As donor counties, Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton combine to pay an extra $1 billion in Ohio income, sales taxes

By Rich Exner, cleveland.com

on March 06, 2017 at 6:45 AM, updated March 06, 2017 at 10:53 AM

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Imagine what Cuyahoga County's government could do with an extra $265 million.

 

It could pay the full cost of proposed renovations to Quicken Loans Arena up front and still have enough money left over cut the county sales tax by a half percentage point.

 

Why $265 million?

 

If taxes were generated evenly based on population, Cuyahoga County would send $265 million less a year to the state in sales and individual income taxes, cleveland.com found in analyzing tax and population data.

 

MORE:

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2017/03/as_donor_counties_cuyahoga_fra.html

"State of Ohio hates its big cities" ... Yep. Remember the 3C corridor? Garbage. Who ended up getting that money again?

This article seems a bit misleading.  While I understand the math outlined therein, would not a better method to determine if the big cities are "donating" to the state be a comparison of total tax revenues vs. what they receive back from the state?  To me, it makes perfect sense the that big cities would pay a higher per capita income and sales tax as, generally, I would expect more income is earned and more retail activity takes place in such locations on a per capita basis. 

Ay, oh, way to go Ohio. It hates cities. Four of them make the top 10. But no metro area ranks up there.

 

I wonder why they left off Baltimore. It would have been #2 at 0.65.

Edited June 30, 20222 yr by GCrites80s

Not sure. It was in the metro ranking, which for some reason the tweet cuts off at Bakersfield. If you click on the above tweet, you can see the rest of the metro area list.

An updated list is below, looks like Ohio fares a tad better now.

 

https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/cities-with-most-murders

 

Cities With Most Murders 2022

 

The twenty cities in the United States with the highest murder rates (murders per 100,000 people) are:

 

St. Louis, MO (69.4)

Baltimore, MD (51.1)

New Orleans, LA (40.6)

Detroit, MI (39.7)

Cleveland, OH (33.7)

Las Vegas, NV (31.4)

Kansas City, MO (31.2)

Memphis, TN (27.1)

Newark, NJ (25.6)

Chicago, IL (24)

Cincinnati, OH (23.8)

Philadelphia, PA (20.2)

Milwaukee, WI (20.0)

Tulsa, OK (18.6)

Pittsburgh, PA (18.4)

Indianapolis, IN (17.7)

Louisville, KY (17.5)

Oakland, CA (17.1)

Washington D.C. (17.0)

Atlanta, GA (16.7)

 

It sounds strange, but this sort of list is one of the biggest reasons I wish we had a consolidated city-county. Lists like this are so stupid and meaningless and we always end up near the top and get flak for it.

 

(As an aside, you never hear people saying "Oh, are you sure you would move to Las Vegas/Kansas City? It's so dangerous!" Even though both cities have a similar murder rate to Cleveland. And Chicago gets a bad rep with less than half the murder rate of New Orleans.)

 

Anyway, I just feel like negative perceptions are a big factor holding us back and so much of it is based on stupid metrics that result from our balkanization.

The good news is that the 2022 rates are significantly lower than 2021 assuming the same methodology was used for both (i.e. boundaries).

Articles that publish rankings like that and don't take MSAs into consideration are just clickbait.

 

See also: Another Dumb-a$$ List / Ranking of Cities

 

What does any of this have to do with the topic of this thread?

Ohio hates its biggest cities/metros even though Ohio would be impoverished and fading away without them

 

 

This is just really unbelievable. I hate Ohio.

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/02/ohio-lawmakers-seek-1-billion-for-rural-highways-propose-ban-on-center-bike-lanes-and-county-traffic-camera-programs.html

57 minutes ago, w28th said:

This is just really unbelievable. I hate Ohio.

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/02/ohio-lawmakers-seek-1-billion-for-rural-highways-propose-ban-on-center-bike-lanes-and-county-traffic-camera-programs.html

 

Bike Cleveland has started a petition to get this wording removed. You can sign here.

