The Buckeye Institute testified before the Ohio Senate Government Oversight and Reform Committee on Senate Bill 255 saying, “No one denies that state licensing requirements are needed in some cases and industries to ensure public safety…But these concerns fade quickly when applied to auctioneers, travel guides, and hairdressers—all of whom are subject to Ohio’s byzantine licensing requirements.”
The Buckeye Institute testified before the Ohio Senate Finance Committee on Senate Bill 135, saying, “The capital budget—and not a separate funding bill—is the more appropriate legislative vehicle for funding state infrastructure and core government responsibilities.” However, with the decision by policymakers to use a separate funding mechanism, Buckey urged policymakers to off-set the capital budget by the corresponding amount “in order to maintain longer-term spending balance.”
The Buckeye Institute issued a statement following the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States declining to hear Garco Construction, Inc. v. Secretary of the Army—a case that challenged administrative state and federal government overreach. “While we are disappointed that the Supreme Court chose not to hear [the case], we are encouraged by Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent, which was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch in expressing that government agencies should not be allowed to be the judge of what their own rules mean.”
The Buckeye Institute submitted public comments on Ohio’s two Medicaid waiver proposals—the work and community engagement waiver and the state innovation or 1332 waiver. “After years of failure in Washington, these waivers represent the first step in Ohio repairing its broken health insurance markets. While we applaud these proposals, we encourage policymakers to take bigger, bolder strides to blaze a trail of innovative health insurance reforms that the rest of the country can follow.”
The Buckeye Institute submitted written testimony to the Ohio House Ways and Means Committee on Senate Bill 226, which outlined the downsides of special interest tax deductions, that narrows the tax base, raises taxes, and offers preferential treatment to special interests. Pointing to a report by the non-partisan Tax Foundation, Buckeye noted that sales tax holidays, “represent more of a gimmick than fundamental reform.”
The Buckeye Institute testified before the Ohio House Government Accountability and Oversight Committee on House Bill 301, calling the policy of “sue and settle” a “pernicious but all-too-common practice” that “circumvent[s] the constitutional prerogative of the General Assembly to make policy.” Buckeye urged the General Assembly to end this practice and reassert its rightful policy role by “requiring the [General] Assembly’s approval for any consent decree or court-approved settlement to which the state is a party.
The Buckeye Institute testified before the Ohio Senate Finance Committee on House Bill 529, Ohio’s 2018 capital budget, whuch in many ways, adheres to the spending principles outlined in Principled Spending: Using Ohio’s Capital Budget to Benefit Ohioans. However, “this budget, like others before, remains riddled with too many special interest requests, local projects, and some potential boondoggles that veer from providing core government services and infrastructure.”
The Buckeye Institute commented on newly released employment data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, saying, “Overall, Ohio’s labor market continues to trend in the right direction but discouraged workers and decreases in lower-skilled jobs such as manufacturing and leisure and hospitality show there needs to be fewer barriers that prevent people who are seeking to improve their skills through training and licensing from attaining the jobs they desire.”
The Buckeye Institute testified before the Ohio House Government Accountability and Oversight Committee on the policies in House Bill 506, which is part of a troubling new breed of preemptive legislation. “Bills like this one have lately percolated through the General Assembly as strategic alternatives to political maneuvers orchestrated by well-funded special interests that would otherwise seek to amend the Ohio Constitution and encumber our most fundamental governing document with countless rules and regulations.”
The Buckeye Institute testified before the Ohio House Finance Committee on the policies in House Bill 529, Ohio’s 2018 capital budget, which highlighted “more than $18 million of taxpayer dollars spent on pork projects that benefit only narrow local interests and not broader state-wide needs.” And that $18 million is just the tip of the iceberg. All of the special interest projects combined push wasteful spending to at least $85 million which could be spent on more pressing priorities, saved, or returned to taxpayers.
