying to abscond with $230 million in stop-smoking funds.

Protagonists in this latest scam claim they'll "create jobs" (hooray for more jobs, as usual!) if they can only get their paws on the pot full of money paid by the tobacco industry as punishment for - what? - selling tobacco products? (As for "more jobs" please read Magic Nanny Strickland should cut government slop, not sell bonds.)

The money was ear-marked for the people trying to influence other people to quit smoking. Like they've been doing any good anyway. What do these people do with all that money?

Still, the purpose of the financial punishment of tobacco companies was to do battle with smokers.

But big state government can't stand to see any stash of change not being spent on the creation of bigger government, which is exactly their plan - a plan sketched in today's Dispatch editorial entitled "The greatest good."

And, by the way, this plan for "stimulating the economy" entails not just scarfing money that doesn't belong to "stimulating the economy," but also a vast new debt of $970 million in bonds which every Ohio taxpayer will also provide to this "stimulation."

True to form in this matter, the state legislators, governor and Dispatch never saw a government spending plan they didn't like.