Half of Ohioans won’t benefit from the tax cut proposal in the Senate’s version of the state budget, according to a progressive think tank. And the group says low-income Ohioans will suffer with other changes.
The draft budget from Senate Republicans takes the House budget’s three tax brackets and creates two – a lower one at 2.75% and a higher one at 3.5%. Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) had suggested this approach after the House budget passed in April, saying he wanted to expand the tax cut from that chamber.
Guillermo Bervejillo with Policy Matters Ohio said the tax changes will cost the state around a billion dollars a year.
“Eighty-four percent of the value of the tax cut will go to the top 20% of Ohio" Bervejillo said. “If you're in the bottom half, if you're a household with $62,000 or less in this state, you will get nothing or very near nothing from this tax cut."
He added, "Some people in the middle income will see a tax increase because of the way that they've designed the tax cut. ... It boggles the mind."
Policy Matters Ohio has long been critical of income tax cuts that they say haven't resulted in economic improvement. That's the case this time too, Bervejillo said.
“For the past 23 years, we've cut income taxes 12 times, and this would be a 13th time. And there is no reason why it’ll be lucky," Bervejillo said. "In the past 23 years we have not seen any kind of a reason to believe that this kind of strategy leads to anything other than that undermining of the foundations of Ohio.”
Bervejillo also noted the Senate budget cuts the provision to expand Medicaid to children and pregnant women who have an annual income of up to 300% of the federal poverty level, or $93,210 for a family of three.
The Senate budget also would broaden the age range for work training requirements for food stamps from 18-49 to 16-59. Policy Matters Ohio said that means people will likely lose Medicaid and SNAP benefits.
