2-car crash injures child
Project Gateway
Victoria's Secret Fashion Show '09
Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > July > 09 > Entry
Editorial: Columbus throws over the most vulnerable
The fact that Ohio’s politicians can’t pass a budget is a sad commentary on them. This is their job, after all.
The fact that nobody in a high position will even think about suspending an ongoing cut in the state income tax to help deal with the crisis is another sad commentary.
The fact that the governor has abandoned an old stand and put together a half-baked scheme for turning racetracks into virtual casinos is sad. The fact that his Republican opponents oppose that, yet won’t say what they would put in its place is sad.
Saddest of all, though, is how much of the burden for the politicians’ failures will be borne — is already being borne — by the most vulnerable people in Ohio, the ones made all the more vulnerable (and increased in number) by the economy.
In enacting interim budgets to keep the state operating during the political impasse, the governor and Legislature have generally held most state agencies harmless. They can’t cut debt service. They aren’t cutting higher education or K-12 education. They can’t touch much of Medicaid. That leaves a third or less of the budget.
To bring overall spending in line with reduced revenues, the interim budgets limit the agencies in that third to 70 percent of last year’s spending pace.
We’re talking about funding food pantries and other parts of the state’s safety net, the kinds of programs seeing new applicants because people are out of work. The Columbus Dispatch reports that already a Medicaid hot line offering guidance for consumers has been shut down. And the state is no longer processing applications for disability assistance.
Meanwhile, there is still the matter of what will happen when a real budget is passed. The public debate about the budget has taken the form of an argument about gambling. But even if the governor’s gambling initiative were OK’d, and even if it produced the amount of money he optimistically projects, the budget would still have to be cut by $2.4 billion.
The governor has made his proposals. Other politicians have hardly raised a peep about them, much less about deeper cuts that would be needed in the absence of new revenue.
The director of an association of food banks told the Legislature, as reported by Gongwer News Service, “Let me be clear, crystal clear: the loss of $7 million (as the governor proposes) means a loss of 35 million meals. … (His) proposal literally takes food out of the mouths and off the plates of hungry children, unemployed Ohioans, the elderly and disabled who depend on these critical lifelines to survive,” said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt.
Said an appointee to the Washington County Mental Health Addiction and Recovery Board, “What you are proposing will undoubtedly cause the death of many of our loved ones.”
The list of such cries goes on. Responsible people all over the state are talking about pending “catastrophe.” Parents are begging for continuation of jeopardized programs they say are keeping their children alive. Ten thousand slots in Passport, the program that keeps people out of nursing homes, are threatened.
There’s always some exaggeration in politics. But what’s being heard today is no mere spinfest, no mere strategy of insulted special-interest lobbyists. The alarms this time are not false.
Whatever one thinks of gambling and whatever promises the politicians might have made about taxes, the path the state is on now is just wrong.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio government, Social Services
Comments
By Tom McGuire
July 10, 2009 3:00 PM | Link to this
You editorial fails to point out that the income taxe reductions the Republicans passed in 2005 are primarily responsible for the budget cuts you are concerned about. Hwo about doing an in depth series on this subject to fully inform your readers?By Tom McGuire
July 10, 2009 3:00 PM | Link to this
You editorial fails to point out that the income tax reductions the Republicans passed in 2005 are primarily responsible for the budget cuts you are concerned about. How about doing an in depth series on this subject to fully inform your readers?By steve
July 11, 2009 7:05 AM | Link to this
The safety net is so generous that those in it can afford cell phones and can afford to decline work. Those decisions are provided for by those of us who strive to take care of our own families, so don’t talk to be about how awful tax reductions are.By aharddaysnight
July 13, 2009 1:46 PM | Link to this
Yes Steve it’s so much simpler to punish the majority of low income families and homeless in Ohio based on the actions of a few.