It’s Tax Day again in America. Don’t you just love it? Everyone has scrambled around, filled out their own tax forms or met with an accountant (at least once), written sizable checks for who knows what purpose and are now breathing a collective sigh of relief.
Here’s a statistic for you... Americans’ tax bill in 2010 is greater than what we pay for food, clothing, and shelter combined. I think that means we’ve reached a tipping point.
Given that it’s tax day, I am also entertained by the political gamesmanship of our Governor, my opponent and their cronies. They are trumpeting the improved tax climate in Ohio, or so they would have us believe. If anyone was paying attention over the past 5 years or so, any improvements in Ohio’s tax structure (e.g., personal income, personal property, etc.) were all enacted by a Republican governor and Republican legislature! Yeah, that’s right. Republicans! The only roles Democrats have played were to first criticize the idea of cutting taxes, and now to cancel the last year of the income tax rollback authored by Republican Bob Taft. While these kinds of political shenanigans have been engaged in by both parties at times, let me borrow from the great American philosopher Rodney King, “Can’t we all just tell the truth?”
But I digress…
Tax Day shouldn’t be confused with Tax Freedom Day. That comes to America’s citizenry on different days in different states. Here in Ohio, Tax Freedom Day falls on April 8, putting us just about in the middle of all 50 states at number 23. Perhaps more to the point, we need a robust public debate on the role of government in our lives and the consequent taxes that are required to support that. This is certainly one of the issues I hope becomes a central point of discussion in my race for the Ohio House of Representatives.
Just to give everyone a taste of the pickle that Ohio’s in right now, three different national studies now rank Ohio’s competitiveness between 45th and 49th in the country. (Go to my website at www.jeffkrabill.com for details and links to the studies.) The only state consistently behind us is Michigan! Part of the reason is our tax structure, but a bigger part of the problem is our regulatory structure. It can now be said that we are beyond not getting new companies to locate here, we are now not even able to keep Ohio’s current employers from leaving. This isn’t tolerable, but the fix isn’t all that difficult to figure out either. Just look at the studies! They lay out in pretty clear terms what has to be done. And believe me, I understand that there will be special interests that won’t like some of the changes. But what’s more important, hurt feelings among special interest fat cats or high paying, quality, long lasting jobs for Ohio’s citizens? I’ll stand with Ohio’s citizens.
On a different note, my opponent’s e-newsletters have become an unending source of sick comedy for many in the 80th District. How about this little gem from Dennis Murray’s latest newsletter…”There is no doubt these are tough economic times, but we are beginning to see the glimmer of hope as the recession eases.” Really, Dennis? Glimmer of hope? The very same week that this little gem of an observation was made Ohio released the unemployment statistics for all 88 counties. Sadly, Ottawa County has reached nearly 20% unemployment, and Erie County is just over 14%!!! That doesn’t strike me as the recession easing any. I’m sure there will be some improvement as we enter the summer months with the consequent increase in seasonal employment, but the 80th District is in arguably the worst condition of any of Ohio’s 99 house districts.
One of the most graphic representations of the impact of unemployment on Ohio appeared in the American Observer. Their map shows where the country was (county by county) in January 2007. Click on http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html to see in graphic detail just what has happened since then. Watch how gruesome it has become for the state of Ohio. Note that this graphic reflects only the official unemployment, not underemployment.
Finally, consider this…on January 1, 2011, Ohio will be facing an $8,000,000,000 deficit! As unbelievable as this is, it’s not news to those running Columbus these days. In fact, Gov. Strickland and Dennis Murray chose to plug the budget deficit with federal stimulus funds and the looting of a number of restricted funds. It fixed the short term problem, but just kicked the can (the deficit) down the road for someone else to fix. Why not face up to the problem and fix it instead? Well, I’ve used this term before, but I think it still applies to the Strickland/Murray approach to governance – political cowardice!
I guess it can be said…while Ohio’s citizens continue to suffer, Nero continues to fiddle!
Jeff Krabill is running for the 80th District Ohio House Seat. For more information on Jeff and his campaign, please visit www.jeffkrabill.com, friend him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.
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