December 24, 2009 |
Tags: Budget, Economy, Jobs, regulations, Taxes — admin @ 8:02 am
Matt Mayer, the President of the Buckeye Institute of Public Policy, wrote an insightful piece in today’s Columbus Dispatch. From the piece:
Ohio’s budget is a disaster because politicians from both parties cut deals and made spending promises totally dependent on the erroneous belief in an endless economic boom. As the pain spreads to every corner of Ohio, more people find themselves stretching fewer dollars and looking for a ray of hope. With Ohio’s next biennial budget already projected to be $5 billion in deficit, Ohioans need more than hope. They need game-changing ideas.
And:
From 1975 to 2008, recession or not, Ohio’s budget grew every year. The percentage growth in spending exceeded inflation in all but seven years. The budget grew by an average of 6.8 percent as inflation averaged just 4.3 percent. From 1994 to 2001, the budget under a Republican governor and Republican-led legislature grew by more than 5 percent every year as inflation averaged just over 2.5 percent.
And:
Ohio already has the seventh-highest state-local tax burden, the 47th worst business tax environment, and the 11th highest per-person individual income-tax burden.
Politicians just increased taxes on every small-business owner who has paid three quarters of estimated taxes under a lower tax rate, thereby forcing them to pay a huge fourth-quarter “catch-up” estimated tax payment on Jan. 15 at the higher rate. Keep in mind, small businesses create roughly two-thirds of all net new jobs. On spending, lawmakers permitted three limited construction-reform projects that everyone knows would save billions of tax dollars over the next decade if fully implemented. Anyone want to hazard a guess at which they will choose to eliminate that $5 billion deficit?
Failing to tackle the toughest government spending issues will only drive Ohio further into the ditch. It is time for big ideas aimed at restructuring government costs to bring them in line with the realities of our economy.
Finally:
Although government cannot create jobs, it can attract to those who can. We must, therefore, reduce the regulatory burden on entrepreneurs and small businesses that comes from both government activism and Ohio’s overlapping and inefficient jurisdictional redundancies.
You can read the entire piece here.
Comments (1)
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Here’s an idea for a Big Change for Ohio:
How about we reform Ohio’s family law, to make it harder for judges to reward plaintiffs who file no-fault divorces, by requiring that a parent’s rights may not be infringed without proof that the parent is unfit or harmful to the child. In this scenario, a NFD petition becomes a request to leave & pay support, instead of a demand to FORCE OUT a devoted fit parent & collect support money.
I think it would be nice if INNOCENT DEFENDANTS in divorce had as much (or more) protection of their parental relationships, as allegedly bad parents have in Juvenile Courts – maybe even a JURY TRIAL to determine when discipline crosses the line to abuse.
I’m on a petition committee gathering signatures for an Ohio Parental Rights Amendment, contact me for details… steve66.oh@att.net
Comment by Steve Winfield — January 13, 2010 @ 2:06 pm