McNally criticizes Kasich’s proposal to phase out tax

By Peter H. Milliken

YOUNGSTOWN — A closed library was the backdrop for a news conference in which Mahoning County Commissioner John A. McNally IV bashed Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich for calling for a phaseout of Ohio’s personal-income tax.

McNally, a Democrat, said he was asked by the re-election campaign of Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland to conduct the news conference, which was part of a statewide series of Strickland campaign events that took place Monday.

The phaseout of the tax, which was enacted in 1971 to bolster school funding, would be disastrous for county and municipal governments, libraries and schools, McNally said.

Kasich’s proposal is “going to help gut local government operations across the state of Ohio,” McNally said.

If the tax were phased out, annual state funding would be slashed from $9.7 million to $5.3 million collectively for Mahoning County’s municipalities and townships; and from $8.3 million to $4.5 million for the county’s public libraries, McNally said.

If the state income tax were phased out, the state would subsist on sales, excise and corporate-franchise taxes, McNally said.

“The event today was pure politics. ... They are defending the status quo because they have no plan, no idea how to create jobs for Ohio,” Rob Nichols, a Kasich campaign spokesman, said of the Democrats.

Nichols said Kasich favors phaseout of the state income tax as part of a strategy to restore jobs and prosperity to the state, which would include regulatory reform and modernization of state government, but Kasich hasn’t endorsed a specific income-tax phaseout timetable.

The event featuring McNally was outside the Newport Branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, which opened almost a year ago.

That branch was open Mondays until state budget cuts forced it to close on that day beginning in September as part of systemwide library-hours reductions brought on by state funding cuts.

The library system doesn’t endorse any political candidate or party, and library management did not sponsor or have advance knowledge of Monday’s event, said Janet Loew, library system communications and public relations director.

milliken@vindy.com