LincolnKennedy

I have to think about the number and get back to you. I'm not quite sure how isolating one factor (lower state taxes or non-existant state income tax) and saying it is the answer to every question of competitiveness as you are doing isn't painting with a broad brush. I would be extraordinarily suprised if people from Mississippi, Louisian or Arkansas weren't moving to Texas, and Texas probably has higher taxes than those three states. I frankly have no idea either, but since there are plenty of states with low taxes and low opportunity, constantly referencing how "Texas does it better" is not a terribly good argument. There are a whole host of articles regarding Texas' economic performance and the lack of correlation between a state's tax laws and its relative economic performance, as well as a clear historical argument that I've laid out previously within this thread, that you've never attempted to refute. Californians have been moving to Texas. They've also been moving to Arizona (low tax), Oregon (high tax), Washington (high tax) etc. People leaving California are the primary drivers of population increase of most western states whether they are high tax or low tax. Since California became a state in 1850, it really speaks more to the opportunities that the state of California provided for so long than it does to any particular present day policy that Texas. Your disinterest in viewing anything in an historical context speaks volumes about your ideological view. If your dream about a successful low-tax state is true, can we please have one example where the majority of the infrastructure wasn't built after the Second World War, and the state overturned its own segregation laws prior to 1964? Your concern with quality education is purely rhetorical, as you've previously admitted in the back-and-forth we've had about vouchers, which don't work: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/07/13/365349lschoolvouchers_ap.html?tkn=VZMFmmmVudi8I8YcI44RV%2BRGyjhndSECZ7qy&cmp=clp-edweek You've already shown that what you don't consider relevant you won't respond to. It is yet another example of the typical behavior of the ideologue- the classic Bolshevik language, where every failure marks the presence of traitors and every retreat is glorious.

^Interesting information. But ultimately the point of my comment was in the last sentence, that a tax credit (by which I mean government forgoing tax revenue if someone engages in a particular economic activity) and a direct subsidy for a specified activity are effectively the same thing. So clearly taxpayer money is being spent. But really the subsidization of owner-occupied housing has been a feature of American life for decades, and it holds strong bi-partisan support: http://article.nationalreview.com/438340/we-cant-afford-this-house/christopher-papagianis-and-reihan-salam

That's certainly not true if you have someone in your family with mental health issues, or if you are concerned with the quality of public school systems, or public universities, or transportation.

My personal relationships are an absolute disaster. Why do you think I spend so much time posting on this forum? But enough about me, let's get back, as you say, to my real passion, vague accusations. Now I can see why you hate the CPS so much, you seem to have real trouble reading other peoples posts. The U.S. has enormous advantages over China- 1) Better education and educational resources 2) Personal liberty and a responsive government 3) Better environment 4) Better relations with other countries 5) Better relations with other IMPORTANT countries. There are other things as well. Chinese currency manipulation occurs because the goal of the Chinese government is 1) Full employment 2) Rising living standards and 3) Political stability. They chose export lead growth as it is the only proven model for bringing an economy from Third World to First World status. We benefit from cheaper inports (with some concerns around the edges regarding unsafe products). But the current lack of will by the federal government to combat present unemployment, or form some sort of new industrial policy is a direct result of our political system, and the lack of desire of the federal government to be perceived as chosing winners and losers. It doesn't really have anything to do with what China is doing with their currency. If you are concerned about the local effects of trade policy, such as de-industrialization and underemployment, and the cause [trade policy] is under the aegis of the federal government, then effects of federal policy can only be mitigated by federal action. There's no way a state government is going to be able to spend or forgo the resources through tax credits to deal with a policy that might be ruining their economy but benefiting others throughout the nation.

That picture from across the river really makes it look like it should be at least a third as tall as it actually is.

I withdraw my statement.

But you can clearly manipulate them. And if so, when aggregate demand falls, why not manipulate them so that it rises until the private sector is employing enough people to stop the manipulation? What taxpayer money? I thought it was a tax credit, meaning that you get that back if you engage in an economic activity that the government deems worthy of crediting back tax revenue to you? This represents the foregoing of tax revenue, which is something that is typically looked on with favor by people of a certain political persuasion. Or are you equating tax credits with subsidies?

