Columbus Dispatch wants to raise your state taxes too

Not content with supporting the raising of taxes in Columbus, The Columbus Dispatch now wants to take that idea state wide.

The editorial starts out well:

Two months ago, Strickland said he would “likely veto” any plan for slots without a public vote. As he has in the past, Strickland correctly noted that gambling enriches few and impoverishes many. It creates no net economic benefit.

Suddenly, Strickland has changed his tune. Now he’s counting on the slots plan to generate $765 million for the state over the next two years. This rush job all but guarantees that taxpayers will not get a good deal with the racetracks. It also uses highly optimistic revenue projections.

His budget proposal also would borrow from the state’s largest pension fund, the Public Employees Retirement System, by reducing the state’s required contribution from 14 percent of a state worker’s wages to 8 percent. The borrowed money, about $162 million, supposedly will be paid back over the next decade.

If this precedent is not illegal, it should be. No governor or legislature should be permitted to mortgage the state’s future in this manner.

Amen!

But wait, they don’t mean what you think they mean:

The central problem, however, is that Strickland and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders are more focused on their 2010 election prospects than on the long-term financial health of the state.

Just over a month ago, during a visit to the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce, Strickland was asked about the possibility of a tax increase. He opened the door a bit, saying, “I don’t think it’s appropriate . . . to enter (budget) negotiations with a lot of lines drawn in the sand.”

After those comments, Democratic House Speaker Armond Budish and Republican Senate President Bill Harris informed Strickland they did not believe they could round up the votes in their chambers for a tax increase.

Apparently, that’s when leadership died in Ohio.

No one likes tax increases. But they are far preferable to mortgaging the state’s future, saddling tomorrow’s taxpayers with the bill for today’s consumption. This budget proposal does that. It utilizes at least $6 billion, and possibly up to $8 billion, in one-time money to mask huge deficits. The blueprint is not fiscally or morally defensible.

Strickland should have the courage — as should Budish and Harris — to raise the revenues necessary to offset the spending called for in the 2010-11 budget. To do less is a profound failure of leadership.

First, off note the grandstanding.  How dare politicians think about getting re-elected!  And spare me the “when leadership died in Ohio” drama.

Can politicians get a little weaselly from time to time?  Of course, they can.  And I too think Strickland’s (and his bi-partisan supporters) gambling idea is a sure sign of a lack of leadership given his clear stance previously.

But leadership hasn’t died because the kind of leadership the Dispatch wants is known as political suicide.

The real central problem is one that the Dispatch so often embodies: a belief in the status quo.  Government is the size it is and any drastic cuts are indefensible. Make some cuts, slow the growth, and if the deficit is too big well you have to raise taxes.

There is no acknowledgment that the inability to restrain the growth in government is what brings us to this challenge on a regular basis.  There is non acknowledgement that the status quo simply isn’t going to change the way people see Ohio when they are making decisions about living here, starting a business, or moving away.

Ohio has not had a dynamic growth orientated business climate for some time.  And raising taxes is one sure way to make sure that continues.  Why not call for a radical re-evaluation of the size and scope of government?  Why not call for true civil service reform that rewards talent and gives state government the flexibility to deliver the basic services while getting out of the way of the small businesses that create so much growth?  Why not acknowledge that the setting priorities is a neccesary function and that now is the perfect time to determine what works and what doesn’t?

True leadership would stop looking to solve the budget problems with either gimmicks and gambling and look to change the game moving forward.  But the Dispatch wants to cloak its big government higher taxes rhetoric in indealism so it ignores reality and perpetuates the problem.