A missed opportunity for DeWine

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine couldn't see the forest for the trees as he meandered down memory lane in his final State of the State address Tuesday. It was understandable that DeWine wanted to take a victory lap as his time in office winds down. But while DeWine might be a lame duck, he's still got nearly a year left in his final term and Ohio faces serious challenges, few of which he addressed. He revisited a story he told in 2019 during his first State of the State speech about how his grandfather planted trees "late in life — knowing he would not live to see them grow big and tall." DeWine continued: "He planted them nonetheless, because he believed in the future — he believed in building a better world for generations to come." It was a nice story, capped by DeWine recounting how his own son tapped those very trees for sap to make maple syrup this year. DeWine then rattled off some of what he considered the accomplishments of the past seven years. Some of what he talked about were indeed good things, such as the H2Ohio program, which focuses on cleaning up the Buckeye State's waterways. DeWine also touted his economic development record, pointing to a few companies that are coming to Ohio or expanding, which is good news. Still, if things were going so great on the economic development front, one would have expected DeWine to dwell more on it. He didn't mention Intel, which announced in 2022 that it intended to spend $20 billion building a chip-manufacturing plant in central Ohio. The project originally was supposed to come online last year, but the company has twice revised its timeline and production at the plant is now slated to begin in 2030 or 2031. DeWine also boasted about balancing the budget (a requirement of the Ohio Constitution) and increasing the state's rainy-day fund (we'll give him that one). He bragged about cutting taxes, which certainly appealed to his fellow Republicans in the state legislature. They're on a mission to eventually eliminate the state income tax, although they have yet to come up with a viable plan to replace the revenue generated by those taxes. (The state income tax, along with the commercial activity tax, generated about $13 billion in 2023.) Unfortunately, DeWine didn't touch on property taxes, the most pressing tax issue facing the state. Many Ohioans are upset with rising property taxes, which has been driven in part by rising property values. In a nod to those frustrations, lawmakers recently tweaked how property taxes work. Those changes will indeed lower property taxes a bit for some property owners. The problem, of course, is that the schools, townships, cities, counties, libraries, parks and other local governments that rely on those property taxes will see a corresponding drop in revenue. This at a time when many school districts are struggling in part because state lawmakers abandoned the Fair School Funding Plan in the most recent biennial state budget. In Lorain County alone, school districts in Amherst, Elyria, Lorain and Vermilion have made cuts in recent months. Nor did DeWine touch on a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would outlaw all property taxes, which generate around $24 billion annually for local governments. While it's true DeWine previously has warned that eliminating property taxes would be "absolutely devastating," he should have renewed that warning Tuesday. Likewise, he should have repeated his prediction that the state sales tax might have to soar to as much as 20 percent to make up for the loss of property tax revenue. He also should have called on lawmakers to put together a plan to replace lost property tax revenue if the proposed amendment makes the ballot and passes in November. Instead, DeWine decided to expend some of his dwindling political capital on issues that, while important, probably aren't at the forefront of voters' minds heading into an election year. (The race for governor will come down to Democrat Amy Acton, who once led the Ohio Department of Health, versus Republican businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Only Ramaswamy has primary opponents, but they have virtually no chance of winning, and we aren't going to issue an endorsement in that primary contest.) DeWine talked at length about the "Science of Reading," his preferred method of teaching kids to read, improving students' physical fitness, tackling chronic absenteeism and what he saw as the state's successful ban on cell phones in the classroom. Then there was his push to allow police officers to pull over drivers for not wearing a seat belt. Right now, officers only can issue tickets for seat-belt violations if they've stopped drivers for another reason. Even DeWine's fellow Republicans weren't excited by that one, with Ramaswamy's running mate, Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, saying some lawmakers were worried about who would be targeted under DeWine's proposed seat-belt law. (We share those concerns, but, like McColley, we encourage people to wear their seat belts.) DeWine also proposed new laws to regulate some of the worst aspects of artificial intelligence, including production of child pornography and for tech companies to be held accountable if AI tools encourage users to kill or harm themselves. Those are legitimate concerns, but Republicans seemed lukewarm on the idea, with some wondering whether the job should fall instead to the federal government. DeWine did not address the clear need to better regulate AI data centers, which bring with them concerns about noise, pollution and rising utility costs. The governor might have planted some trees during his tenure, but on Tuesday he was too focused on a few saplings when he should have been tending to the whole forest.