Amid the rush on the right to hinder the Biden administration’s agenda, Ohio’s Republican attorney general has made a move to get ahead of the pack.
“The Tax Mandate thus gives the States a choice: they can have either the badly needed federal funds or their sovereign authority to set state tax policy
Federal funds are “badly needed” but state taxes can be … lowered?
Hmm …
This RepubliQan governor isn’t even making any pretense of trying to help the people in his state. Somebody ought to point this out.
The only thing the Repubs have is tax cuts.
If the Dems come up with intelligent popular ideas the the Repubs sue because they have nothing else.
I guess losing billions in tax revenue means something different in Ohio. If crime went down, it also must be the time to increase funding for prisons.
The State of Ohio is entitled to claim about $5.5 billion - an amount equal to about 7.4 percent of the State’s total expenditure in 2020. But if Ohio accepts that money, it will have to accept the conditions that come with it.
The federal government should reply with a one-word answer: Yes.
If they don’t accept the conditions, they can refuse the funds.
So, all Federal funds allocated to the States must now be unrestricted block grants? What a novel idea. Stupid, too.
Nice stimulus you got there, Ohio. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
Joe Piranha Biden
Dead Lawsuit Walking here. Ohio hasn’t changed its tax policy and sought to plug any resulting budget gap with federal money, so there is no live case or controversy for the Court to determine – it can only be giving a prohibited advisory opinion. WIthout anything more than a theoretical dispute, the court will have to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.
Performative attorney-generaling.
“The Tax Mandate thus gives the States a choice: they can have either the badly needed federal funds or their sovereign authority to set state tax policy,”
I cannot wait for the first judge to ask them why they are claiming the money is “badly needed federal funds” while they are simultaneously saying they can afford to devote it to massive tax cuts.
You can’t have both indeed…
They think they got their “we don’t have to do anything the federal gov’t tells us to and can use any money they ever ever give us however we want” card with the Medicaid case under the ACA, which is why they’re yet again trying to call it “coercive.” I don’t think it flies in this situation, which really isn’t coercive. They can enact all the tax cuts they want and they can take the money and put it towards what it was intended to be used for when appropriated for them by Congress. They are perfectly free to do both…and suffer the massive consequences of their fiscal irresponsibility if they do. The federal government didn’t create the situation and circumstances that would make doing so completely negligent buffoonery or put them in the position where doing both would be harmful to their budgets and citizenry for them to enact tax cuts. It is giving them money to help with certain budget shortfalls, primarily helping the poor and those hurt worst by the pandemic and shoring up their public assistance programs. The money is NOT being made available as a slush fund for them to launder to their wealthy donors by using it for tax cuts so that their public assistance programs can be ignored and allowed to “die on the vine.” There’s simply no coercive element here. What they’re mischaracterizing as coercion is simply “waaaaaah, we don’t get to do whatever we want with it to try to undermine the congressional intent and its effectiveness”.
Any thoughts whether the various GOP State AG’s can find a judge willing to do this?
Yep because rich people badly need their tax cuts. Most can’t afford their new yachts.
Sounds like a GOP AG in search of some judicial activism to me.
I’d like to see the provision inserted into the rescue bill that states that the value of all tax cuts awarded to anyone not eligible to receive the stimulus payments must be paid back to the federal government by that state’s treasury.
Or, he’s just hungry for attention.
My thoughts exactly. They want to throw a tantrum, try to gin up outrage then take credit for the $$. We’ve seen this performance before.
But the conditions will have a chilling effect on the sovereign 10th Amendment right of Ohio to cut taxes in order to raise the revenue it needs to plug the budget gaps created by Covid. 
Apparently it’s a well-kept secret, but much of the last round of assistance to local governments was diverted to uses other than addressing the pandemic. My county commissioners used the funds for softball fields and streetlights, among other things.
And it was all perfectly legal.
I would absolutely love for them to give a judge the opportunity to rule on the credibility of the claim that tax cuts increase revenue.