How to Burden Taxpayers and Ohio’s Economy
In a bid to retain auto jobs, the Ohio Legislature is considering a new tax incentive that would reward major automotive employers even if they slash their work forces. Worried Michigan already has approved a new incentive of its own. These are just the latest examples of a damaging competition between states. Such incentives are […]
A Tough Job
Compared to a generation ago, adult workers in Ohio and the nation are vastly more productive. American workers generate 78 percent more output per hour than they did in 1973, with a particularly steep ascent in the last few years. Ohio educational levels have not risen quickly enough, but they dwarf the schooling of our […]
Destructive Change Would Result from Passage of Proposed Constitutional Amendment
You may have seen people circulating petitions for it at the West Side Market. It s a proposed amendment to the Ohio constitution, backed by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and his Citizens for Tax Reform. The proposed amendment would limit the growth of state and local government spending to either the rate of inflation […]
How Ohio Can Cut Energy Costs and Create Jobs
Trapped between a Hummer and another SUV, each with one passenger, I asked myself, “Are gas prices too low?” It’s true that, as this paper has reported, Ohio has seen a 30 percent jump in the per-gallon price of gasoline since December, and a 56 percent increase since April 2002. Yet, consumption is relatively stable […]
The Wrong Tax
Tax reform is in the air in Columbus. Gov. Bob Taft and Republican legislative leaders have called it their top priority. But disturbingly, proposals leaking out of the state capital take aim at the fairest tax in Ohio, the personal income tax. Cutting the income tax is likely to make Ohio’s tax system much less […]
Same Old Problems But Ohio Has Solutions
Jobs have deserted the Mid west. Ohio’s manufacturing sector is being battered. Cleveland’s poverty rate is officially the nation’s worst. In a region called the rust belt, in a state with a shrinking job base, in a city whose poet laureate is Harvey Pekar, none of this seems like news. So writing an annual report […]
Recovery Isn’t Doing the Job for Idled Ohioans
Ohio’s job market has been pummeled so badly in the last three years that anemic job growth can seem almost praiseworthy by comparison. But make no mistake: compared to previous recoveries, other states or past performance, Ohio workers are being left far, far behind. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise are insulting the workers who […]
Wealthy Benefit Most From Enterprise Zones
Wealthy benefit most from enterprise zones, but the program was supposed to create jobs in economically depressed urban areas. The Ohio Enterprise Zone Program, created in 1981 to spur economic development and job creation in depressed urban areas, has evolved into a tax subsidy program whose reported benefits go disproportionately to wealthier areas in the […]
Ohio Needs to Plan Now to Weather the Next Recession
A number of government sources show Ohio is suffering more than the country as a whole in the wake of the 2001 recession, and more than the state suffered after the recession of the 1990s. We’ve hemorrhaged 3.3 percent of our jobs, more than three times as much as in the last recession. With 185,000 […]
The Ohio Controlling Board Needs Control
Ask most Ohioans about it, and they ll probably scratch their heads in puzzlement. Yet if relatively unknown, the State Controlling Board is a powerful force in the statehouse, affecting most citizens with its decisions. During budget squeezes such as we are experiencing now, its role grows even larger. Every two weeks, its seven members […]
State Controlling Board Shows Little Zest For Control
CLEVELAND -The writer is research director at Policy Matters Ohio, a nonprofit research institute. His recent report, Too Much Power, Too Little Oversight: Ohio’s State Controlling Board, is available at here. Ask most Ohioans about it, and they’ll probably scratch their heads in puzzlement. Yet if relatively unknown, the State Controlling Board is a powerful […]
In Ohio, The Poor Are Getting Poorer
Faced with a $4 billion budget shortfall over the next two fiscal years, the Ohio General Assembly must raise taxes to cover part of the gap. Lawmakers should do so in a way that gives attention to people’s ability to pay. Low- and middle-income Ohio families pay a higher proportion of their incomes to state […]