Quote:

---

The Ohio General Assembly overwhelmingly approved changing the state’s name to Iraq on Thursday in an effort to get federal help in rebuilding schools and repairing roads. The bill was immediately signed by Gov. John Kasich and also renamed the state capitol from Columbus to Baghdad.



“Over the past decade, Congress gave $120 billion for building projects in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s money that we here in Ohio could certainly use to improve our own infrastructure and create jobs,” Kasich said as he signed the bill. “Given our nation’s political climate, changing our state’s name is the only way we can get any help.”

Kasich noted that although Congressional Republicans had no problem nearly doubling the debt over eight years to pay for two wars, they’ve suddenly turned against spending when it comes to helping out the American people. He said the state’s bridges are in need of repair, but predicted House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) would oppose an infrastructure bill to avoid handing a victory to President Barack Obama.

“It’s pretty obvious that Speaker Boehner intends to block any spending on infrastructure because he doesn’t want to boost the economy ahead of next year’s presidential election. He’d rather watch his own state go under and its bridges and schools crumble,” Kasich said. “Here in Ohio, I mean, uh, the American state of Iraq, we can’t wait until the next election.”

While changing a state’s name is a first for the nation, Ohio is not alone in making this move. The idea originated in Virginia where Gov. Bob McDonnell hopes to use it as a way of getting disaster relief after the damage caused by Hurricane Irene.

McDonnell first proposed the idea after realizing that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was going to fight disaster relief to get steep cuts in the federal budget.

“For the first time in this nation’s history, disaster relief was going to be held hostage to a fight over the debt and this was from a guy representing our very own commonwealth,” McDonnell said. “We can’t take the chance that Representative Cantor will change his mind on this. Disaster relief should’ve been passed immediately.”

McDonnell has a bill pending in the state legislature that would re-name Virginia as the American Commonwealth of Afghanistan and change its capitol from Richmond to Kabul. On Thursday he called on the legislature to act on his proposal before other states had a chance.

As other states scramble to change their names, they may find less of an incentive do to so once the more desirable choice have been taken, according to Wilmore Kurtz, director of state policy research at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“Sure, everyone wants to be Iraq or Afghanistan with all that American money flowing in but who wants to be second or third and which name do you go with?” Kurtz said. “I doubt anyone would change their name to Cuba or Iran but if you changed your name to the state of Libya maybe you could get some of the billions of dollars in frozen Libyan accounts. That’d be my move.”

He said India might be a good name change for a state trying to lure more engineers while the name Somalia would be a good fit for Texas, given the state’s rebellious tendencies and its population of religious fundamentalists. http://www.thechicagodope.com/2011/09/15/ohio-changes-name-to-iraq-to-
get-federal-help/

---