I'm pretty sure MetroMoves in 2002 won in the City as well.

I seriously doubt it. The GOP stances on the social issues you mentioned don't simply give them a minus with certain voters, they also give them a corresponding plus with many other voters. The difference with the spending is as you mention... that GOP constituencies benefit from the state spending inherent in the programs they don't wish to mention, and therefore they won't mention them. I suspect that they'll try and go after public education. This is true, and I think that the GOP may actually have an issue in November with public sector employment reform/cost control, since public employee salaries and benefits are the largest reason why those states have such high taxes and are still hemorrhaging public cash. They are hemorrhagin public cash because they are much more irresponsible than other high tax high service states. You don't see New Jersey, New York or Massachussetts in the same desperate position. (One could make a case that some of the highly regressively taxed, low service states are irresponsible too, but that's a different discussion). I simply don't have your faith in the Republicans regarding public sector union reform/cost control, which I have mentioned several times previously. I think your concerns about China are overblown. If the U.S. has any particular issue its that its trade policy is national but its development policy is local, and that the rise of China corresponded to an administration that wasn't particularly concerned with development. The U.S. has so many more advantages vis-a-vis China it is sick. Also, I'm not sure what being against free trade has to do with government ownership of industries, which is what socialism actually is. There are plenty of countries that are notoriously free trading, such as Singapore and those Gulf Countries that have massive sovereign wealth funds and own and control huge sectors of their economies.

A fair point, but if the Republicans haven't done anything they've at least shown a remarkable ability to wrap up large policy changes in pleasant one-sentence sound-bites. They are much better at this than the Democrats are. One can make a pretty fair argument that no government policy is particularly exciting. I suspect that the Republican platform that exists represents a consensus not to offend, rather than an actual practicable plan of action. Offering specific tax cuts without corresponding specific budget cuts screams, "First do no harm to your electoral prospects." Agreed. But the township 'success' has been fed by state largesse. And there are plenty of villages and small cities that consistently vote Republican. I'd say that at the level of the lowest common denominator, Ohio wants to do everything to avoid being in a California or Illinois type of situation. I need to find a way to put that as the quote at the end of all my posts.

^There's certainly room down there for them, and you wouldn't even need a new office complex at the Banks to accomodate them.

^^&^I'm endlessly curious as to why a major plank in the Republican platform for state governance isn't a return toward corporate responsibility, and by that I am referring to municipalities. It hits so many of their purported ideals- local control, less taxation (in the sense that the state government removes itself as a provider to allow locally incorporated communities to raise the money to provide for things they themselves want) return to past practices, and competition (communities that are better providers either attract more business and residents or annex non-performing municipal corporations). Obviously the state needs to be in charge of some things in order to be both worth anything to the taxpayers and to comply with several provisions laid out in the state constitution, but there are numerous possibilities for theoretical conservatism to be enacted, yet we don't hear anything new.

What's interesting is how much that an opinion like this derives from an assumption about the purpose of American education and nation-state that stems directly from the Cold War, particularly post-Sputnik.

^Hilarious. Dmerkow, you should read Louis Menand's new book The Marketplace of Ideas. It is short and gives a really interesting history of higher ed in the U.S. I think it said something like only 2% of all college grads are history majors, whereas half are business majors. It seems to me that you'd be better off requiring a semester of practical business courses and then let folks study what they want in school.

KJP, I'm perfectly familiar with all John has done to get the Streetcar to Cincinnati. That's why I'm baffled as to why he would undermine with his comments both the technology and the choice of route that was advertised before the public voted , let's just say "around" the measure. Good thing folks on this forum have all pretty much made up their minds on this, and that the process is already in motion. I'm not so much confusing Seattle's electric buses with its streetcar so much as I'm confused as to why the ride on an electric bus going up a 45 degree hill is to be considered perfectly comfortable, but not comfortable with other technologies. Since I take John' opinion seriously I'm curious if the technology is so potentially inadequate, why was it promoted in the first place, particularly if a suitable substitute was available. Is it inadequte or not? Do we really have no evidence that it is capable of climbing up Vine Street?

