The Push for Higher Taxes

Somehow I don’t see this as a great rallying cry for social service groups and others who would like to raise your taxes:

Raise our taxes, please! Social service groups rally at the Statehouse

Ohio’s political leaders haven’t been willing to even discuss a tax increase to fix Ohio’s budget woes, but about 300 to 400 people rallied on the Statehouse lawn asking leaders to hike taxes instead of make more cuts to human service programs. Holding up homemade signs that supporting raising tax revenues, including “Make Over $200,000? Pay your fair share in taxes” and “Close the Loopholes,” those at the rally Thursday afternoon were issued “reality checks” which they dropped off to legislative leaders inside the Statehouse.

Most people if given a – very much hypothetical – choice between letting poor people die horrible deaths, or having children be malnourished, etc., will choose to raise taxes on the “rich.”

But 1) with today’s economic – and political – climate I am not sure how brave politicians are going to be about trying that out in real life. And 2) higher taxes is the last thing this state needs given its struggles to remain competitive with other states.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t see a parade of folks arguing that any cuts are going to have a catastrophic impact on this or that group; and that “investing” in this or that program will pay big dividends in the future.

Practically everyone who testifies before the finance committees during the budget process claims that money spent on their program saves the state money.  But for some reason the state keeps finding itself in the hole.

Where has all that money (social services, economic development, etc.) gone and why has Ohio continued to sink?  Worth thinking about during the upcoming debates about higher taxes.