GOP shifting shells for tax increases
Ohio’s Senate Chamber is now proposing adding sales taxes to previously untaxed items in its version of the state budget bill.
What with proposals to eliminate income taxes and property taxes, Ohio Republicans are not hiding shifting to regressive tax systems and increased governmental fees while helping billionaire sports club owners with unclaimed funds due ordinary Ohioans.
Toba Feldman, Columbus
Listen to the truth
Re “Democrats fearmonger over Medicaid ‘cuts'” (June 22): As a retired oncology nurse, I strongly disagree with the authors of this column.
They think that there is no basis in reality for those who claim the changes in Medicaid will kill people.
In my oncology clinic, in my reality, I saw patients who had finally been able to afford a colonoscopy because they were finally on Medicaid after Obamacare started, and the early colon cancers we found and treated DID save their lives.
The authors painstakingly analyzed the voter registration of every employee of the Congressional Budget Office, implying that party affiliation affects their data and projections. I noticed that, ironically, they neglected to painstakingly analyze the voter registration of every employee of their Foundation for Government Accountability.
They did not give any outside sources for their estimates of what their projections are, so I am concluding that it is data that they collected in the FGA, which, when I looked up what the FGA was, AI said it was a “conservative American public policy think tank focused on reducing the size and scope of the welfare state.”I think that instead of being told not to listen to others, that we really DO need to start to listen to each other.
Monica Zimmerman, Columbus
Cirino’s corrosive shackles go against rules
In 1957’s Sweezy v. New Hampshire ruling, during the Red Scare, Chief Justice Earl Warren noted that attempts to shackle higher education and academic freedom would “imperil the nation,” and in 1967’s Keyishian v. Board of Regents, the Supreme Court noted that universities must be free to determine what to teach, how to teach, who could teach and who could study.
Competition drives innovation.
Sen. Jerry Cirino’s law is a shackle that erodes healthy competition between colleges.
Cirino describes faculty as lazy and or left-leaning, though he hasn’t proven that claim. Suggesting that faculty are “the problem” betrays Cirino’s claims that all viewpoints are welcome.
The senator’s accusations of “indoctrination” are laughable.
College students writing papers on controversial topics are required to cite multiple sources, and not the professor. That’s for every paper, in every class. I’ve been a faculty member for decades and I have never told a student what to think, believe or vote for, though I have shared my personal values. I encourage students to think critically on any issue affecting their personal, academic or financial needs.
Cirino would like Ohioans to hold faculty in disdain by calling us “woke” or “liberal” while we are, in fact, a realistic depiction of the state’s population representing every point of view, faith, value and lifestyle.
The senator tells Ohioans that his bill ensures diversity of thought, but this is impossible when the bill prohibits schools from their First Amendment rights of association and speech regarding undefined “controversial” issues.
Dan Overfield, Bay Village
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio lawmakers want to increase taxes and governmental fees in dark | Letters
Reporting by Letters to the Editor / The Columbus Dispatch
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