Moderates’ budget fix meets immovable forces

COLUMBUS (AP) — A few moderate Ohio senators trying to craft a compromise to fix Ohio’s budget gap are being thwarted by two opposing forces: the majority of Republican senators who adamantly oppose any portion of Gov. Ted Strickland’s tax cut delay and the Democratic governor’s outright rejection of the compromise.

The immediate rejection Wednesday by Strickland and fellow Democrats is likely to further fuel the majority of Republicans’ intransigence toward his tax plan.

In an attempt to gain votes from enough senators opposed to Strickland’s 4.2 percent income tax cut delay, a handful of GOP moderates proposed several sweeteners: measures to address Ohio’s longer-term budget instability and other proposals favored by individual senators.

The proposals — including opening up Salt Fork State Park to oil and gas drilling, implementing prison sentence reforms, and restoring a chunk of funding that has been cut for private and parochial schools — were coupled with reducing Strickland’s tax proposal to 2.8 percent.

But it didn’t fly. The tax cut delay, which many Republicans view as a tax hike, overshadowed everything else.

And Thursday, in an illustration of the GOP divide, the Cincinnati-based Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes sent out a statement praising the “renegade” senators and questioning whether Senate President Bill Harris, a supporter of the compromise proposal, was fit to lead Republicans.

The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.