Columbus, OH – The Ohio Senate announced its version of the biennial budget today and experts from The Buckeye Institute issued their reactions. 

Spending and Taxes

“The Buckeye Institute is pleased with some of the additional positive steps made by the Ohio Senate in their first crack at the state budget,” said Greg R. Lawson, research fellow at The Buckeye Institute. “Additional agency spending reductions, the elimination of some earmarks, and lower Medicaid appropriations are all moves in the right direction. Of course, there remain plenty of areas that could use further trimming to create an even more sustainable budget, especially if revenues continue to lag.”

“We applaud the Senate’s commitment to maintain previous tax cuts and reforms, which are critical if Ohio is going to continue seeing economic growth, said Orphe Divounguy, Ph.D., the lead economist at The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center. “In 2016, Ohio’s per capita real gross domestic product grew faster than all neighboring states, second only to Michigan, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. To maintain this trend and ensure that the positive economic benefits of tax cuts are realized, the state needs to continue to pursue income tax reductions across all income tax brackets instead of targeted tax deductions and credits.” 

Criminal Justice Reform

“We commend the Senate for retaining the Target Community Alternatives to Prison (T-CAP) program in the budget,” said Daniel J. Dew, criminal justice fellow at The Buckeye Institute’s Legal Center. “Although the program will be voluntary for much of the state, we anticipate counties will quickly see the benefits and increased public safety that will come from community-based rehabilitation for low-level offenders.”

Municipal Tax Reform

“We are pleased to see an opt-in for businesses to file a single municipal income tax return,” said Lawson. “As our recent report, released in conjunction with the Tax Foundation, said, Ohio’s municipal tax is a mess and in need of reform. Ohio’s complex web of local income taxes makes the state’s personal income tax one of worst in the country with hundreds of municipalities and school districts imposing local income taxes based on where taxpayers work and where they live. Ohio’s system is so burdensome that some areas have top combined marginal tax rates of more than nine percent, similar to high tax states such as New Jersey and New York.”

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