He believes Ohio needs continued financial support from the Federal government. He predicts continued financial difficulties in Ohio. He predicts a double dip recession. He advocates increases in local taxes to force citizens in local communities already hammered by the economic downturn to dig deeper to pay for government. Strickland can see no area for cuts in “essential state spending” to balance the Ohio’s budget and must raise taxes. I guess Ohioans should just trust his failed policies for another four years. Yea right!
I just wonder what the federal plan to let taxes go up in 2011 will trigger the very problems he predicts. We learn one thing from Democrats. Government services are essential and tax increases are a civic responsibility, even when those taxes will force business to close, businesses to leave the state, and the citizens who once held those jobs to forced on unemployment. Democrat tax and spend policies always lead to financial disaster and federal, state and local bankruptcy. Democrats never understand their tax and spend policies make it harder for private sector businesses to flourish. There’s lots of areas where the state is wasting money that can be cut. Here’s a couple areas just for starters…
In my small town, there was once a thriving business opportunity for mom and pop stores to rent video tapes and DVDs. These small businesses once employed folk, paid state and local taxes and added to Ohio’s economy. Then state’s public libraries decided they could increase their circulation figures by buying and lending videos and DVDs to the public. They competed for the video rental businesses with state tax dollars and offered the videos for free. One by one, those private businesses stopped renting videos and the stores closed. It’s really hard to compete against public “businesses” who have destroyed your private business.
Public library spending is a sacred cow area in Ohio’s state budget that has escaped scrutiny during many economic downturns. Maybe it time we examine all “essential programs” more closely.
A second spending area for scrutiny is this… Sometimes states decide to create businesses that the private companies can not be run profitably. Governor Ted Strickland has been pushing spending tax money on passenger rail service as one more essential “Infrastructure project” to aid the Ohio cities. Democrat congresswoman Marcy Kaptur inserted $400 million dollars into the Stimulus bill to build passenger rail between Toledo between Chicago and Pittsburgh, including Cleveland and Sandusky. Once the money went to Columbus, legislators from downstate areas redirected the money to their communities. They pushed the idea of light rail traffic along the Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton, Cincinnati corridor. A disappointed Marcy Kaptur plans to expand the new system linking Toledo to Cleveland for future state sponsored rail extensions. All this light rail will require state subsidies in future Ohio budgets and will burden tax payers if Ohio’s economy ever improves.
Ohio passenger rail once thrived in Ohio. In the 1920s, Ohio had a greater number Interurban rail track mileage than any state in the country. Interurban rail once provided passenger service in small cities like Mansfield and Ashland to large cities where passengers could catch main line train and travel around the country. Competition from automobiles coupled with the 1930s depression drove Interurban rail services into bankruptcy. When the economy recovered after WWII in the 1950s. President Eisenhower pushed congress to build the Interstate highway system. People chose to drive passenger cars because cars provided the freedom of movement train service never could. Consumers did not want the slow travel and inconvenience of rail services. Isn’t it odd that during the current Obama depression, we have public officials wanting to revisit another failed idea from the 1930s. Democrats have been telling themselves for generations about the glory days of the FDR era with it’s big government “infrastructure projects” and have never critically evaluated the policies that prolonged the depression.
If Ted Strickland can not find a better way to balance the state budget than raising taxes, maybe a new cost cutter administration needs to be elected which can examine every state spending area and stop wasting money in the Ohio. Ohio needs to stop wasting money in all ways big and small.
