Lowering the boom.

"Once again, the Strickland administration has put its political interests ahead of the interests of taxpayers."

That's how today's editorial in the Columbus Dispatch begins.

Ouch.

And they're right.

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Richard Murray, hand-picked by Gov. Ted Strickland to be executive director of the Ohio School Facilities Commission, has decreed that only contractors paying union-scale wages will be allowed to participate in the project.

This means taxpayers will pay 10 percent to 15 percent more than necessary for labor. They will get nothing in return for it, but Strickland and unions will. That money will go into union coffers and will be rewarded with labor votes, endorsements and other political support for Strickland's re-election campaign.

That is money that might have gone to building or renovating other schools, or that could have been saved against the looming $8 billion deficit in Ohio's next biennial budget, a problem about which Strickland apparently has taken a vow of silence.

That's what I call lowering the boom.

The editorial hit on an issue of which the Dispatch has a history of insightful commentary. Their columns on the problems that government employee unions often pose to the taxpayers have long been favorite reading of mine and have, frankly, drawn my attention to these abuses as well.

Strickland and his administration have become too confident that the public will gloss right over these abuses of power. Clearly, that isn't the case any longer. What Democrats have long gotten away with is now being exposed for what it is -- unethical.

The Governor and Ohio Democrats have gone too far this time. And I have a feeling this isn't the last we'll hear about it.