Is Brown’s slam at state GOP misguided?

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown took a swipe last week at efforts by the Republican- controlled legislature to combat Ohio’s festering opioid crisis.

“The state legislature has been pretty much absent scaling up opioid treatment,” Brown, a Democrat, said during a field hearing of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee in Columbus. Is that fair?

The budget the General Assembly passed last summer included $180 million in new money for treatment, Dispatch Reporter Marty Schladen observed.

But it also attempted to freeze the state’s Medicaid expansion, which Gov. John Kasich had to work around lawmakers in his own party to implement in the first place. Of the $ 1 billion the state spent on the opioid crisis in 2016, $ 650 million came in the form of treatment for low-income Ohioans under the Medicaid expansion.

The expansion continues to exist thanks to a line- item veto by the governor. Talk of attempts to override the veto continues to echo in the Capitol, however.

Also, critics of the state’s response to the opioid crisis point out that the legislature has continued to whittle away at funding to local governments, which have directly felt the brunt of the problem.

Brown’s fellow Democrats in the General Assembly have called, to no avail, for a raid on the state’s $ 2 billion rainy- day fund to battle opioid addiction.

Mandel’s fact-checker goofed private jet tweet

Would-be Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel was brought back down to earth last week when he tried to slap down potential-rematchopponent Brown on Twitter.

The Ohio state treasurer tweeted that Brown “railed against corporate jets in 2011” and added, “@SherrodBrown gets caught sneaking tax break for corporate jets.” In followups, Mandel added: “Has DC/$ changed him?” and “DC swamp has turned him into a fraud & hypocrite.”

It turned out Mandel was off-target in his tweet in bringing up the bipartisan bill, now converted into a tax-bill amendment, that also was sponsored by Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. And, Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, introduced the original language in the House.

Steve Koff, Washington bureau chief for cleveland. com, called out Mandel with his tweet: “Seriously? Caught? Sneaking? Did someone miss this story this morning?”

Koff linked to his story on the private-jets matter, reporting the somewhat complex tale with a bottom line that the legislation clarifies law and changes nothing, with corporate plane passengers still paying taxes. The language comes following a federal court battle between the Columbusbased NetJets, which won the suit, and the IRS.

The D.C. journalist also pointed out the difference between Brown in 2011 and in 2017 when it comes to corporate jets.

“The 2011 reference to tax breaks for corporate jets was during a fight over depreciation rules for said jets, not over the matter before us today. Apples and kumquats or some other weird fruit. Totally invalid comparison.”