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EducateWorthington.org

The 912 Project - Glenn Beck

912 Group of Central Ohio

Please let me know if you'd like your link added

John Kasich Opposes the Columbus Casino? Why?

Typically, politicians don’t like to oppose issues which pass with voter approval… So why offer your first opinion on the subject AFTER the election is held? It wasn’t too long ago when Kasich was at least open to the idea of casinos.

There are two options here for why Kasich jumped into this debate now:

1) This could be John Kasich tapping into the populist movement in Columbus to oppose the casinos… a grassroots group is forming which is not remotely associated with Sandy Theis… which means it is quite legitimate. And he could be embracing the legitimate, morally conservative case to be made against gambling or is at least making the case for more local-control.

2) Franklin County GOP Chairman Doug Preisse and his lobbying firm, list Mountaineer Gaming (MTR) as one of their clients.

This is the same company that Kim Redfern lobbies for and was going to provide the slot machines to race tracks for Ted Strickland’s patchwork budget before the conservatives at LetOhioVote.org decided to put the issue before voters.

Relating to the recently "solved" budget problem Joe Hallet of the Dispatch< http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2009/12/20/halcol20.ART_ART_12-20-09_G5_M2G1T0M.html?sid=101>  characterizes the behavior of "governor wannabe John Kasick" as "expedient".  That of course has been the modus operandi of Republicans for ever.

We have to remember that when Taft and the all Republican Legislature cut taxes by 21% (over five years) that cut was supposed to propel Ohio forward.  The evidence is at hand that it did no such thing. In fact, Ohio is a laggard in the recovery.

A big deal is being made of the five senators voting for the fix.  As a matter of fact four of the five are term limited and at little risk.  Courageous votes came from Senator Wagoner who according to Hallet chided his caucus and in the House from Reps. Matthew J. Dolan and Ross McGregor.

Clearly, if Ohio reverts to an all Republican administration, future budget problems will not be in the hands of courageous people who do what it takes but rather in the hands of self interested people who think about the next election (of course in these days of high unemployment they have to protect their jobs) rather than think about the welfare of the state and its people.

The Shadow has seen this movie before.

Taft reduced the individual tax rates but implemented a new tax, the Commercial Activity Tax (CAT) to offset and replace the revenue.

As feared, the Democrats have suspended the scheduled individual tax rate rollback, but kept the CAT rate increases in place.

As Conservatives warned, now we have both taxes.
It is the total tax burden and the unfriendly business environment that makes Ohio's economy anemic.

We have killed the goose that laid the golden egg. It will take generations to get these businesses back. Without jobs, nothing is possible.

Governor Taft also eliminated the Corporate Franchise Tax and the Tangible Personal Property Tax. The two taxes were definite job killers and I think Ohio's recession would have been even deeper without these moves. He also increased the sales tax by a penny and by eliminating the rollback for commercial property, he effectively increased the property tax for commercial real estate by 10%.

Some 70% of the revenue from the CAT tax is earmarked to replace the revenue lost by school districts and other beneficiaries of the property tax. Eventually, that revenue will go into the general fund, however, when that might occur is unknown.

Shadow, there are tons of ways for the state to save money. Construction reform, prison sentencing reform and pooling of health care for all state employees have all been discussed. Consolidation of state agencies is another frequently mentioned topic.

Of course, you might be right. The new Medicaid mandates in Health Care Reform might increase state spending enough that a state tax increase is inevitable. If only Senator Brown had the skill of Senator Nelson, perhaps he could have gotten an exemption for Ohio...

Counter, Marc:

Marc has a good description of what the changes in tax policy under the Taft administration.  The Shadow has no argument with the advisability of such changes to improve the business climate in Ohio.

There is however a problem.  The income tax and the CAT tax will tend to move simultaneously in the same direction (less personal income=less commercial activity) thus compounding the shortfall. The 1% increase in sales tax is also affected by loss if personal income (in addition to the losses caused by the ever-increasing  in-line purchases where sales taxes are often not paid) The TPPT tended to be more stable.  The elimination of the 10% roll back on commercial properties does save the state some money.

 All the solutions mentioned by Marc are worthy of discussion but, because of political considerations, none of them could be easy to implement in the short time available.

Finally, why castigate Sherod Brown for not "bringing home the bacon" when Voinovich who is not running again could have sold his vote to get more Medicaid help for Ohio and make the bill passage  bipartisan?   

The Senate Debate has shown that Republican votes are not for sale, therefore, Voinovich has nothing to sell. The Democrats (Nelson, Landrieu, Baucus, Lieberman etc..) have shown that they will sell their vote on this issue. Senator Brown would have been just one of many.

My comment was, of course, tongue in cheek. I find the behavior of the Senate Democratic Caucus to be most distasteful and frankly, antithetical to what it means to be an American, let alone an American holding high office. The bill itself will eventually be proven (hopefully today) to be unconstitutional in that the commerce clause does not give Congress the right to force an American citizen to spend $750 on an unwanted product (note, the bill says $750 or 2% of income, so it is only $750 for people making under $37,500/year).

"I gave Mornay double his lands in Scotland, matching estates in England. Lochland turned... for much less."
~ Edward the Longshanks

Counter:  Huh!!

I find all this amusing (not really)  reportedly Boemer was a top recipient of money from the health industry with Pat Tiberi following closely with over $ 700K.  At least Nelson held out for his state and constituents (his job) while Bohmer and Tiberi held out for their sponsors.

The Shadow knows what evil etc. etc.