Lt. Governor-candidate Sharen Neuhardt held a press conference on the City Hall front steps March 18 to lament a tax cut proposed by Gov. John Kasich, claiming it furthers his agenda to help Ohio’s top 1 percent.
Kasich proposed cutting income tax 8.5 percent across the board by 2016, which would help drive Ohio’s top tax rate below 5 percent. The governor claims single mothers making $30,000 would save an extra few hundred dollars every year as part of his proposed tax cut, a claim Neuhardt called “despicable and wrong.”
During the press conference, Neuhardt said Kasich is using the plight of single mothers to propagate a tax cut that would disproportionately benefit Ohio’s upper echelon.
“I want to really emphasize pay equality is always an important issue,” Neuhardt said.
Neuhardt doesn’t have a plan to square the $11,600 pay disparity between genders in 2012 that she cites, but she did say that her administration would need to reverse everything Kasich’s administration has done in order to get Ohio’s economy moving forward, should she and her running mate, gubernatorial candidate Ed Fitzgerald, win office in November.
“We need Ohio’s working class to have money in their pocket,” Neuhardt said.
Kasich’s previous budget took the first steps toward pushing the state’s top tax rate below 5 percent by lowering income tax across the board and raising sales tax, a combination that disproportionately favors the wealthy.
Council members P.G. Sittenfield and Yvette Simpson spoke about pay disparity before Neuhardt took the podium.
Simpson stated women on average are earning 27 percent less than men in Ohio and Latin American women are earning 57 percent less.
“In the year 2014, that’s unacceptable,” Simpson said.
She also stated that Cincinnati has a 50-percent single mother rate and that 53 percent of children are living in poverty.
Sittenfield said the way toward eliminating pay disparity is through “meaningful reforms,” not tax cuts.
“Wage equality is not just a women’s issue — it’s a family issue and it’s an Ohio issue,” Sittenfield said.
Kasich proposed the cuts as part of a mid-biennium review intended to lay out administrative goals for next year. (Anthony Skeens)
