Jim Babka
| Jim Babka | |
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Jim Babka in 2004
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| Born | March 14, 1968 |
| Occupation | Writer, public policy expert, grassroots activist, talk-show host |
| Spouse(s) | Susanne |
| Children | Jessica, Stephen, Andrew |
| Parent(s) | James Sr and Joyce |
Jim Babka (born 1968) is a writer, activist, and former radio talk-show host. He currently serves as president of the Downsize DC Foundation and DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
Jim Babka was born in Cleveland, Ohio to James Sr and Joyce Babka. He was raised in Twinsburg Ohio. His mother died in a car accident in May 1978.
Babka graduated from Baptist Christian School in Orange Village, Ohio, where he had been class President in 10th grade.
Babka's father, an auto-parts company executive, was a conservative Republican who had supported Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Jim was used to hearing politics discussed regularly, and found that social studies classes came easy to him. By ninth grade he recognized that he wanted to go into a career involving political action.
Babka attended the University of Akron where he majored in political science and minored in business management. Early in his college career he became involved in the College Republicans. But he quickly became disillusioned by politics. Favoritism, petty in-fighting, and criminal corruption in the college organization caused Babka to seek other outlets to make a difference.
He took over a virtually defunct and in-debt, independent newspaper called The Buchtel Helm. Working with friends he revived it, and served as Editor-in-Chief for one year. The following year, he turned over editing and publishing responsibilities to two other students, Chet Sutherland and Jeffrey Winter, respectively. But Babka served as President of the non-profit organization that produced the paper, and continued to write for it. The three students renamed the paper The U of A Times.
In 1992, Babka met Susanne DiPuccio. The couple married in March 1994. They lived in Akron as Jim tried a number of business, most notably as a licensed realtor and a real estate investor/landlord. By 1999 they had a daughter and two sons, all of whom have been homeschooled. The family are Christians with Wesleyan and Anabaptist leanings, who have been active in church.
Babka hadn't done anything political for a few years, but he was reinvigorated by the Republican Revolution of 1994, and particularly by a speech Newt Gingrich gave to the incoming freshman Republicans. In that speech, Gingrich, who stood in front of a high-rise, glass back-drop of Washington, DC, pointed out that Article I, Section 7 said that all spending bills originated in the House. That means, Gingrich continued, that if we zero out the funding for these programs, the good people who work in these buildings will go home.
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