Republican candidate John Kasich continues to talk about tax cuts for Ohioans, but he has not yet said what he'll cut to make that possible. Kasich has been visiting the Republican party groups in all of Ohio's 88 counties. These have all been safe bets for him. He has not ventured in front of general audiences and has not taken questions from newspapers, and local TV/radio (right wing Fox News doesn't count). Kasich continues to harp on his past accomplishments--- from the 1990's. That is old news and we are not interested. Voters do not want to hear Kasich bragging about his career in the Congress or his career at the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers. Frankly, we are bored with the bragging.
Kasich cannot eliminate the state income tax without making severe cuts across the board in Ohio. Which groups will face the most brutal cuts? The elderly? School children? The poor? Working families? Single women with children? Farmers? Cities? Villages? (Many of Kasich's past proposals in Congress provided tax cuts for the rich, but penalized the poor.)
Kasich needs to tell voters exactly
(1) what programs he'll cut,
(2) which state agencies will be eliminated and the number of state employees that will lose jobs,
(3) how he'll support public schools, agriculture, industry, safety and security without tax money,
(4) will he increase the state sales tax, license fees, user fees for parks,
(5) what programs he'll privatize,
(6) which state assets will be sold, etc.
In a magazine article (Time Magazine, October 6, 1997), Kasich was called "...too arrogant and too unfocused..." by people in the GOP!
We have already seen the arrogance. Is he too unfocused to be governor?
Ohioans don't know Kasich. We know that Gov. Ted Strickland was left a mess by Bob Taft and an economic meltdown created by the Bush administration's lack of oversight of banking and financial institutions. Until Kasich provides details about his plans, we'll be left with nothing but rhetoric from him.