COLUMBUS Lawmakers may be afraid to use the tax word inside the Statehouse, but about 300 advocates for food banks, child care, and other human services many from Toledo were more than happy to use it for them Thursday as they rallied outside.
We cant cut our way out of this hole, said Lisa Hamler-Fuggit, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks. Were going to advocate that all options be placed on the table. Remember when we raised the sales tax temporarily [in 2003]? We werent in the kind of recession that were in now. The show of support for human-services funding occurred the day after the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate made major changes to the budget it received from the Democratic-controlled House. But despite expectations that the Strickland administration will again lower revenue projections for the next two years in the wake of continuing job losses, the Senate did not cut as deeply as many human-service advocates feared. Now, those who relied on state-funded programs for mental health services, child day care, alcohol and drug addiction treatment, and early childhood health care are waiting for the other shoe to drop as the $54 billion spending plan moves to a six-member, House-Senate conference committee. The conference committee is going to be getting more bad news, real bad news, I understand, said Karen Krause of Toledo Area Jobs with Justice, who traveled to the rally aboard a bus with 37 others from Toledo. Some may be going, Whew, we made it past the Senate, she said, but I am just shocked that all the health-care insurance stuff came out. That wouldnt cost the state a penny. The plan that passed the Senate eliminated several health insurance mandates sought by Mr. Strickland that he said would have expanded the number of insured Ohioans by about 110,000. Among those proposals were requirements that private insurers cover dependent, unmarried ...
