The only issue on Tuesday’s statewide ballot has no organized opposition. But the bond issue to raise money for local infrastructure construction and repair projects does have a few critics in the Tea Party.
Ohio Public Radio's Karen Kasler reports.
Issue 1 will allow the state to sell $1.875 billion in bonds over 10 years. But Maurice Thompson of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law says it does more than that. He claims it’ll raise Ohioans’ taxes 15-20 years in the future.
“The reason all the politicians are for this is because they can spend this money today – they can target it to politically sensitive areas today – and not have to be held accountable for the tax increases ten years from now because they’ll be long gone, and it’ll be just you and I and other Ohioans here holding the bag.”
Thompson says the state already spends too much money. But state budget director Tim Keen is emphatic that there’s no tax increase in the bond issue, and that it’s the right way to pay for big expensive needs.
“When you have long-lived assets like roads, bridges, water systems, that we are going to build with these dollars, it’s appropriate to borrow that money and then spread the cost of those projects over the projects over the life of the project.”
Keen says the most the state will have to pay on the bonds is $40 million, which he says is a manageable fraction of the state budget.