2012 Archives | Innovation Ohio

Sep 16 2012

[Video] Exposing the fraud in Romney-Ryan budget plan – It only takes 90 seconds

Earlier this week Innovation Ohio spent some time with our colleagues from the Center for American Progress Action Fund to release our latest report: The Real Cost of the Romney-Ryan Plan to Ohioans. Read the report or one of our earlier blog posts to find details about how a Mitt Romney presidency would hit your wallet and make it more difficult to afford health care, college tuition or pay for retirement. In this video, Dale Butland, IO’s communications director, exposes the fraud in Romney’s plan from the macro level. Take a look:

Sep 14 2012

[Video] Janetta King on who will foot the bill in Ohio for the Romney-Ryan plan

Hopefully you know by now about our report, created in partnership with the Center for American Progress Action Fund, on how the Romney-Ryan economic and tax agenda will adversely affect Ohioans. If you don’t have time to read the entire report, how about taking a few minutes to hear from IO’s president, Janetta King. In this video from an event in Columbus, Ohio earlier this week, King discusses exactly who would pay more in taxes if Mitt Romney were to become president and corrects some inaccuracies in a recent Columbus Dispatch editorial about the federal loan to the auto industry.

Sep 14 2012

Seniors in Ohio would pay more – a lot more – for health care if Romney elected

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said over and over that Ohio’s current seniors won’t pay more for Medicare under the Romney-Ryan plan. That’s just plain false. In a report we issued this week, The Real Cost of the Romney-Ryan Plan to Ohioans, we explain the reality for today’s retirees and tomorrow’s seniors. Our research partner for the report was the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

How Romney Costs Today’s Seniors More for Medicare

Under Romney-Ryan, today’s seniors would pay more for Medicare out of pocket in higher premiums and increased cost for prescription drugs. This is tied to two huge policy changes:

Repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Converting the current federal-state joint Medicaid program into a state-administered block grant program at a reduced rate of funding.

[Read more…]

Sep 13 2012

Ohio’s Early Voting Timeline – Access Moving in the Wrong Direction Under Husted

Ohio voters have won a key victory in the battle to restore certain early voting opportunities in Ohio. On Wednesday, a federal judge denied Secretary of State Jon Husted’s request for a stay of the Judge’s order to allow counties to set voting times for the final three days before the election. This paves the way for counties to open up the door on Saturday through Monday, November 3-5. In-person voting on the final weekend of the election has proven a very popular option for Ohio voters. In fact, according to Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates, in 2008, 102,243 Ohioans voted in-person on the final three days before the election. Yesterday’s announcement is a significant step in the right direction. [Read more…]

Sep 13 2012

Husted’s rough week …

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted begin his tenure in fairly bipartisan fashion? Didn’t he initially stand up to Gov. John Kasich and some of the more right-wing policies of the Ohio GOP? Somewhere along the way Husted made a course correction and became Ohio’s Secretary of Suppression. His policies have led to court battles which have led to Husted looking like every other partisan for partisan’s sake winger out there polluting our state and national political processes. Last night, Hannah News Service even had to roll out the white text on red background. There’s Breaking News. Husted has been whupped in court again and he and the Ballot Board are going to meet this morning to rewrite the ballot text for State Issue 2. I asked Dale Butland, IO’s communications director and longtime Cap Square observer for his thoughts: “The same desperate politicians who are doing everything they can to eliminate the votes of those they fear might not support them are now lying to voters about the Issue 2 reforms. This is what you expect to see in a banana republic, not a great state like Ohio. It’s gotten so bad that a federal judge and the Ohio Supreme Court have been forced to step in and slap these politicians down. Voters can stand up for honesty and fair play by voting “yes” on Issue 2 this November,” Butland told me. We’ll have some coverage at the Ballot Board this morning and hopefully get a post up from one of our policy folks later today. What Dale told me, though, is key. Issue 2 is important. It’s proscription for fixing Ohio’s redistricting process may seem a bit complicated, but an attempt is being made to bring fairness into the process. Voter advocates aren’t asking for a process that favors either party, they’re looking for congressional and statehouse districts that reflect Ohio, not a Kasich-Boehner fantasy of Ohio.

Sep 12 2012

The Romney – Ryan Vision

You know that this week we’re all about talking up our report on how Ohio’s middle class will get clobbered by Mitt Romney’s tax policies. You also know by now that we worked with the Center for American Progress Action Fund on the research for the report. Well, the good folks at CAP Action left a few things lying around the office and we’ve just got to share them. Click on the graphic below for full size. Print a few out and post them around town …

Sep 12 2012

Report: The Real Cost of the Romney-Ryan Plan to Ohioans

Research Overview

Behind dramatically different economic visions and a deluge of attack ads, this election comes down to numbers. Many Ohioans—and many families across the United States—are asking what this will mean at the kitchen table. What will be the cost of a second term of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden or a first term led by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)? The answer is that, in concrete and quantifiable ways, a Romney-Ryan presidency would mean higher taxes for the middle class, out-of-pocket health expenses for current seniors, fewer college loans and fewer health care options for young people, and the re-introduction of corporate outsourcing tax loopholes that have sent so many manufacturing jobs overseas. The nonprofit organizations Innovation Ohio and the Center for American Progress Action Fund examined the economic and tax agenda of Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan, taking a close look at how their policies would affect the way Ohioans live and work. The price tag includes:

Middle-class Ohioans would pay more in taxes while millionaires pay less. Millionaires in the state would receive an additional $87,000 in tax breaks under the tax plans of Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan while middle-class families would pay $1,900 more in health care taxes and $1,066 more in taxes on their mortgages.
Jobs would decline across Ohio. Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan plan to provide extra tax incentives for corporations to outsource jobs and are pushing policy proposals to cripple the clean energy industry, jeopardizing 125,000 jobs across the state.
Drastic cuts to federal spending would shrink Ohio’s middle class. The state stands to lose more than $106 billion in federal funding from 2013 through 2022, an average of more than $10 billion a year, from cuts to schools, law enforcement, highway repairs, job-training programs and more. These cuts would fall predominantly on middle-class and low-income families, especially cuts to education programs that would result in nearly $100 million in reduced federal support for education in the state in 2013 and 2014 alone.
Seniors in Ohio would lose health care benefits and pay more. Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan would force seniors in the state to pay at least $660 more for their prescription drugs each year.

Read the Report Here Find out How Much More the Romney-Ryan Medicare Plan Would Cost You

Sep 11 2012

Voters in Ohio not aligned with the ‘cheating’ part of GOP agenda

PPP Poll shows early voting on weekend before election favored by Ohioans There is a trajectory voters in Ohio have been on since 2004 when it comes to open, easy access to the polls – and unfortunately the direction is no longer up. Secretary of State Jon Husted has made a mess of things by forcing counties to scale back early voting hours, providing shoddy guidance to boards of elections and then firing local elections officials who challenge his directives. The state is in court over the whole mess – it’s just been mass confusion from the start. [Read more…]