The Return On Our Investment In Thirteen Years of Republican State Control Is Close to Negative
Though you’d think it couldn’t get much worse, it actually would be slightly worse if Ohioans had put the Left in charge, as they would have done all the dumb policies even more.
As we enter year six of the DeWine-Husted Administration and the Ohio General Assembly starts year two of this legislature, it is a good time to highlight a few items. With thirteen straight years of Republican gubernatorial administrations and supermajorities in the Ohio House and Ohio Senate, one would think Ohio would be doing great. Sadly, it is not. The Tax Foundation ranked Ohio’s business climate as the 36th best in America. Though Ohio scored high for property taxes (5th) and unemployment insurance taxes (12th), it came in towards the bottom in corporate taxes (39th), sales taxes (36th), and, worst of all, individual incomes taxes (40th). On our high property tax ranking, that ranking likely will get worse in 2024, as virtually every Ohioan is getting smacked with substantial property tax increases. My property taxes in Dublin skyrocketed by more than 20% for 2024. As for Ohio’s individual income taxes, that ranking comes AFTER the DeWine-Husted Administration and the Ohio General Assembly patted themselves on the back for a tiny decrease in the last budget.
Thankfully, the Tax Foundation provided a chart noting the historical business tax climate rankings for the fifty states so that we can assess whether our thirteen years of super Republican control is providing any tangible benefits. Starkly, the answer is unequivocally “No!” To be fair, sycophants can cheer that Ohio has improved from 46th in 2014 to 40th in 2023, but that is like cheering on a team that improves how much it lost by from 46 points to 40 points. Shouldn’t thirteen straight years of Republican control have resulted in something a bit more impressive? One must ask: are the Republicans we’ve put in power good at anything?
In truth, they are. They are very good at increasing spending to record levels and doing so without garnering any tangible benefits for Ohioans. That takes a special kind of talent, don’t you think? In just two years, Ohio spending jumped 20.8%, with Medicaid spending exploding by 23.8% in those two years. Based on the most recent Monthly Financial Report from the Ohio Office of Budget and Management, midway through the 2024 budget, spending is up almost 6% compared to this point last year, as it hit $22.2 billion putting Ohio on course to reach a massive record of over $44 billion in state spending in one year. On the taxes side, personal income tax collections are ominously down 2% from what was budgeted and nearly 5% from 2023 at this point in the fiscal year.
How does Ohio’s Medicaid spending stack up to the other states? Again, the answer isn’t good. As a percentage of total expenditures, Ohio went from the 3rd highest spending in 2020 to the 2nd highest in 2021 to the highest in America by 2022. As I noted in my last post, Medicaid spending crowds out other priorities and prohibits any serious consideration of eliminating Ohio’s state income tax. Are you, like me, tired of driving on pothole filled roads and inferior highways? Well, at the same time Ohio hit #1 in America for the percent of total state spending on Medicaid, it came in 50th for transportation spending.
So, just to remind you:
Tax Climate: Bottom third;
State Spending: Way up;
Private Sector Job Growth: Bottom third;
Population Growth: Stagnant at best and hollowing out in many Ohio counties;
World-Class Airport: No support for it;
Abortion: One of America’s LEAST restrictive;
Pot Legalization: Done;
Rebalancing Post-K-12 Funding: No support for it; and
Migration Patterns: More leaving than coming.
One final sobering point: though you’d think it couldn’t get much worse, it actually would be slightly worse if Ohioans had put the Left in charge, as they would have spent more, taxed more, driven more people to leave, and made our private sector even weaker. Regardless, by any measure, the return on our investment in the politicians we’ve elected is close to negative after thirteen years. Given what has happened in states with LESS REPUBLICAN CONTROL, I’d respectfully submit to you that our ROI is deeply negative. Will you opt for more of the same in 2024?
P.S. In follow-up to my post on Mike DeWine vetoing the transradical agenda legislation and Jon Husted not-so-courageously bucking him 18-hours before DeWine did so, I have to give enormous credit to the Ohio House for overriding DeWine’s veto (though this legislation should have been passed years ago). Now, we have to see if the Ohio Senate has the same courage and spine when it comes to protecting our kids.