^ craziness. the jerk store called for that guy. i hope that gets taken out.

 

also, the real ID does not have a chip in it. they just check who you are more closely to get it, ie., i brought my passport to the dmv. supposedly you will need one to fly soon, but pretty sure that was pushed back by the pandemic. imo its just a way to get money out of us to get a new license.

Can someone point me to the legislative language that prohibits the bike lanes?  

 

I went to the legislature's page here: https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/hb23

 

It has a link to the PDF of the bill "as introduced": https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/solarapi/v1/general_assembly_135/bills/hb23/IN/00/hb23_00_IN?format=pdf

 

I can't find the language in there.  Is there a more updated version of the bill?  I'm not familiar with how the legislature's website is organized.

Ohio's only hope is for its metropolitan regions to work together to wrest control from the villainous state legislature.

3 hours ago, Luke_S said:

 

Bike Cleveland has started a petition to get this wording removed. You can sign here.

Thanks for sharing, I filled it out.

 

The thing that I find so galling is the erosion of home rule. These hypocritical republicans talk about limited government and then pass all the legislation they possibly can to force everyone else to live just like they do. There's a common complaint in the rural areas "why won't the government just leave us alone so we can live our lives?" And I get it, I really do. Those people are right (at least some of the time) in just wanting to be left alone! But then their representatives turn around and support every single piece of litigation gutting the power of cities. 

Maybe everybody will move back to Portsmouth if they get their way...

16 minutes ago, LlamaLawyer said:

Thanks for sharing, I filled it out.

 

The thing that I find so galling is the erosion of home rule. These hypocritical republicans talk about limited government and then pass all the legislation they possibly can to force everyone else to live just like they do. There's a common complaint in the rural areas "why won't the government just leave us alone so we can live our lives?" And I get it, I really do. Those people are right (at least some of the time) in just wanting to be left alone! But then their representatives turn around and support every single piece of litigation gutting the power of cities. 

 

suburban cleveland rep introduced this provision according to the cleveland.com article

When more than 2/3rds of the Ohio counties losing population are rural, it's not because of their road quality. It's because they have no jobs, no prospects, and it's getting worse especially with rabid and regressive conservatism driving what few young people there are away in droves. Spending billions on roads out in the country where fewer and fewer people live is a waste, and long term, it will just impact funding for other transportation needs because all those rural roads require constant subsidization. 

11 minutes ago, LlamaLawyer said:

Thanks for sharing, I filled it out.

 

The thing that I find so galling is the erosion of home rule. These hypocritical republicans talk about limited government and then pass all the legislation they possibly can to force everyone else to live just like they do. There's a common complaint in the rural areas "why won't the government just leave us alone so we can live our lives?" And I get it, I really do. Those people are right (at least some of the time) in just wanting to be left alone! But then their representatives turn around and support every single piece of litigation gutting the power of cities. 

 

Beyond the blatant disregard of home rule, Patton's position just doesn't make any sense.

 

Quote

“All this does is, hopefully, make (City Council) representatives reach out and say, ‘Let’s sit down and explain it,’” Patton said. “I don’t think 99% of the people in the city of Cleveland know it’s going to happen.”

 

It sounds like he wants City Councils to be more responsive to their constituents, but if this is put in place and the constituents do want this bike infrastructure, the city wont be able to. Can someone help me make this make sense? 

 

Its also rich that Patton uses a project not in his district (not even an adjacent district) as a problem in search of a solution. 

 

Then there's Edwards' comments...

 

Quote

“There’s been a long tradition in rural Ohio (of believing) – and a lot of people in our caucus feel like – a lot of the ODOT money goes to the three C’s (Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus) or more the urban (and) suburban areas,” Edwards said.

 

He added that the proposal wouldn’t redirect any highway money away from cities or suburbs. “We’re wanting to kind of create a new fund that that we feel like we’ll get out to the rural areas of the state – or 90% of the geography of the state,” he said.

