Post Tagged with: "Cincinnati"

We know there is a crisis in higher education. We see the symptoms in higher tuition, lower graduation rates, and record student loan debt. Too often, the narrative about what’s causing these problems is the idea that these universities just aren’t being run similarly enough to private businesses. Is this true, though? We’ve […]

In Hamilton County, OH, the county I live in, the sheriff’s office has recently been involved in several high-profile police brutality incidents. In May 2018, the sheriff’s office agreed to a $500,000 settlement after a corrections officer, Jason Mize, shoved a 61-year-old man, Mark Myers, headfirst into a cinderblock cell so hard […]

One of the biggest lies told by conservative pundits is that one-half of Americans pay no taxes.

Conservatives like to throw around numbers, like the top 1 percent of wage earners will pay 45.7 percent of federal income taxes (from a 2014 report). This only tells a small part of the story.

For example, income tax accounts for less than one-half of federal taxes, and only one-fifth of taxes at all levels of government. Or that the top 1 percent receive 21 percent of total income.

What they also don’t tell you is that the 80 percent of taxes that aren’t income taxes tend to fall heavily on the the poor and middle class.

When you give massive tax cuts to the rich, as Donald Trump’s new tax plan proposes, what this means is that revenues will fall at the federal level. The federal government then cuts money to state governments, who cut money to local governments, who cut services and shift the costs onto the 99 percent.

What this strategy does is privatize profits for the wealthy, create stock bubbles, and push costs down to everyone else at the state, local, and individual level.

Here’s some of the regressive taxes that the 99 percent pay most of—and that are likely to increase if we write more tax loopholes for the rich.

Derek Bauman, a law enforcement veteran of over 20 years, is currently serving a suburban Cincinnati police department. He is the president of his department’s patrol officer union and in 2011 was awarded the Medal of Valor for injuries sustained during a felony arrest. He’s a friend of mine who’s very active on social media and advocates for police being more involved in the community. In light of the past week’s tragic shootings, I thought I’d ask him some questions.

A couple people have asked me about the Cincinnati and Ohio issues on tomorrow’s ballot. Because it’s a bit confusing, I thought I’d post about each issue including how I’m voting and why.

If it helps you, great. If not, great. Either way kudos to you for voting and taking the time to learn about the issues.

Buddy, Responsible Ohio’s marijuana mascot.

I love parks and recognize we have one of the best urban parks systems in America. Just a couple months ago, CNN Money ranked Cincinnati as having the 7th best park system in the country.

The Parks Board has some great ideas for the future too. In particular, I’m a big fan of Wasson Way. This trail would make it easier to bike across town and then out to the Greater Miami Bike Trail. The city already reached a deal with Norfolk-Southern to buy the old train tracks and I want this to happen.

This said, I’m voting against Issue 22.

Why?

Issue 22 creates a permanent tax written into our charter that is essentially under the control of one person, the mayor.

I think this might be the quote of the week by Father John Cahill, former director of Justice and Peace for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington, Kentucky.

Father Cahill writes:

It is time to tell corporations that taxpayers have had enough. We are not going to provide you with cheap labor out of our wallets while you receive favored tax rates on capital gains, reinvested dividends, accelerated depreciation, tax abatements etc. etc. and severely underpay your workers.

Father Cahill recognizes that in our one-sided pursuit of profits, we seem to have lost sight of why we were pursuing profits to begin with.

We’ve lost sight of our values. We’ve lost sight of why we allowed corporations to begin with: for the public good.

He contrasts this with today’s insanity of subsidizing multinational corporations while many of these same multinationals fight to pay people less and less.

The subject of yesterday’s City Council Neighborhood Committee meeting was the Central Parkway protected bike lane. City council voted 9-0 to approve this during the fall and several people I know recommended attending the meeting as for some unknown reason the issue was being raised again.

I went down to show my support for the bike lane wondering if this was going to turn into another streetcar debacle.

It didn’t. At least not yet.

But it was very interesting.

Still think that Occupy Cincinnati didn’t have an impact?

As part of a recent discussion on the Green Party forum about the Alaska Project, Justin Jeffre responded with a particularly well-framed argument in favor of supportive housing.

I thought this might be helpful if anyone is calling or writing city council (or anyone else for that matter) in support of the project. It seems particularly relevant in light of resident testimony yesterday claiming that the project would be a “haven” for drug dealers.