6-9-25 BEN ROSE

Political Analyst Ben Rose joined the program to discuss the plans for Ohio's income tax and how the state may fund the Browns new stadium. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Time to talk politics. We check in with our political
analyst Ben Rose. And Ben the budget process is ongoing
and we are in the stretch run now last three weeks.
I guess it's got to be done by the end
of June. And the Republicans, or i should say, the
House did their version. Now the Senate has pretty much

(00:22):
finalized their version, and some major differences, or at least
some pretty significant differences. Let's start with the income tax
in Ohio, the idea of making just one rate for
every taxpayer instead of graduated tax rates. They're going to
settle on one, or at least that's what the Senate

(00:43):
plan says, right, that's correct.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Currently there are two rates three If you consider anybody
who makes less than twenty six outs in the year,
there's no income tax at all. The Senate Flience Committee
is going to consider a proposal which would create only
one rate, two point seventy five percent, and that would

(01:09):
be a revenue loss for the state of somewhere in
the neighborhood of flightly over one billion dollars. The argument
is reducing from three plus percent to two point seventy
five percent for people who make more than one hundred
thousand dollars a year, would stimulate the own economy and

(01:33):
encourage people not to leave the state, younger people generally speaking.
The governor is signaling pretty clearly that he opposes this,
that it would create such a massive budget hole that
it would be very, very difficult to live with without

(01:54):
massive increases in local property attacks. So it will be
interesting to see. It looks like this is going to
be made part of the budget the Senate sends back
to the House for consideration. If the income tax reductions
goes together, there is a high likelihood that it'll be
a line item veto.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Well, Ben, there's always give and take and push and
pull in the budget process, and as you mentioned there,
the governor has the ability to line item veto, in
other words, take out any particular part of it if
he wants. And so a long way to go before
June thirtieth. Here but another part of the Senate budget

(02:36):
proposal dealing with finding some money for the Cleveland Browns Stadium.
Of course, the Browns have offered up a lot of
their own money the haslms, but the state has been
asked to come up with some money. The House idea
was to find the money other ways, and I'm drawing

(02:57):
a blank on that, But the Senate will want to
create a sports fund out of unclaimed funds that the
state has and do it that way, Ben, which one
of these is going to win out?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, what's interesting about this to me is watching the
intersection of local politics. Apparently the Senate Republicans are not
worried about gaining trouble with voters of Cleveland. One of
the big arguments that's been going on, and you've been
coverated in your house, is the Cleveland Browns want to

(03:32):
move out of the city limits and have a suburban stadium.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, they're looking to build a dome and Brook Park,
which is where the airport is.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
That is that is interesting. Usually the legislature shies away
from local battles like that, but they clearly said that
we're proposing six hundred million dollars of state fund to
go to move the stadium outside of the city of Cleveland,

(04:05):
and that's going to be interesting to watch the politics
of that.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, the House plan that I recall now, Ben, they
want to use a bonds for the six hundred million.
The Senate wants to get the money from the so
called unclaimed funds. So that's a big difference there too,
in the way that money would be generated. That's something
that could lead to considerable debate, right it could.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Of course. Ohio, regardless of whether the governor has been
a Democrat or a Republican, has done a pretty credible
job of encouraging people to get their own money out
of the unclaimed funds and made it relatively simple to do.
But the money from the dplanned funds account has not
been used for spending purposes for a decade or so,

(04:54):
and this is this is a new breakthrough.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, And I know we've had those reports many many
times over the years, myself about going to the website
to get your unclaimed funds. So you're right, that is
something that the state has publicized many times. Ben Rose
is our political analyst. Been a development late in the
week a prominent Democrat is stepping down House Minority Leader,

(05:21):
Alison Russo, stepping away from the top position that she's
held three years, and I guess maybe a signal of
higher aspirations. Ben is this save statewide possibility for Democrats,
either for governor or something else. Is she of that caliber?

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Well, she's of that caliber in terms of being considered
a legitimate candidate for governor or one of the other
state white office owners. But what everybody is waning on
is in the city on the Republican side, is Jim
Tressel going to hop into the race for governor on
the Democratic sign? What about Shared Brown? A lot of

(06:03):
people that are thinking about running for governor are not
going to be doing much and tell Shared Brown maybe
it makes up his mind about whether he wants.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
To run, No doubt. If that happens, then Russo might
run for some of the some other statewide posts. As
you just indicated there. That's Ben Rose, our political analyst. Ben.
As always, we appreciate you checking in with us.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Thank you.