 

I'm not arguing that the rural areas shouldn't get any funding, but there's a reason the three C's get the bulk of ODOT funding--most of the tax revenue comes from these areas and the infrastructure is, by definition, more dense here. I'll take his word that 90% of the state is rural, but what percentage of the state lives there? What is the per capita cost of these rural highways going to be and what will the ROI be? My guess is high and low, which makes for not a great use of public tax dollars. Not that there aren't other potential benefits that could make these projects worth it, just not sure those would necessarily require their own special fund. 

8 minutes ago, Whipjacka said:

 

suburban cleveland rep introduced this provision according to the cleveland.com article

Tom Patton. He lives in Strongsville in what I like to call the "fake country" which to me means one-acre lots in insulated subdivisions, nicely paved streets with mailboxes, every second person drives an F-150, listens to country music, and talks like they live on a ranch in Texas, not a cushy suburb.

Instead of listening to bluegrass and driving S-10s like real country folk do. Of course they don't know that because they are posers.

His district goes all the way to the north to the lake (including Rocky River)

 

I wrote his office a note pretty much saying that someone who doesn't live in, work in, or represent the City of Cleveland is trying leverage state power to micro-manage municipal policy on a project that has been approved by the stakeholders and is mostly federally funded.

 

This seems like someone who owns one of the businesses on superior is influencing him.  Why else would he care?

Edited February 21, 20232 yr by Whipjacka

4 minutes ago, Whipjacka said:

This seems like someone who owns one of the businesses on superior is influencing him.  Why else would he care?

 

Distraction from the $1 billion earmarked for rural highway expansion? That's a pretty egregious waste of money. Most in the state won't blink an eye over the spending but will fight tooth and nail for a fraction of that to subsidize transit.

30 minutes ago, Whipjacka said:

His district goes all the way to the north to the lake (including Rocky River)

 

I wrote his office a note pretty much saying that someone who doesn't live in, work in, or represent the City of Cleveland is trying leverage state power to micro-manage municipal policy on a project that has been approved by the stakeholders and is mostly federally funded.

 

This seems like someone who owns one of the businesses on superior is influencing him.  Why else would he care?

 

It's also just counter to all evidence of the impacts of bike lanes. Study after study has found them to be neutral at worst to very positive for local businesses along routes. Any supposed traffic conflicts can be solved with a good plan. Also, if we're not going to build transit alternatives because of a fear about the impacts of car traffic, we're not at all serious about transit alternatives. 

Edited February 21, 20232 yr by jonoh81

someone was complaining about truck access during the presentation to the planning commission.  If my theory is right, i would guess Dependable Painting Company is behind this.  The owners are in Strongsville, the warehouse can only accept trucks from superior ave. 4403 superior.

 

pure baseless speculation tho

Sigh of relief. Galucci convinced Patton “the concerns will be addressed” and the amendment has been removed. Thank you to everyone who signed petitions. I’ll cross post in all 17 threads that discussed this.

 

 

Bam!

 

 

2 hours ago, KJP said:

Bam!

 

 

Massive credit to everyone who wrote. 

 

I think it's also good to keep in mind what this says about the state government. I know it's easy to get cynical because there are some genuine crazies in the Ohio Republican Party and there's a lot of self-interested decision making and unscrupulous power grabbing. BUT many of the Republicans in power in Ohio do genuinely care about governing the state well, even if they have beliefs about what that looks like that we might not agree with. I'll specifically call out Mike DeWine and Jon Husted in that category as two people that I really believe want all Ohioans to succeed. If we look at all Ohio Republicans as people that cannot be reasoned with and simply have to be beaten, we'll miss out on a lot of opportunities for genuine collaboration, change of heart, and compromise.

Another example of Ohio hating its big cities

 

 

As long as Ohio loves its fascism and hates its cities, it will never be a magnet to people from other states.

