Pitchforks, torches for GOP budget fix

COLUMBUS — Mary Shelley couldn’t have crafted a more frightening novel than the Frankenstein-esque drama being played out in the Ohio Senate.

Rejecting the relatively straightforward legislation passed on a party-line vote in the House and backed by Gov. Ted Strickland to fill an $850 million hole, the Senate has instead sewn together parts that Democrats believe are as gruesome and abnormal as the body and brain of Shelley’s nameless monster.

You can almost see it, limping through the halls of the Statehouse, arms outstretched and eyes half closed, moaning for acceptance. It’s alive! Alive!

Boris Karloff would be proud.

The bill pushed through the House by majority Democrats had two basic provisions: postpone, for two years, the last year of a planned income tax cut on individuals and businesses; and reduce lawmakers’ salaries by 5 percent.

The resulting savings would be used to fill the aforementioned hole in the state’s education budget, caused by the collapse of Strickland’s plan to place slots at racetracks.

Strickland, Democratic House Speaker Armond Budish and others have said repeatedly that it’s the best solution to the problem, and they’ve called on the state Senate to follow suit and pass the bill as-is, and quickly.

But Republicans in the Senate have been mulling the bill for weeks, not happy that Democrats are raising taxes and cutting their pay under the guise of protecting school funding that isn’t really in jeopardy.

(Does anyone really think lawmakers, in the year before a major election, will allow that school funding hole to remain unfilled, without freezing tax rates at 2008 levels?)

Shifting the debate

So Republicans have been trying to shift the debate away from education funding and toward the state’s out-of-control spending patterns.

Their legitimate argument: We can fill this budget hole, but what about the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and so on?

The solution they proposed last week included more than 20 provisions, some aimed at cutting spending, others that actually increase spending.

They want to retain one-third of the scheduled income tax cuts that, in practical terms, took effect last January.

They want to study ways to make government more efficient, including determining whether consolidating certain agencies is economically feasible.

They also want to transfer $30 million in liquor profits and housing trust fund monies into the general revenue fund, allow oil and gas drilling at Salt Fork state park and divert half of the state’s scrap tire fee to fund soil and water conservation districts.

It’s a lot of stuff that made for a monstrous sub-bill — and a sub-bill that few Republicans and no Democrats in the Senate are supporting.

In fact, on Wednesday, the day it was supposed to make an appearance on the floor, opponents ran away, screaming in fear, distancing themselves from the ghastly creation.

It’s alive? Not at the moment. And don’t expect any life-giving lightening bolts to fill the Senate Republicans’ political laboratory until after Thanksgiving.

X Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. E-mail him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at Ohio Capital Blog.