Voinovich, Strickland at odds over handling of state budget

By Marc Kovac

The former governor opposes the slot-machines plan to balance the state’s budget.

COLUMBUS — Former Ohio Gov. George Voinovich said he would have raised taxes rather than push for expanded gambling as a means of filling a multibillion-dollar gap in the state budget.

“That’s what I did in ’92,” the Republican senator told Statehouse reporters this week.

Voinovich said: “I went together with [Democratic House Speaker] Vern Riffe. ... I cut the budget four times. ... We did some very, very difficult things. ... And I said you guys know that I’m willing to cut. I said I really think we’re back to the bone, I don’t want to cut anymore, but if I have to, I will, because the constitution says we’ve got to balance our budget.”

Voinovich made the comments during a press conference with the Ohio Policy Roundtable, an anti-gambling group that filed suit against the state to stop the Ohio Lottery Commission from installing slot machines at horse- racing tracks.

Voinovich said he would have preferred lawmakers and Gov. Ted Strickland raised taxes to balance the budget instead of turning to the video-lottery-terminal plan, which he opposes.

“That’s just my opinion,” he said. “I respect the Legislature. I’m not sitting there today. But that’s what we did at that time. ... We came together and decided, let’s do it, and we did it and we took the heat. Then, the economy got better and at the end ... we were able to reduce the state-income tax the last few years I was governor of the state.”

Asked to respond to the statements Friday, Strickland said, “The senator was governor, and now I’m the governor. Much of our budget was helped significantly with the federal-stimulus dollars, which the good senator opposed.”

He added, “I believe our economy was and is fragile. I believe there are Ohioans who are paying all that they can possibly pay in taxes already under these very difficult circumstances. And I felt that raising taxes would have the effect or certainly could have the effect of deepening the recession and making it last longer.”