Ohio's Problems Caused by GOP Tax Cuts in 2005

 ***  Just before Gov. Bob Taft left office after serving two terms as Ohio's Governor, he pushed for drastic tax cuts. The incoming Democratic Governor, Ted Strickland, was left with an impending disaster.

Now people are examining how Ohio got in this mess.  Strickland doesn't deserve the blame.  Bob Taft should be held accountable for the economic woes he created.  Taft set up Strickland and the state for failure.

Columbia Tribune: 

In his new budget proposal, Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich calls for extending a generous 21 percent cut in state income taxes. The measure originally was part of a sweeping 2005 tax overhaul that abolished the state corporate income tax and phased out a business property tax.


The tax cuts were supposed to stimulate Ohio’s economy and create jobs. But that didn’t happen once the economy tanked. Instead, the changes ended up costing Ohio more than $2 billion a year in lost tax revenue, money that would have gone a long way toward closing the state’s $8 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2012.....



....Compounding Ohio’s budget woes are 128 state tax exemptions, credits and deductions that drain more than $7 billion a year in would-be revenue. These loopholes make Ohio miss out on one of every four dollars it would otherwise collect in taxes, said Schiller of Policy Matters Ohio....


OMG!  "...128 state tax exemptions, credits and deductions..."

 Not only did the Republicans let their business friends pay less taxes, the GOP lawmakers  and Taft created a lasting economic disaster. In 2005, Policy Matters Ohio warned Republicans that the Taft Tax Plan was bad because:

...It creates new fiscal problems instead of solving them....


...It takes revenue out of the state.....

....There is no evidence it will grow jobs....

....It is unnecessary....

....It favors the wealthy.........



Isn't it too bad that Taft didn't listen to Policy Matters in 2005?  They knew exactly what would happen.  Unfortunately, now Kasich wants to completely destroy what is left.

******************

>>>   Republican Rep. Eric Cantor must have missed those days in school when they learned how a bill becomes a law.  As many have already pointed out, Cantor needs to sit down and watch the School House Rock lesson, "How a bill becomes a law."

WSJ:

...House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) said that if the Senate didn’t act, HR1 – the bill number for the House-passed legislation – would become the law of the land.

Of course, it wouldn’t, because the Senate already had a vote on the original measure and it failed to garner the support of a single Democrat....


 The next group of school children who travel to Washington, D.C. should stop and explain how a bill becomes a law to Republican Rep. Eric Cantor.