 

 

^That's incorrect.  Nashville and Austin are each growing at a greater rate than all Ohio cities combined, despite being in Republican-controlled states.  

 

Most people do not care about any of the issues that Twitter obsesses over.  

Edited April 7, 20232 yr by Lazarus

While much of the Republican legislature does hate the big cities in Ohio, I think the brain drain and population drain has some more deeply rooted causes. Let's look at some charts of total nonfarm employment.

 

It looks like something went wrong right around 1999 and the entire state has been fighting for the last 25 years to recover, which it almost did before covid and likely finally will in the next few years. Still, we will have had an essentially 30-year period with zero job growth. The same problem is present in an aggravated form in Michigan. Illinois seems to have had the same problem Ohio and Michigan did, but it recovered a little better. And Pennsylvania experienced a slowing of growth starting in 1999 but managed to maintain growth. Texas and Tennessee are like a totally different universe.

 

So I think the brain drain and population drain may actually be the cause of the deepening regressive politics here, rather than the other way around. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 20232 yr by LlamaLawyer

38 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

^That's incorrect.  Nashville and Austin are each growing than all Ohio cities combined, despite being in Republican-controlled states.  

 

 

 

Their Statehouses don't mess with things that are mostly city politics. In Texas the attitude is "Let the city slickers do their thing" while rural Tennessee is more proud of Nashville than rural Ohio is of its cities. The average person you meet in Pickaway County hates Columbus so much that it's a more popular small talk topic than the Buckeyes. When they get a blank stare or a "no kidding" like I give when that comes up they don't know what to think. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, guys.

2 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

Their Statehouses don't mess with things that are mostly city politics. In Texas the attitude is "Let the city slickers do their thing" while rural Tennessee is more proud of Nashville than rural Ohio is of its cities. The average person you meet in Pickaway County hates Columbus so much that it's a more popular small talk topic than the Buckeyes. When they get a blank stare or a "no kidding" like I give when that comes up they don't know what to think. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, guys.

 

The weird thing about living in Tennessee in the late 90s was that Tennesseans - and I assume many other Southerners - were proud of Atlanta.  The 1996 Olympics were a huge source of pride for the entire region, but I think even without the Olympics, the entire South was fascinated by Atlanta.    

 

Tennessee now has a bizarre dynamic, as Nashville boosters cite "low taxes" for the city's boom, while completely ignoring the plight of Memphis, which had always been the state's biggest city until recently.  

 

The sudden explosion of tech in Nashville is the most mind-bending event in 21st century urban history.  The presence of the University of Texas main campus in Austin is repeatedly cited as the reason for tech coming to that city, but Tennessee's flagship campus is in Knoxville.  Weirdly, Knoxville has always been a science hub of note due to the Oak Ridge National Lab, but it has had seemingly zero spillover effect.  Nashville's rise quite literally came out of nowhere and for no identifiable reason.  

 

 

51 minutes ago, KJP said:

As long as Ohio loves its fascism and hates its cities, it will never be a magnet to people from other states.

 

 

I agree, along with the fact that most Ohio cities are losing population, and at the same time nimbyism in Ohio is at an all time high. Young people desire vibrant urban amenities, new housing throughout the city. But what you have is people that want more tree's, and to keep new housing and mixed-use developments confined to old inner city areas that young people desire to depart from. Akron being a classic case, no wonder the Mayor is not seeking another term, and young people are fleeing to pro-growth cities like Nashville, Columbus, Dallas and others. 

3 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

The weird thing about living in Tennessee in the late 90s was that Tennesseans - and I assume many other Southerners - were proud of Atlanta.  The 1996 Olympics were a huge source of pride for the entire region, but I think even without the Olympics, the entire South was fascinated by Atlanta.    

 

Tennessee now has a bizarre dynamic, as Nashville boosters cite "low taxes" for the city's boom, while completely ignoring the plight of Memphis, which had always been the state's biggest city until recently.  

