Taxpayers Don’t Stand a Chance is an in-depth case study on the perennial election battleground state of Ohio, including a microanalysis of Ohio’s political landscape. This unique book describes in rich detail how Ohio went from being an economic and political leader to a national laggard. As shown by specific examples, Ohio’s fall occurred because the political system puts entrenched interests ahead of taxpayers and politicians spend precious resources on the wrong issues or make things worse. With the news media’s failure to give equal coverage to conservative ideas and to expose government excesses, voters can’t make informed decisions. The political and journalistic failures stop key economic reforms from being implemented, make it impossible for Ohioans to prevent higher taxes, and keep Ohio indentured to labor unions. These failures are happening in states and localities everywhere. Because Ohio is a battleground state, these failures have national implications making it a must read for conservatives, political junkies, and grassroots activists across America. This book does more than just cite problems, it lays out major reforms aimed at giving taxpayers a chance to fight back and win.
Matt A. Mayer is the President of Provisum Strategies where he provides strategic and tactical political and policy advice to public and private-sector clients. Mayer also serves as President of Opportunity Ohio, as a Visiting Fellow with The Heritage Foundation, America's top think tank, where he writes and speaks on national security and federalism issues, and as a Research Fellow at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. Mayer's first book, Homeland Security and Federalism: Protecting America from Outside the Beltway (with Foreward by the Honorable Edwin Meese III), argued for reversing the federalization of homeland security by returning power to states and localities.
Formerly, Mayer served as the President of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Ohio's top free market think tank. Under Mayer's leadership, the Buckeye Institute became an influential trendsetter. Mayer also launched an innovative, best-in-class website attracting over 7 million data searches and released several game-changing reports on how best to fix Ohio, including on reducing Ohio's costly governments, reforming criminal justice and Medicaid programs, transforming government pensions for today's economy, and reinvigorating Ohio's systemically weak private sector.
Before joining the Buckeye Institute, Mayer served as a highly rated Adjunct Professor at The Ohio State University where he taught a course comparing responses within the transatlantic alliance to terrorist threats. Mayer was a senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under the leadership of Secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff where he provided DHS leaders with policy and operational advice as the Counselor to the Deputy Secretary and where he headed the $3.5 billion terrorism preparedness office charged with developing initiatives to transform America to meet the demands of a post-9/11 environment.
Mayer came to DHS from Colorado where he served Governor Bill Owens as the Deputy Director for the Department of Regulatory Agencies. Mayer co-developed Colorado's Regulatory Notice system that utilizes electronic mail to notify stakeholders of all proposed regulations before those regulations become final. The Regulatory Notice system earned the Denver Business Journal's 2003 "Innovative Product/Service Award" for making government more transparent and accountable. Prior to joining Governor Owens' team, Mayer served as a deputy in Colorado Senator Wayne Allard's reelection effort in 2002, and ran a widely hailed congressional campaign for a first-time candidate. As a result of his campaign work, the Colorado Statesman selected Mayer for its 2002 "Rising Star Award."
Mayer was a 2007 Lincoln Fellow with The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy and a 2006 American Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In September 2005, The Ohio State University Alumni Association awarded Mayer the William Thompson Oxley Award for early career achievement. At the age of 29, the Denver Business Journal recognized Mayer as one of Colorado's young leaders by naming him to its "Forty Under 40" list. In 1997, Mayer was the recipient of the ABA-BNA Excellence in Labor & Employment Law Award and was recognized as a Public Service Fellow. He has written articles for law reviews, public policy journals, and newspapers; given testimony to the U.S. Congress, the Texas House and Senate, and the Ohio House and Senate; and appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN, and other major media outlets.
Mayer graduated cum laude from the University of Dayton, with a double major in Philosophy and Psychology and received his law degree from The Ohio State University College of Law where he was the Editor in Chief of the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution. Mayer resides in Dublin, Ohio, with his wife and three children.
