How have Ohio GOP legislators failed us? Lets us count the ways
What have the Ohio Republican legislators done this session?
If you have been reading The Dispatch, it has been hard to keep up with the flurry of legislation. Here is a summary:
h Education: House Bill 290 allocates all school funding on a per-pupil basis to both public and an unlimited number of nonpublic schools, while Senate Bill 89 increases private school voucher eligibility beyond 2020-21 levels. (Ohio has now dropped to 28th in school performance rankings. Any connection to antipublic education policy?)
h Firearms: SB 175 “stand your ground” (passed and signed by governor). HB 227, 248, 287, 381 allow permitless carry. HB 62 attempts to nullify current or future gun legislation, HB99 allows a teacher to carry a firearm in school with only 8 hours of training. Do more guns guarantee more safety for Ohioans?
h Health and safety: HB 248 would prohibit any school or child care institution from even requesting information about whether a child has received lifesaving vaccinations. As Tony Soprano would say, fuhgeddaboudit.
h Taxes: State income tax cuts assist the top 1% of Ohioans, who have seen their taxes drop by more than $40,000, while those in the bottom 20% increased by $122. See Rule No. 1 for Republicans: Trickle-down does work — for the top income earners. For anyone else, check with Charles Darwin.
Do you see a pattern here?
Instead of bullying our health care professionals, businesses, educators, police and just about every other Ohioan, Republican legislators could focus on helping us. Suggestions: Repeal the subsidies that HB 6 still squeezes Ohio's hard-pressed utility consumers every month; pass HB 739 to reform dark money; pass the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowing limits on political spending.
If legislators like to bully, let them bully the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to protect our health with stricter controls of the state's oil and gas facilities that manage radioactive fracking waste.
Otherwise, when coping with the Ohio legislature, remember the famous advice: “No man's liberty or property is safe when the legislature is in session.”
We Ohioans need our legislators to be for us and not against us through meaningful and helpful legislation. Elections are coming and it is apparent that many of our legislators need to be removed. What has your legislator done for or to you?
Ann Morahan, Westerville