John Becker
By John Becker

In response to “Republican Party” (July 10, 2014), the chairman of the Democrat Party asserted that Ohio has cut public school funding by over $500 million. The facts are that in House Bill 59, we allocated $11.5 billion for fiscal year 2014 for the Ohio Department of Education. That’s a more than $500 million (five percent) increase over FY 2013. An additional nearly $500 million (four percent) was allocated for FY 2015.

The Democrat Party chairman also mentioned tax breaks. He failed to mention the newly created earned income tax credit that is now available to low income Ohioans. I also noticed that he didn’t mention that Ohio is now a Medicaid expansion state.

The chairman sang the praises of big government. Both sides agree that government is needed and has an important role in society. Republicans tend to believe that government is a necessary evil. Democrats tend to believe that government is our savior. The facts are that government is necessary to maintain public safety (national defense, police, fire, etc.), infrastructure (highways, water, sewer, etc.), enforcement of contracts, patents, etc. The debate between conservatives and liberals is over which level of government should be doing what and how should it be funded? Republicans believe that the government closest to the people is the best government. If the federal government would simply follow the enumerated powers granted by the US Constitution, we would have much larger state and local governments. The federal government was designed to be very small and unobtrusive. We have the opposite today.

The author equated government with “we can help.” Yeah, right. I’m from the government and I’m here to help. The reality is that the best kind of help comes from family, friends, churches, and community organizations. There may also be a role for state and local governments to pitch in too. However, we’ve seen how the federal government, all too often, makes things worse. It has created a dependency class by forcibly taking money from one group of Americans and giving it to another. Is this by design to control people for the purposes of consolidating power at the very top? If so, it’s working.

And just for the record, Medicaid is recognized as the least efficient most corrupt government program ever devised. Expanding something bad can’t be good. That is why I did everything in my power to stop Ohio from becoming a Medicaid expansion state. I also introduced HB 255 to reform Medicaid and save taxpayers $1.5 billion per year.

Furthermore, I voted against HB 59 because of the unconscionable increase in spending. With an inflation rate of less than 1.5 percent, we increased general revenue fund spending by a whopping $2.6 billion or 9.4 percent in FY 2014. And we tacked on another $1.4 billion or 4.7 percent for FY 2015.

I think that the people of Clermont County can spend their own money a lot smarter than we can spend it for them in Columbus.

John Becker is the state representative serving the 65th House District.