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Columbus
Dispatch...
Public
support
Poll shows
Ohioans favor governor’s plan to tax shale drillers
Sunday May
13, 2012 6:47 AM
Lawmakers
shouldn’t make important policy decisions solely on the basis of
polling
results. But a new poll, showing broad popular support for Gov. John
Kasich’s
proposal to raise taxes on hydraulic fracturing — aka fracking — for
oil and
natural gas and give Ohioans a tax break in the process, is another
reason why
the Ohio legislature should move forward with the plan.
Ohio voters
in a Quinnipiac poll released last week show strong bipartisan support
for the
governor’s proposal. Respondents favored the plan, 60 percent to 32
percent;
nearly two-thirds of Democrats and independents supported the plan,
while 54 percent
of Republicans did.
Kasich’s
proposal is a sensible one that would bring Ohio in line with the
practices of
most other states by charging a modest tax for the right to extract
irreplaceable natural resources from beneath the state’s soil. Even
though the
revenue generated would be given back to Ohioans, the
Republican-controlled
legislature so far has stymied the idea, perhaps in deference to the
powerful
oil-and-gas lobby that has been vocal in its opposition.
Lawmakers
should remember whom they serve: the citizens who voted them into
office, not
oil and gas drillers who aren’t even headquartered in Ohio but are
eager to
reap the benefits of the state’s resources at the lowest possible cost.
The
poll showed that more than 80 percent of respondents believe drilling
will
create jobs. Kasich’s tax proposal is fair and would not cost Ohioans
these
much-needed jobs. Drillers are busy operating in neighboring states
that
already have higher taxes than Kasich is proposing.
Furthermore,
those Republican lawmakers skittish about being targeted by the vocal
anti-tax
lobby, Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform, led by Grover
Norquist,
should know that the group has signed off on the plan because it would
be
revenue-neutral.
It’s time
for legislators to do what’s best for Ohioans. The oil-and-gas industry
may
briefly cry foul. But they’re not constituents, and it’s highly
doubtful
they’ll pack up and leave the state as a result.
Read this
and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch
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