Roll Back Taft Income Tax Breaks for Top 1%

The Ohio income tax rate for income in excess of $200,000 was reduced from 7.5%  to 6.555% in 2005.  I propose to restore the 7.5% rate.  This would bring in approximately $180 Million in additional income each year.    

Ohio is in severe financial straits.  Our schools rely too heavily on property taxes.   Our middle income families cannot afford to buy health care, or send their children to college.  Our lower income families send children to bed hungry.  Taxes should come from those most able to afford them. 

In 2007, a law was enacted to exempt military pensions from Ohio income tax.  A Republican friend of mine said that was something he could agree with Strickland on and surely I would agree.  My friend has a much larger military pension than I and more money than he has any hope of spending in his lifetime.  I told him that I didn't agree with that law, certainly not as it applies to him and to me.  Income should be taxed irrespective of its source. 

I'm not wealthy by any measure.  I have enough to scrape by.  My concern is for our state and our nation and for the people of the lowest incomes.  After I was selected for the state legislative nomination, I was invited to lunch at the Wellington Grill with a half dozen Republican businessmen.  They told me how bad they have it.  They had a few legitimate concerns among many petty ones.  As I paid $19.00 for my lunch, I told them that since they were in such bad straits, we could go to Wendy's next time and I would show them how to order from the $0.99 menu.   They haven't called me since.  They had started the conversation by saying that they understood that I had to say that liberal stuff but didn't really mean it.  I told them that I had written everything on my web site and meant every word of it.  After that, I think that their misgivings with my Republican opponent seemed small to them.

I am really amazed by the rich Republicans who demand that their taxes be lowered further and rail against those damned entitlements for poor people.  Most of them are avowed Christians who apparently think that all of that stuff in the New Testament about helping the poor is just there for filler.