Also in play is Kasich’s bid to reform Ohio’s laughably light severance taxes by seeking fair-share taxes on the so-called “fracking” of oil and gas. The Statehouse’s gas and oil lobby isn’t just crying rivers over Kasich’s plan. The lobby is crying whole watersheds. That’s ironic on countless levels.
What’s not ironic, but a cold reality, is that the Statehouse’s mini-OPEC has plenty of clout. The lobby stymied Kasich during the General Assembly’s 2013-14 session. And its heft is long-standing. One hundred twenty-five years ago, in 1890, Ohio Republican boss Marcus A. Hanna, in a letter quoted by historian Bruce Bringhurst, wrote that “there (was) no greater mistake” a Republican could make than going after Standard Oil, then a synonym for “gas and oil.”
At the root of this to-ing and fro-ing over tax-shifting appears to be Kasich’s aversion to Ohio’s progressive income tax. It’s “graduated” or “progressive” because it isn’t flat-rate; the greater an Ohioan’s income, the greater the income-tax percentage he or she faces.
Lost in the shuffle are some plain facts. Fact One: Ohio only has an income tax because a Republican-run General Assembly approved it in 1971, when Democrat John J. Gilligan was governor. Fact Two: When Ohioans had the chance to repeal the income tax in a statewide referendum, or roll it back in another referendum, they refused to do so.
But in fairness to Kasich, there’s also a Fact Three: It appears from summaries compiled by the Ohio Department of Taxation that of the states that border Ohio, three – Indiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania – have flat-rate income taxes. (Kentucky and West Virginia’s are graduated, or progressive, like Ohio’s).
Ohioans and their businesses may or may not migrate to Michigan or Pennsylvania based simply on those states' income-tax regimes. But Indiana — in particular — seems to be a kind of Nirvana for a number of Ohio "business conservatives," even if the Hoosier State looks from afar like one big cornfield pocked with basketball courts. (Well … there is Notre Dame football.)
Maybe Kasich & Co. should take the direct route: Offer Ohioans a flat-rate income tax, via a ballot issue, and see what happens. Politically speaking, Ohio isn’t big on subtlety. To get you where you want to go, plain speaking is the ticket.
Keeping it classy – not:
Once again, a scattering of Democrats in the Ohio House and state Senate have voted against taking the governor’s annual State of the State speech on the road. This year, partly as a salute to new House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, Kasich will deliver the speech in Wilmington, in Rosenberger’s Clinton County.
As a formality, the legislature had to consent. Some Democrats (and a few Republican cave dwellers) voted no. It’s a free country, but that looked petty.
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