Statehouse Gang Throws Ohio in Reverse - Toledo Blade
The two-year, $62 billion state budget continues the relentless Republican drive to redistribute income to the wealthiest Ohioans from middle-class, working-class, and poor families. It unnecessarily cuts taxes overall by $2.7 billion over three years, reducing taxes on individual and business incomes while raising the state sales tax and starting to eliminate long-standing state help with local property tax bills.
The nonpartisan research and advocacy group Policy Matters Ohio calculates that the budget gives the richest 1 percent of Ohioans — those who made at least $335,000 last year — an annual state tax cut of more than $6,000. Taxpayers in the middle fifth of incomes, between $33,000 and $51,000 in 2012, will get a chump-change cut of $9 a year. And the bottom 20 percent of Ohio households, which earned less than $18,000 last year, will now pay $12 more a year in taxes.
Kasich administration officials complain that such a “static” analysis doesn’t take into account the economic growth and job creation they insist the tax cut will bring. But Policy Matters notes that a 21-percent state income tax cut in 2005 didn’t keep Ohio’s job market from performing worse than the nation’s overall economy during the most recent recession.
Even as it cuts taxes for the rich, the new budget falls short of restoring aid to local schools and governments, as well as vital state services, that the governor and lawmakers slashed from the previous budget. It places a greater burden on property taxes to pay for education and public safety.