The Damage Kasich Has Done

Our governor loves to bluster about what a budgetary whiz he is. He closed a (nonexistent) $8 billion budget gap! Now he has a (nonexistent) surplus! But given that his first budget topped former governor Ted Strickland's final budget by $5 billion, we already knew there was some funny math coming out of Columb ... I mean, Westerville.

Of course, we've known since the beginning what it was. The gov. stole money earmarked for local governments and public school systems, leaving them scrambling to fill gaping deficits. Want to know exactly how reckless our governor is and what a financial crime he perpetrated on those governmental bodies closest to us that provide most of our direct services?

One Ohio Now has a handy-dandy little tool to raise your blood pressure here:

http://www.cutshurtohio.com/

You can click on your county and find out just how much Governor Kasich has taken from it.

Initially, the gov. was, incredibly, urging school systems not to ask for levies to replace the money — just cheat kids out of a quality education. Now, with a big uptick in school levies headed for the ballot this year, the gov. is silent, especially since he's all in on the reverse Robin Hood levy the Cleveland public schools is asking for — a staggering 15 mils in a city whose property values have been decimated by foreclosure and where many are struggling to hang on to that little house they inherited from their grandmother.

Undoubtedly he's fine with it, because THAT is who is being asked to pay — not his buddies at the Greater Cleveland Partnership who have enjoyed decades of tax abatements and lowered assessments on their big, fancy downtown projects. Cleveland citizen-journalist (in the best sense of the term and not the current meaning of "getting people to work for free") Roldo Bartimole, who has been covering corruption in Cuyahoga County since the ’60s, has a good piece this week on CoolCleveland detailing some of the theft that has taken place:

http://www.coolcleveland.com/blog/2012/07/corporates-steal-from-clevelan...

Please, when your property taxes or your local income taxes or sales taxes or numerous fees go up, think about Governor Kasich. He can talk until he's blue in the face about wanting to cut the state income tax — a pittance for most of us, except the top earners who will benefit the most — he's doing nothing but raising taxes on most of us.