Defining Success Steadily Downward

Let’s put “it could be worse” on the ash heap of excuses once and for all.

I received an email this morning from The Buckeye Institute, which I ran from September 2009 to December 2011. When I arrived at The Buckeye Institute, it was nearly $500,000 in debt and lacked credibility due to poor management decisions. In less than two-and-a-half years, I eliminated the debt; reinvigorated its mission by creating best-in-nation government salary, pension, and tax calculator tools; and issued hard-hitting report-after-report on the big issues facing Ohio (right-to-work, gold-plated government pensions, overcompensation of government workers, property tax reform, and more). You can’t find those reports on The Buckeye Institute website because they deleted all work except one report pre-dating President Robert Alt’s arrival. I’ve reposted them on Opportunity Ohio’s website because the reports remain as valid today as when they were written. When I left The Buckeye Institute, it had over $200,000 in the bank, thereby providing my predecessors with a solid base from which to start. Under Alt’s leadership, The Buckeye Institute thankfully has thrived, with a particular focus on filing legal amicus briefs and lawsuits versus issuing traditional policy reports.

Maybe it is just me coming off the heels of my column in The Federalist, “Why Can’t Deep-Red Ohio Accomplish Anything for Conservatives?," but the email I received this morning was deeply depressing. In the email, The Buckeye Institute boasts that, thanks to its valiant work, “paying income taxes could be worse.” Paying income taxes could be worse...Is that really what we’ve succumbed to in Ohio? It could be worse-ism. Taxes could be worse. Job growth could be worse. Regulations could be worse. Social issue losses could be worse. Have we truly reached the point in Ohio where we define success steadily downward? It appears so.

This ennui mentality reminded me of a report I wrote five years ago called, “Lucky or Good? An Analysis of John Kasich’s Tenure as Ohio’s Governor.” The report ran through several categories showing how Kasich’s tenure was largely based on riding a national recovery just after the Great Recession. The data showed very little of Ohio’s success came from Kasich’s policy decisions. In fact, many of his decisions suppressed Ohio’s growth. At any rate, when talking about jobs and the failures of JobsOhio, I captioned the section: “It Could Be Worse”-isms Belong on the Ash Heap of Excuses. 

As I detailed in my Federalist column, very little has gone well in Ohio despite a supermajority Republican trifecta. I even noted in the column that whatever gains taxpayers received from the small state income tax cut trumpeted by The Buckeye Institute were washed away by the massive property tax increases that hit Ohioans in 2023. As government often does, it robs Peter to pay Paul. The last thing Ohioans need is for “it could be worse” to become our state motto. We really must aim higher and demand more from those we elect to office. As I often said when I explored a run for Ohio governor last year, they got paid their salaries in full despite taxpayers getting left holding a largely empty bag, which is why I pushed the adoption of pay for performance for all legislators, the governor, and the lieutenant governor. In a pay for performance system, they’d only get paid in full if taxpayers first got paid with strong results.

My sincere hope is that this missive from The Buckeye Institute was just a carelessly thought of title to an email rather than an indication of something more. The Buckeye Institute does very important work. Ohioans need it to join Opportunity Ohio to use its full resources to push for the kind of bold colors agenda I created last year focused on actions like elimination of the state income tax, repeal of Medicaid expansion, enactment of right-to-work, streamlining local governments, and creating political reforms like pay for performance and replacing term limits with a 20-year time limit.

Let’s put “it could be worse” on the ash heap of excuses once and for all.

P.S. In case you missed it, the Mike Gallagher Show featured my Federalist column for thirty-nine minutes on its nationally syndicated show on Friday and I talked about it on the Bruce Hooley Show, as well. Listen to both segments at the links. 

P.P.S. On the agenda above, thankfully the legislature did override the DeWine-Husted veto to protect kids from the transradical agenda. Unfortunately, Ohio’s abortion protections have gone out the window with the passage of the constitutional amendment last November to make Ohio one of the worst states for protecting unborn life. So one step forward on one item, one step way back on another item and zero progress on every other item. It could be worse? Nope.