It’s easy to be distraught by the national-level Republican Party. But look to the states, and you will find Republicans making positive reforms from sea to shining sea.
I wrote in the last print issue of NR about the ongoing state tax-cut revolution. Every state with a unified Republican government that has an income tax, except Alabama, has passed a rate cut in the past two years. Five states — Iowa, Mississippi, Georgia, Arizona, and Idaho — have passed laws to implement a flat tax, and several more have reduced their tax complexity by reducing the number of brackets. Republican governors in Iowa, Mississippi, and North Dakota have talked about joining the soon-to-be eight states (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming, and in 2027, New Hampshire) that don’t tax individual income at all.
The budget that Ohio Republicans recently passed is yet another example of good policy from the states. Here are some of the best reforms it included, from a summary by the Columbus Dispatch:
- Flattening the income tax from three brackets to two, exempting the first $26,050 from taxation, and lowering the top rate, on income over $100,000 to only 3.5 percent.
- Effectively eliminating the state’s commercial activities tax (CAT) for 90 percent of businesses that currently pay it. Most states don’t levy anything similar to the CAT, and it is highly anti-competitive. It should be repealed entirely, but this is a big step in that direction.
- Creating a universal school-voucher program. Every family making under $135,000 will be eligible to receive $6,165 for kindergarten through 8th grade and $8,407 for high school, with smaller values for families with higher incomes.
- Spending on phonics resources and retraining teachers to use phonics to teach reading. This is a major blow against progressive educators, who largely oppose phonics, despite its record of success in teaching kids how to read.
- Spending on career tech in high schools, to better support students who don’t want to go to four-year college.
- Increasing oversight of nursing homes and tying state funding to performance in care of the elderly.
- Adding 3,000 in-patient beds for mentally-ill adults and funding a state suicide and crisis hotline.
- Adding twelve weeks of parental leave for state-government employees who have babies, paid at 70 percent of their normal rate, and the option of bereavement leave for a miscarriage or stillbirth.
- Prohibiting state-government employees from using TikTok or any other Chinese apps on government devices.
- Capping state-university tuition increases at 3 percent.
- Creating centers for free expression at five state universities.
- Exempting money received as compensation for the East Palestine train derailment from taxation.
There are some stinkers in there, too, such as a tax credit for film production (which is a single-industry handout that analysis has repeatedly shown doesn’t deliver the benefits it promises) and a sales-tax holiday (which is a gimmick that doesn’t make any difference in economic performance). The budget also failed to include some restrictions on university DEI initiatives that would have been a welcome reform.
All in all, though, this budget is what conservatives should want from state government. Ohio is joining Florida as a populous, former swing state with effective Republican governance that is putting conservative ideas into practice. Don’t let the federal government get you down.