 

The sudden explosion of tech in Nashville is the most mind-bending event in 21st century urban history.  The presence of the University of Texas main campus in Austin is repeatedly cited as the reason for tech coming to that city, but Tennessee's flagship campus is in Knoxville.  Weirdly, Knoxville has always been a science hub of note due to the Oak Ridge National Lab, but it has had seemingly zero spillover effect.  Nashville's rise quite literally came out of nowhere and for no identifiable reason.  

 

 

 

Throw as much money at tourism attraction as you can in the same way the industry associations for Irish Pubs and tattoo parlors took those industries from cottage to domination very quickly in the late '90s.

5 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

Throw as much money at tourism attraction as you can in the same way the industry associations for Irish Pubs and tattoo parlors took those industries from cottage to domination very quickly in the late '90s.

Governor wants to throw a bunch of money at tourism, but at the same time allows drilling in our state parks. DeWine is a dumbass 

I'm not quite saying Ohio should do the same. Nashville had a unique hook in music but so did Memphis. Memphis didn't have as much money sitting around so they couldn't pull it off.

10 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

Throw as much money at tourism attraction as you can in the same way the industry associations for Irish Pubs and tattoo parlors took those industries from cottage to domination very quickly in the late '90s.

 

Don't forget the invention of a "signature" food that nobody had heard of before 2010, Nashville Hot Chicken.  

 

They basically invented a whole fake backstory for Nashville and if you called them out on it you were a bad person.  You violated community standards.  

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, KJP said:

As long as Ohio loves its fascism and hates its cities, it will never be a magnet to people from other states.

 

 

It's wild living in Columbus, where we see nothing but growth all around, with only signs of it continuing to speed up, and then going online and seeing this doom talk about Ohio all the time.  Based on comments you see online, you would assume that Ohio is already a desolate wasteland.  It feels like we're on a different planet in Central Ohio sometimes.  The state politics aren't preventing people from moving to Columbus.  So, maybe other areas of Ohio actually have different problems?

Edited April 7, 20232 yr by TH3BUDDHA

1 hour ago, GCrites80s said:

Their Statehouses don't mess with things that are mostly city politics.  In Texas the attitude is "Let the city slickers do their thing"

You can find all kinds of examples of the Texas state government embattled against city politics.

 

In the Lone Star State, Cities Feel the Heat

 

Observers are bracing for an extra push against the big four metro areas – Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio -- far beyond the "Austin bashing" that's prevailed for decades. The current political climate has pitted the state against its urban areas as some national groups stir up the divide. Momentum is building for this approaching session to be the ultimate showdown between Texas cities and the state.

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2018-12-27/cities-versus-state-a-battle-for-control-in-the-texas-legislature

Edited April 7, 20232 yr by TH3BUDDHA

28 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Based on comments you see online, you would assume that Ohio is already a desolate wasteland.  

 

Yeah, because saying stuff is fine 99.9% of the time (which it most definitely is) doesn't get pushed by the algorithm.  

1 hour ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

The state politics aren't preventing people from moving to Columbus.  So, maybe other areas of Ohio actually have different problems?

 

Being the state capital and having Ohio State isn't something the rest of Ohio has (there's your different problems). Also, nearly $1B more state dollars are spent in Franklin County vs the other large counties.

 

 

 

Source: https://www.lsc.ohio.gov/assets/organizations/legislative-service-commission/files/fy-2022-state-spending-by-county.pdf

 

1 hour ago, vulcana said:

But what you have is people that want more tree's, and to keep new housing and mixed-use developments confined to old inner city areas that young people desire to depart from.  Akron being a classic case, no wonder the Mayor is not seeking another term, and young people are fleeing to pro-growth cities like Nashville, Columbus, Dallas and others. 

 

☹️

 

It was surreal watching the mayoral debate earlier this week.  Multiple candidates who are currently on City Council and who voted against the expansion of housing and announced their opposition to tax subsidies for new housing (the 15-year tax abatement) also said, with completely straight faces, that we need more housing.

