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COLUMBUS — In his first post-victory press conference, Gov.-elect John Kasich promised to restore a 4.2 percent income tax cut in his upcoming state budget and kill plans to bring a passenger rail train to Ohio.
“We will be ready, without any question, to put a comprehensive budget together within the deadline. ... I am very confident that we will have a very good reform-oriented budget that will get the job done and restore the tax cut,” Kasich said before a gaggle of news cameras and reporters assembled at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce where Kasich was borrowing conference room space.
In the last budget cycle, Gov. Ted Strickland put a hold on the last phase of a 21 percent across-the-board personal income tax reduction as a way to balance the state budget without making further drastic budget cuts.
Kasich also announced three cabinet appointments: Beth Hansen, his campaign manager, as his chief of staff; Wayne Struble, a former Congressional staffer, as policy director; and Tim Keen as budget director. Keen served as Gov. Bob Taft’s budget director.
“My message today is we are going to get the jobs going in this state. We have to become competitive,” Kasich said.
Kasich will lead a state government dominated by Republicans. By January, the only Democrat to hold statewide office will be whomever Gov. Ted Strickland appoints to fill Republican Maureen O’Connor’s seat on the Ohio Supreme Court. O’Connor won the chief justice post on Tuesday.
It’s unclear whether Republicans, especially in just the two years before the presidential election, will be able to satisfy economic anxiety, said University of Akron political scientist John Green.
“GOP fiscal policies will address the size of government issue, but reduced spending and tax cuts may not revive the economy rapidly — much as the Obama stimulus package did not produce dramatic results,” he said.
Voters’ expectations are high, said Eric Rademacher, co-director of the Ohio Poll at the University of Cincinnati.
“Voters will be watching closely to see whether they can make headway on the economy in 2011, before the country’s policy making and politics get caught up in the 2012 presidential campaign,” Rademacher said.
James Ruvolo, former Ohio Democratic Party chairman, said he thinks Republicans already may be overreaching by promising to turn around the economy.
“The fact is what President Obama and the Democrats did to stimulate the economy is working but very slowly,” said Ruvolo, now a Toledo-based consultant. “There’s nothing they can do to make that speed up.”
Ruvolo conceded, however, that Republicans, now that they’re in power, could benefit.
“If the economy comes back strong by 2012, they’ll get credit,” he said. “If it doesn’t, they’ll share in the blame.”
Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin De- Wine said there is no permanence in political victories.
“If we don’t live up to the expectations of the voters, if we don’t accept the mantle of responsibility the voters have given us in this election, they will hold us accountable for it,” he said. “That is a lesson we learned in ‘06 and ‘08. I know we haven’t forgotten that because the voters are anxious; the voters are nervous.”
Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1624 or lbischoff@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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