Obviously I'm not a developer or anything. But the issue is not so much would this area be improved by a streetcar connection and are there re-developable properties in the area, because basically you could answer "Yes" to that question for almost any neighborhood in the City. What you would want to do is to continue the system the way it is being planned now- to connect high concentrations of businesses with relatively underpopulated urban neighborhoods. The fact is the places you're going to want to branch off to go to other neighborhoods is either from the Zoo past Children's through Avondale to Xavier (following a general Erkenbrecher > Blair Avenue > Woodburn Ave route) or Short Vine to DeSales Corner route via University & then Lincoln and then rerouting. Adding a Main/Walnut line through OTR to Vine, or sending a new line up Gilbert, all of these routes add the same sort of value as western route, except that they give the ability to connect to Hyde Park and Oakley and the Madison Avenue corridor as laid out in the Economic Development plan whereas the western routes take you nowhere and through relatively sparesly populated areas. "If they can make the grade?" Maybe you should swing up to Seattle next time you're in Portland to see some of the grades their system handles on a regular basis. For someone so bullish on the Streetcar you have a remarkable tendency to make these comments that undermine it's technical feasibility. Your prefered route wasn't chosen. Be a grown-up about it and move on.

But people who pay their taxes to pay for streets but can't afford cars deserve benefit as well. This is the point of the benefit of buses and cars complimenting various forms of rail- they each have a job they perform better. Except you wouldn't have concentrated development because the current property tax regime where the land is valued at 20% and the improvements (buildings) are valued at 80% would continue to stifle the very concentration that rail brings and sustains. Not to mention any number of codes that encourage the current suburbanized development we are all familiar with. It's not just 'build it and they will come', there are any number of other supports that need to be implemented for things like rail (and even buses, for that matter) to perform optimally. Maybe before they built City West so that basically every townhouse there has a two car garage. The point is that however many miles of track you lay down between the casino and Union Terminal will provide a better return going East from Uptown through Avondale or Walnut Hills to Evanston and Hyde Park, or west to Northside, or even extending the line up Main/Walnut from Central Parkway to Vine and McMicken and making the straight shot between Uptown and the Banks, than it would going to Union Terminal, particularly when shuttle buses could do the same thing.

Agreed. The fact that people try to just shows how straitjacketed our current state tax regime really is. They should amend the current property tax laws for special transit assessments that maximize the space in these corridors.

I'm primarily concerned with the streetcar as a political decision, both as a decision the City government has taken as a representative government and as a decision the City has taken to invest in itself as an improvement. It's important that this happen and happen successfully. For that reason, it has to at least increase City revenue above cost and do it in such a way that the City can capture it, it has to substantially lead to the increase in the amount of City residents and businesses, and it has to increase personal mobility. It can do all these things, but maybe not all of the as well as possible at the same time. The current split route is less than ideal for speed, for example, but perhaps better for mobility in hitting more strong Cincinnati institutions, and perhaps better (or maybe equal) at attracting residents and businesses than a straight shot up Main/Walnut to McMicken and then Vine. Nevertheless, the routing on Race/Elm is worth something, and something that is basically equal. Taking it a block south of 2nd Street per current diagram is of questionable value, though, in my opinion. While the streetcar certainly can be used as a circulator, it seems equally plausible that someone would use it as commuting vehicle as well. There's no reason not to consider it as a series of linked circulators: Downtown Circulator to OTR Circulator to Clifton Heights Circulator to Zoo/Hospital Circulator and onward. There are plenty of streets that connect Uptown with residential neighborhoods to the East that either resemble OTR and Clifton Heights in many respects (e.g. Walnut Hills, Avondale, Evanston) or are currently destination neighborhoods with many residents working both Downtown and Uptown (e.g. Hyde Park, Oakley). The argument that all the anti-streetcar folks always toss out is "Why don't you just use a bus?" Because it doesn't do the same things as a bus, is what we answer. But, if we really believe that, then we have to accept that a bus does somethings better than the streetcar. When the first two phases are finished, I don't think anyone outside of the directors of the Museum Center will say that we will get the most possible advantage out of new track that runs to Union Terminal.