 

At the moment, I think the frontrunner is fortunately one of the supporters of the larger new housing developments that are now in pre-construction--one required the sale of city land that passed by a single vote, and two would almost certainly not have happened without the abatement incentive.  But if some of the others drop out, the NIMBY-inclined ones could consolidate support.

 

I'm all for expanding affordable housing deals, too, but we need to be realistic: only about 1/3 of competitive LIHTC applications get funded (and LIHTC is the predominant driver of affordable housing development) and there is no way that maybe 50 units of new affordable construction every 2-3 years will make a dent in the needs of a city this size, let alone the size of larger metros (though of course they get projects funded more reliably, too).  One market study recently found that the market could absorb somewhere around 11,000 additional units in this area.

 

1 hour ago, VintageLife said:

Governor wants to throw a bunch of money at tourism, but at the same time allows drilling in our state parks. DeWine is a dumbass 

 

What does one have to do with the other?  Or with the state's attitude towards its cities, for that matter?

 

1 hour ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

It's wild living in Columbus, where we see nothing but growth all around, with only signs of it continuing to speed up, and then going online and seeing this doom talk about Ohio all the time.  Based on comments you see online, you would assume that Ohio is already a desolate wasteland.  It feels like we're on a different planet in Central Ohio sometimes.  The state politics aren't preventing people from moving to Columbus.  So, maybe other areas of Ohio actually have different problems?

36 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

Yeah, because saying stuff is fine 99.9% of the time (which it most definitely is) doesn't get pushed by the algorithm.  

 

And even before we relied on algorithms to tell us what news to read, bad news and negative views always sold better, too.

 

There's no audience for my "actually, this is a pretty good state to raise a family in, and in fact, even living as a conservative in a monopoly-blue city in Ohio isn't a half bad life" editorial.

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

The presence of the University of Texas main campus in Austin is repeatedly cited as the reason for tech coming to that city ...

 

The real growth in Austin began with then-President Lyndon Johnson putting a billion dollar predecessor of Sematech in Austin at a time when Austin had more cows than people. 

1 hour ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

It's wild living in Columbus, where we see nothing but growth all around, with only signs of it continuing to speed up, and then going online and seeing this doom talk about Ohio all the time.  Based on comments you see online, you would assume that Ohio is already a desolate wasteland.  It feels like we're on a different planet in Central Ohio sometimes.  The state politics aren't preventing people from moving to Columbus.  So, maybe other areas of Ohio actually have different problems?

To my point above, if you look at BLS data, Columbus actually had basically zero job growth during the 2000s, even before the GFC. Columbus has since recovered in a way other Ohio cities haven't. But all of Ohio (even Columbus) had basically a lost decade from 2000-2010. This was probably a result of manufacturing offshoring, but we were hit harder than some other heavy manufacturing states like PA were.

 

EDIT: And just to more directly address your point, it's not like Ohio is the second circle of hell and we're all being tortured by demons or something. But that doesn't change the fact that the state has experienced no job growth since 2000. Let that sink in. None. I believe it's one of only three states to have such an honor, the other two being Michigan and West Virginia. Relative to other places, we're not doing well.

Edited April 7, 20232 yr by LlamaLawyer

19 minutes ago, Dougal said:

 

The real growth in Austin began with then-President Lyndon Johnson putting a billion dollar predecessor of Sematech in Austin at a time when Austin had more cows than people. 

 

Austin has acquired a reputation as Texas's "liberal reservation" because while local laws lean largely "progressive", the state isn't shy about preempting the most toxic aspects of same that have caused so many problems in California.   It's seen as the best of both worlds, especially to California expatriates.

 

Ohio has no more disdain for its big cities than we have for each other.    I can't say the same is true for Texas but it wouldn't surprise me.   Florida, Ohio, Texas, and California are the states that have big cities where one of them doesn't dominate.