Ohio Senate Introduces Bold Budget Plan for Fair Flat Income Tax and Substantial Property Tax Reform
There was a stark contrast in the corporate media’s coverage of the Senate's Budget this week. Wonder why?
It includes a Flat Income Tax Phase-In, Substantial Property Tax Reform, and a plan to leverage the economic development driver that is professional sports without putting the taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in state bonds or direct funding from the General Revenue Fund.
Let's compare.
The Toledo Blade’s accurate headline:
Compared to the agenda-driven Cleveland.com headline.
Sigh. Of course, tax cuts for the wealthy. What agenda-driven cleveland.com doesn’t seem to understand is that an Ohio couple who together earn $100,000 with their combined paychecks wouldn’t remotely consider themselves wealthy. Certainly far from it, in places like high tax Cuyahoga County and metropolitan Ohio. You hear that hard working Ohio moms and dads providing for your children? If you make $100k a year, today's editorial boards and newsrooms are convinced you're wealthy and should wear the moniker of shame.
It’s so out of touch and yet still promoted by today’s radical left that only cares about identity politics and class warfare. And their own opinions.
10 years ago, Ohio had 9 tax brackets.
Today there are 2. The Senate’s plan would take the state income tax to a flat 2.75% in the second year of the biennium.
Oh, and while a certain newspaper acts like it is standing up for the poor, it forgets that anyone making $26,050 or less pays ZERO state income tax in Ohio. That policy will continue with the Senate’s budget plan.
One would think that the Democrats over the last ten years, who always complained about reducing the income tax burden on Ohioans by consolidating tax brackets, would’ve been able to see the light and at least come up with a new gimmick to talk about. Instead, despite their moral equivalency outrage and radical social agenda, the state still ran budget surpluses, invested billions into K-12 schools, and improved the economic opportunities in Ohio.
The Senate is also providing much needed and substantial property tax reform, by banning all new emergency and replacement levies. Those levies fall outside of the original cost controls that a state law passed in 1976 was supposed to control.
70% of the millage that property owners pay is attached to their school system. Everyone wants great schools, yet, collectively, Ohio’s 611 school districts had a cash carryover of $10.5 billion last year. The Senate wants to make sure that future levies are anti-inflationary, and that Ohio homeowners understand clearly what is on the ballot when a district asks for a new levy.
One of the big surprises was the Senate’s play call on the Cleveland Browns stadium question. Ownership’s planned move next door with a mixed-use and modern economic development built around a new stadium for Brook Park created tons of controversy.
The Governor proposed funding $600 million by doubling the gaming tax.
The House proposed issuing $600 million in bonds from the state.
Then at the Senate’s news conference, the media was caught off guard, as Channel 19 in Cleveland called it, “The Ohio Senate calls major audible.”
Here are the basics.
The Senate plan protects the state from using your tax dollars to service bond debt because it doesn’t use bonds. That protects the state's credit rating and reduces risk.
It protects your tax dollars because it doesn’t provide funding with direct tax dollars from the General Revenue Fund.
The state has $4 billion in Unclaimed Funds that are just sitting there.
As Finance Chair, Senator Jerry Cirino stated, “It takes idle money and puts it to work to create jobs.”
The Sports and Culture Facility Fund (SCF) will provide $600 million from Unclaimed Funds, and turn that into a Performance Grant for the Brookpark/Browns project.
So, how will it be paid back? Every 4 years, over a period of 16 years, the Department of Commerce will evaluate whether the project is generating the tax revenue that was forecast for those stages of the stadium plan. If not, team ownership has committed $100 million that will be used to cover any shortfall during that time.
That $600 million comes from funds that have been sitting for a minimum of ten years, and anyone filing a claim for unclaimed funds has an additional ten years to do so.
The Cuyahoga County executive, Chris Ronayne, held a news conference criticizing the Senate’s plan, saying, “Frankly, your pocket is being picked to give $600 million to the Haslam Sports Group.”
Really? Well, speaking of pickpockets, he conveniently forgot to tell the highly taxed residents of Cuyahoga County that the county has its own unclaimed funds account, and it transferred more than $7 million into the county’s General Fund in 2018.
In a fleeting moment of fairness, even Cleveland.com’s far-left publisher admitted that, “…from what we can see, The Senate’s version of the budget does seem to be the best version.”
Of course, the paper was very angry that the Senate repealed a long held tax expenditure that exempted newspapers from sales tax. Publisher Chris Quinn, as usual, tried to make it personal against Senator Cirino.
“Cirino, who hates us, and has criticized me by name in a City Club speech, seems like he’s getting some revenge by removing that exemption from the budget.”
To refresh his memory, here are some examples of the name calling the publisher has pulled in just the last couple of years.
Just a sampling of the unhinged and unprofessional commentary that started with Huffman Derangement Syndrome during the tenure of former Senate President Matt Huffman, who is now the Speaker of The Ohio House of Representatives.
That's today's advocacy journalism. Quick to name call, quicker to censor the First Amendment Rights of others, and quick to become a shadow of itself.
The paper has lost more than 20% of its subscription base according to a 2023 study, so a couple extra cents, maybe even an extra quarter, in high tax Cuyahoga County isn’t going to matter for a paper already being run into the ground.
This week Senate President Rob McColley and Finance Chairman, Senator Jerry Cirino, join the President’s Podcast for an inside look at the Senate’s budget.
Read our news release.
If you missed it, you can watch news conference and see detailed graphics explaining the key parts of the Senate's budget bill.