Schiavoni, Cafaro Blast Budget Priorities, Provisions
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The two Democrats who represent the Mahoning Valley in the Ohio Senate this morning largely lambasted the biennial operating budget Gov. John Kasich signed into law last night (READ STORY), including restrictions on abortion that were added in the legislative conference committee.
Except for Kasich's line-item veto a provision that would have blocked the proposed expansion of Medicaid, "I would say this is probably the worst state budget I've ever seen," remarked state Sen. Capri Cafaro, D-32 Hubbard. "Everything from the expansion of vouchers in K-12 education to some of these provisions having to do with women's health that were retained in the budget, from soup to nuts, is a step backward, and not a step forward for Ohio," she added.
In the $62 billion budget are provision to shift funds from Planned Parenthood, tighten regulation of clinics that perform abortions, prevent public hospitals from entering into transfer agreements with clinics that perform abortions, establish funding for pregnancy centers and require an ultrasound the day before undergoing the procedure.
The provisions are "a policy thing that shouldn't be in the budget," said state Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-33 Boardman.
"They're trying to make a woman jump through hoops" before she would have an abortion, Schiavoni said. "A woman already knows that stuff before she makes that decision,” the senator said. “She's already gone through the painful decision."
The women's health provisions, along with tax plan changes in the final legislation that the governor signed, were not in the budget Kasich introduced but instead were added by the joint House-Senate committee that crafted the final version of the budget, Cafaro noted. "He did not elect to line-item veto [the provisions] which he could have done, so I guess by omission he is tacitly supportive of those provisions," she said.
The committee is established to resolve the differences in the House and Senate versions of legislation. "Instead what they've done is they've actually made policy changes in the conference committee," she remarked. "They made statutory changes in the conference committee. … That, I think, is a very, very dangerous way to create policy."
Ohio Right to Life applauded Kasich and "the vast pro-life majorities in the House and Senate" for the anti-abortion amendments in the budget. "It took great compassion and courage for our governor and pro-life Legislature to stand up to the abortion industry that blatantly pressured them," said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life.
Cafaro, who serves on the Medicaid, Health and Human Services Committee and the Medicaid Finance Subcommittee in her chamber, said she is "absolutely elated" that Kasich vetoed the provision that would have prohibited Ohio from extending Medicaid to new beneficiaries. The governor "has been one of the most courageous advocates for extending Medicaid coverage to the working poor in Ohio," she said.
Schiavoni likewise found "a few good things in the budget," such as continuation of Clean Ohio funding. For the most part, though, he disagreed with the provisions in the budget. He criticized the changes in income tax, disputing Kasich’s assertions that they would be a "shot in the arm" for all Ohioans.
"If you make $50,000 you might get $50 back. That's not a shot in the arm to the economy. People making $500,000 are going to get $6,000 back. That's a considerable amount of money," he said. He also noted that everyone will have to pay the higher rate of sales tax included in the budget and, as did Cafaro, criticized the changes in funding schools.
State and national Democrats wasted little time attempting to capitalize on the new restriction on abortion, a potential wedge issue in next year's gubernatorial election. An email from the Democratic National Committee provided links to several online articles about what were characterized as "some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country." A fundraising email from the Ohio Democratic Party described "an all-out assault on women's health care" that makes Ohio "among the most anti-woman states in the nation."
Both communications sought to exploit the visual of Kasich signing the budget into law set against a backdrop of all-male legislators.
Copyright 2013 by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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