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State Rep. Denise Driehaus: State budget does not work for middle-class Ohioans

Says policies should build opportunity for middle-class Ohioans, not attack working Ohioans
April 22, 2015
Democratic Newsroom

COLUMBUS— Today, State Rep. and highest ranking Democrat on the state budget panel Denise Driehaus (D-Cincinnati) stood in opposition to the state’s two-year, $131.6 billion budget proposal, House Bill 64. Democratic members said a bill of that magnitude should have been a strategic and targeted blueprint to grow the state’s economy for the future, but instead became a vehicle for tax cuts that favor the richest one-percent and last-minute attacks on working Ohioans.

“This budget doesn’t work to provide a real plan for the future of Ohio,” said Driehaus. “Not only does this budget fail to lay out a plan for growing and strengthening our middle class and Ohio’s economy for the future, it attacks working and middle class Ohioans.”

House Republicans scrapped nearly all of Gov. Kasich’s initial budget proposal, but largely kept the philosophy behind an untargeted income tax cut intact. Democratic representatives expressed disappointment with the House GOP’s move stripping accountability and transparency measures for charter schools out of the state budget even as failing, for-profit charters are set to receive a record amount of taxpayer dollars through the bill.

In addition to other proposed Democratic changes to the budget, Democrats will attempt to remove what they called the “No Charter Left Behind” provision which would give online charter schools $25 per pupil for brick and mortar facilities— something online schools lack.   

To watch the debate on House’s priorities for Ohio’s future go to www.ohiochannel.org