The point I was making is that it is primary interest of the City of Cincinnati to redensify its urban core, and investment, particularly transit investment should be focused toward that end. Just because one says that this is the purpose of something doesn't mean that it is its only use. If you're sick of the idea that streetcars can only be used for short urban circulators, than you've got more reason than anyone to want to make sure that additional lines don't go to dead ends like Union Terminal but rather neighborhoods like Walnut Hills, Hyde Park, Oakley, etc. that build off of the present plan.

The streetcar is for locals to use in order to densify and re-populate certain areas. Not for tourists to take from the train station to a all-inclusive hotel/casino.

It's also sort of strange from an "I'm involved in politics because I believe in the power of government policy (which obviously still holds if you believe that government policy distorts things) sort of way" and also a "I'm presenting my case to the voters because I want to win this election" sort of way. On the latter side, who is going to be attracted to this platform who wasn't already there?

I think we need to come together to kill any prospect of a Union Terminal streetcar spur for the time being. I can't think of many other spurs that would be less cost effective, carry fewer people through a relatively desolate area and that couldn't be just as easily served with either the present bus system or even simply a dedicated bus between UT and Central Parkway or UT and Fort Washington Way.

Deal. Boundaries: I will only speak about the period from 1994-present, primarily because I was 14 in 1994 and don't really have any memory or knowledge of Ohio politics before that time except for the names Celeste, Celebrezze and Aronoff. Additionally I would like to simply note that by responding to your question I am shifting from discussing Ohio politics and economy to things broader than simply in the context of the present election, which was what my previous posts on the subject clearly concerned. "Squandered Time"- Given Kasich's stated goals that turning Ohio's economy around requires massive revenue cuts in the form of eliminating or reducing to a large extent the state income tax, and that Ohio requires a balanced budget, Ohio will have to eliminate some service related expenditure. We can look at this in the context of previous GOP dominance in several ways 1) that the economic growth or growth in tax revenue that occured during that time was attributable to GOP rule and therefore the need for Kasich's proposed tax cuts to spur the economy is negated, since the present tax regime is the same if not identical to that of 2006; 2) that the loss of population and relative decline of Ohio's economy vis-a-vis other state's during that time period is what truly signals a dynamic state, and therefore any economic growth was the result of factors outside of the ability of the state government to control and should therefore be ignored, 3) revenue cuts in the form of tax cuts and breaks are always preferable and therefore the GOP in 1994-2006 should have been implementing Kasich's program. Aside from the Third Frontier program I am unfamiliar with any particular policy accomplishment during the 1994-2006 period. Certainly Ohio continued to lose population, which strikes me as being a decent measure of success or failure for a ten/fifteen/ or twenty year period of one party rule. "Democrats have done better"- Strickland has fought cuts to public education, frozen tuitions at public universities, and is pushing hard for the 3C rail investment. The Republicans have opposed all of these things, if not unanimously than at least close to unanimously. To me thse policies seem like obvious outgrowths or supports to Third Frontier, and I'm unsure why the Republicans want to oppose them. In addition, these areas are some of the few where the state has a lot of room to act without the federal government, and those areas are the places where states will find the highest value add for government action. But to expand, ultimately Kasich and the Republicans really fail at suggesting anyting outside of anything beyond tax cuts as the cure for Ohio's ills. Their supposed concern for local government, freedom and efficiency is would offer them plenty of room to enact new policies that could really change the way the state operates. Some that I've already mentioned are making the school system more efficient by abolishing the districts and instead operating them as a statewide system. This could allow Ohio to fufill the Constitutional requirement (under their state constitution) while at the same time allow for parents to have some sort of authority on the level of the individual school. They could reform the numerous laws that hamstring local governments from developing themselves and re-developing other areas, while slowly reducing the amount dloled out to support these often redundant government entities. Ultimately though, I simply don't see how a tired old platform like "Eliminate the Income Tax" is either actionable or much of a call to arms for swing voters who didn't support you four years ago.

^Shame. Thanks for the info.