The Cincinnati Enquirer ran a great editorial yesterday. Here is the main section, which the Buckeye Institute believes wholeheartedly,
“Looking to the taxpayers for more is not the answer. Many households, like city government, have been forced to live with less income, either through job loss or pay cuts. To deal with that, they’ve had either to go into debt or to cut expenses.
Going deeper into debt is not an option at City Hall. It’s time to get very serious about cutting expenses.
We can no longer afford all of the employee salaries and benefits that account for about 80 percent of the city’s general fund expenses, to provide all the services the city has always provided, or to provide services the private sector or other layers of government could provide as well or better.
The first step to doing that is to take the tax increase proposal off the table. Then the manager, the mayor and city council must get serious about how to tackle the fundamental budget problem.”
We’ve been arguing for this kind of examination across state and local government for years (and long before last year’s explosive fight over Senate Bill 5).
Its nice to see that others are coming to realize the old, school status quo of rigid labor agreements and overly generous public employee compensation has to come to end if taxes aren’t to rise to economic stifling levels.
As far as Ohio and the great majority of other states are concerned, the Democrats and their appendage, the government unions, can look all they want for tax increase, but they will not get it.
The federal government is a different story. That’s because of the Bush era tax cuts are due to expire, which means inaction equals massive tax hikes beginning in January 2013.
This is all the more reason to send big spending out-of-touch liberals like Sherrod Brown packing in November. With a solid GOP congress and president in 2013, the Bush era tax cuts can be reinstated in the event the Democrats and Obama recklessly let them expire in 2012.