Vivek Ramaswamy on the left and Dr. Amy Acton on the right. (Photo: WEWS.)
While they say they have plans, it’s unclear how Ohio’s gubernatorial candidates will pay for the proposed property tax cuts.
Solving the property tax crisis won’t be simple, and the main candidates have different ideas on how to solve it.
Previously, Republican Party candidate Vivek Ramaswamy supported the complete elimination of property taxes. Gov. Mike DeWine said it would be “devastating” for local governments, including police, fire, EMS and schools. It will also cost the state $20 billion a year, according to a conservative think tank Tax Foundation Study.
“What do you think are the first resources at the state or local level that will need to be cut to lower property taxes?” we asked Ramaswamy at a campaign event on Tuesday afternoon.
“So, I respectfully object to that assumption because a lot of the property tax increase – do you want to know where it came from? It was due to the increase in property prices since the pandemic,” Ramaswamy replied.
He blamed the federal government for spending too much money, which he said drove up home assessments.
Instead of a full cut, he said he now wants to restore property taxes to 2020 and earlier levels and then limit their increases.
“One of the things that our property taxes paid for before the pandemic was our schools, and our schools actually did better when you look at test scores and other metrics back then than they do today, which suggests that we will be able to eliminate these property taxes right away – not eliminate them, OK? But a reasonable return to where they were just a few years ago before the end of the pandemic,” Ramaswamy said.
He specifically said he didn’t want to hurt the local police or fire department.
“The economic growth we are providing for our state that I have discussed here will provide additional sources of revenue that will provide us with a financial cushion, including at the state level, to fill any gaps to ensure that important local services are not left in the lurch during this transition,” he continued.
Democratic candidate for governor Dr. Amy Acton argues that underfunding schools will only make taxes worse.
“Property taxes are rising because our statehouse is not fully funding the local funds that fund our schools,” Acton said in a previous interview.
By increasing state funding for education, she said, schools would not have to rely on increasing property taxes. He also wants to extend the farm exemption.
“When you love Ohio, you don’t tell Ohioans that affordability is a buzzword and you don’t propose tax systems that line the pockets of billionaires while raising costs for the rest of us,” Acton said.
Neither of them said directly which programs would have to be cut to achieve their goals, but Acton talked about reallocating special interest money in the Statehouse and returning it to local governments.
“(Helping) our first responders, our disability and mental health services, and many others in our community,” she said.
According to his campaign website, Libertarian candidate Don Kissick fully supports eliminating property taxes.
“We prefer to see local taxes based on consumption, and since there is no transparency as to where the lottery is going (since it is a general education fund), we believe it is being used as a stopgap measure in other areas of the budget. That way, if we balance the budget and eliminate welfare for larger institutions, we can save a lot of money for Ohioans,” the campaign website says.
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This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
