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TEL ME A STORY BECAUSE REALITY MIGHT SCARE ME. On March 30, an incredible piece of backpedaling fiction appeared in Ohio. Under the title “TEL the Truth,” and under the banner of “Citizens for Tax Reform,” this particular short story showed up on www.kenblackwell.com (In the “Newsroom”). Ordinarily, we would send you to the Citizens for Tax Reform site for this story, but the piece doesn’t appear there. We could only find it at the site mentioned above. Ordinarily, we would also ignore such a piece. It makes the “Da Vinci Code” seem credible in its constant rant that the Constitutional Amendment it describes is something other than the Amendment Ohioans will be asked to vote on in November. Even though the Amendment says what it says, the authors of “TEL the Truth” say the Amendment says something else whenever someone criticizes what the Amendment says. Ordinarily, we would simply value this story, as we do stories like Alice in Wonderland, if the authors would just admit its fictions. We don’t embark on this correction with any hesitation, as one might with a child. Unraveling the truth can be a lot of fun, especially if it doesn’t involve much work. However, we should admit up front, that we are biased. The TEL was sold to petition signers as a measure to stop the “wild and crazy” spending in state government. Now, every township trustee, library board member, county official and municipal official is portrayed, by supporters of the TEL, as just as zany in their spend-thrift ways as the folks at the State Capitol. The TEL supporters, to back up those insults, toss about no numbers. But, then, a fiction, of course, doesn’t need any numbers, when “bumper sticker” banter will do. Knowing local officials, as we do, this first big fiction of the TEL, that all local officials in Ohio are spending and taxing nuts, strikes us as alien, insulting and just beyond odd, but, maybe, that’s just us. Supporters also portray anyone who opposes the TEL as a big spending, big government, high taxing double liberal! This is, of course, a reversion to playground rantings about your pants being on fire, rantings that are usually, avoided in adult conversation, but no matter. As to the “TEL the Truth” fantasy, the story would like you to believe that the Amendment does not apply to “enterprise funds,” like Ohio’s universities or capital improvement expenditures. Why? Because that would be stupid. While, we agree with the supporters that would be stupid, the Amendment does not exclude (or even mention) enterprise funds or capital expenditures. Nowhere in the Amendment are such expenditures exempted or even mentioned. Ohio universities, gas taxes, hunting licenses and everything else the state collects and spends are part of the TEL, as stupid as we and the supporters of the Amendment think that is. Those collections and institutions aren’t in because we wish it so. They’re in because the supporters of the amendment wrote the Amendment that way, as much as they wish now they hadn’t. As much as we’d like to give the TEL supporters a Mulligan or a do-over, we can’t. Stupid game! Oh, wait. Forgot. Constitutional Amendments aren’t a game. My bad. The “Tel the Truth” story also defends a new Local Government Fund (LGF) in the TEL Amendment that sets aside 5% of state funds to be given to someone. It says such a fund will end the state’s freezes to those funds for municipalities, counties, townships and libraries. It forgets to mention that school districts and special districts, like solid waste authorities and MR/DD boards, will now be eligible for such funds and that all local distribution formulas will be erased. So, while guaranteeing a city, for instance, no more LGF freezes, it also guarantees that the same city may receive absolutely zero dollars from the new LGF. To give it its due, the Amendment guarantees that your potential zero dollars will grow and become a larger zero each year. Another “myth” the TEL the Truthers are running away from as fast as their little lies can carry them is the whopper about electors. The state can pass any tax increase without a vote of the people, under the amendment. They can pass any spending over the cap with the passage of an issue by a majority of Ohioans voting for the issue. Local governments can only pass a tax increase or spending above their cap (CPI plus population or 3.5% per year, whichever is greater) by receiving a majority of the votes of those registered in the political subdivision. At the local level, this means that if you get 1000 voters showing up at the polls to vote for an issue 1000-0 and you have 3000 voters registered in your community, the issue loses. Under the new majority demanded by the TEL, you need 1501 votes to win, a majority of those registered, not a majority of those voting. Supporters of the TEL say this is not what they meant and the ambiguity in the Amendment, defining state and local majorities, also exists in state statute. Of course, it doesn’t exist in the Constitution and that is what we’re talking about here. Statutes, no matter how poorly written, don’t trump the definition of what a majority is in the Ohio Constitution. This new definition, as a Constitutional Amendment, which declares itself as supreme over the rest of the Constitution, would clearly define a new definition of a majority on local tax issues. Now, why those supporting this Amendment to keep taxes and spending down would run away from this new definition of a majority is beyond us. It’s obvious, from a plain reading of the amendment, that supporters want this new definition of a majority. Why else would you have two different phrases describing a “majority” for a statewide vote and a local vote on an issue? It certainly would make local spending above the local cap or increases in local taxes nearly impossible as is, obviously, the goal of the TEL supporters. A number of Ohioans might take comfort in the fact that they could vote “NO” on any local tax issue just by sitting on their front porch and watching all those dopes go to the polls. Supporters of the Amendment shouldn’t run away from this most effective deceit. They should embrace it, be proud of it, defend it and fess up to it. Afterall, they wrote it and asked their fellow Ohioans to vote for it. Who knows? Proposing a dictatorship of the non-voters might have a lot of support at the polls in November, but the non-voter might not know of his or her opportunity unless supporters of the TEL admit their plan before the election. The story of the TEL continues by saying that critics argue that the TEL shouldn’t be in the Ohio Constitution. The authors argue that it should be, just like the requirement for a balanced state budget. This is one of those wonderful “straw men” that makes politics fun and policy a stepchild. Of course, the TEL doesn’t belong in the Constitution because it doesn’t say what its supporters say it means, not because it doesn’t belong in the Constitution. Like a lie looking for a home, it should be shunned and remain the homeless fiction it is. It is interesting to us that this story just passes over the provision in the TEL that says this amendment is supreme and runs over any other amendment in the Constitution, like Home Rule and the requirement that the state should fund an adequate school system. That seems like a big deal, but to supporters of the TEL, it’s just a clause you see in typical legal documents, sort of like the small print in your loan application. But don’t worry, the supporters say. After the election, the General Assembly will write a bill that will take care of any small questions you might have about this clause. This implies that the General Assembly will write a bill that demotes the Amendment from “supreme” to just “very important,” if supreme seems a little over the top. Given that the General Assembly can’t overrule the Constitution by statute, that implication is just plain wrong. This imaginative short story goes on to say that a whole lot of things that the TEL includes in its broad language are not really there. Public universities, according to this new TEL story, evidently, are not really supported with tax funds; therefore they are not included in the TEL. This is good news for anyone who ever thought Ohio really doesn’t need a Higher Education budget. Capital improvement or equipment funds of local governments are not covered by the TEL, according this story, even though such funds are an “expenditure” in the language of the TEL and receive neither mention nor exemption anywhere in the language of the TEL. Local governments and libraries are again assured that they’ll do just fine under the Local Government Fund, even though no one knows for sure how much money will be in the fund and the traditional recipients of LGF will now be joined by about a thousand new recipients. As more criticisms arise about the TEL, we expect new versions of “TEL the Truth” to pop up between now and November. If this first version is any indicator, by November, not one word of the entire Amendment will mean what it says. We will then be a truly bi-lingual state, those who speak English and those who speak TEL. |
