Strickland makes his debut on Politifact....and falls flat on his face.

PolitiFact is a left-leaning fact-checking website that takes statements by elected officials and candidates and breaks them down to determine their accuracy.

It's my understanding that they've recently teamed up with the Plain Dealer to expand their reach into Ohio.

Well, today saw Governor Ted Strickland's debut and, um....it didn't go so well.


Yeesh. If the lefty Politifact is calling Ted out on this b.s., he must have some serious issues.

While it’s true that the total pot of money going to funding primary and secondary schools in Ohio will grow by 5.5 percent during the current two-year state budget that ends in July 2011, it’s not state aid that is responsible for the hike. State aid to schools will actually be lower by about $32 million--from $6.542 billion in 2009 to $6.510 billion in 2011. On a district-by-district level, that means about 60 percent of the more than 600 school districts in Ohio will get less money for operations in the current two-year budget cycle than they did before.

[...]

The natural impression left by the governor’s words "we invested in our children, increasing school funding" is that Ohio’s state government took steps to increase the amount it puts toward education. In fact, it was the federal government that has invested more in Ohio’s children. And six out of 10 Ohio schools districts have less money to spend on operations than they did in the previous budget under Strickland.

We find the governor’s claim to be False.

Not a good start, Ted.