The Republican leaders of Ohio’s House and Senate and Republican Gov. John Kasich have come up with a way to deal with the $615 million revenue shortfall that’s expected by the end of this fiscal year.
Faced with month-after-month of tax revenues coming in below estimates, Kasich says he’s pulling back on his budget.
“We will take the budget that we submitted and will have to restrain the growth in that budget by $400 million each fiscal year in order to get ahead of things," he says.
Kasich also says there will still be a little bit of growth in the budget. When asked what might get cut, Kasich dodged the question.
“We’re not going to write the budget here even though you’d like us to do it. We’ll sit down and look at all of the options.”
Kasich says he wants to continue with his proposed 17 percent income tax cut and he won’t tap into the state’s rainy day fund to balance the budget. He did say, however, that he was open to using it to “put out fires” at the budget’s midpoint if necessary.
