Ohio governor candidates on the issues: Taxes

The debate will be moderated by News Center 7 anchor James Brown. Questions will be asked by Dayton Daily News Columbus Bureau reporter Laura Bischoff, News Center 7 reporter and WHIO Reports host Jim Otte and University of Dayton assistant political science professor Christopher Devine.

Ahead of the debate, we are taking a look at where DeWine and Cordray stand on key issues such as taxes

Q: What is your plan for taxes? Would you raise taxes, cut taxes or propose some kind of combination?

Richard Cordray: Republican tax policies over the last decade have harmed Ohioans in three major ways:

1) the tax cuts have not created the intended new jobs. Ohio’s job growth (4.7%) lags far behind the national average (7.2%);

2) they’ve created revenue shortfalls in the budget that will now require cuts to services such as school funding, health care, drug use prevention, law enforcement, and infrastructure repair;

3) the policies are fundamentally unfair, treating similarly situated income earners differently—providing a windfall to some, and imposing a hardship on others.

To fix the revenue shortfall and create more jobs, our tax policy will be guided by three main principles:

1) combining taxes on income, accumulated value, and consumption to enhance revenue stability through the ups and downs of the economic cycle;

2) maintaining a broad base for any tax, which minimizes the rate required to generate needed revenue; 3) distributing the overall tax burden according to one’s ability to pay.

Mike DeWine: I support anything that we can do to create a fairer, flatter tax that lowers the burden on job creators and families.

To continue to grow Ohio’s economy and bring prosperity to the entire state, we must keep taxes and regulations low and give job creators long-term certainty.

In this 21st Century economy, we are competing against neighboring states that have moved aggressively to streamline regulations and reduce taxes.

Competing with those states and other countries means we must ensure that Ohio is seen as a leader in business climate, tax policy, and education and technological training.

With limited budgets, we also need to allocate our resources where they are needed most and address all of the issues facing our state without raising taxes.

There’s always room for efficiency in government, and I plan to bring in a team of business leaders from around the state to find areas where we can make improvements.