Ohio’s Buckeye Institute Urges Circuit Court to Kill Biden Tax Mandate

The Columbus-based Buckeye Institute this week filed an amicus brief in the federal court case challenging the authority the Biden administration has asserted to limit state tax-reduction efforts. 

Opponents of the White House policy are urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to rule in Texas v. Yellen that a provision of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) cannot condition states’ receipt of federal aid on accepting “ambiguous” federally prescribed tax policy. Plaintiffs and their supporters further argue that President Joe Biden and his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen cannot invoke their regulatory power to fix ARPA’s lack of clarity.

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Cleveland Area Gets Nearly $8 Million in State Grants for Anti-Crime Efforts

Governor Mike DeWine (R) announced this week that a new $12.3 million funding package would go to local law enforcement agencies to address violent crime, with Cleveland and Cuyahoga County getting two-thirds of those funds. 

Nearly $1 million will go to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s office, mainly to hire three new staff attorneys to help the jurisdiction make headway in its backlog of sexual and domestic violence cases. The Cleveland Division of police, the Cleveland State University Police Department and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office will meanwhile receive an approximate total of $6.5 million, largely to enhance police-officer pay. Euclid’s Police Department will also get $107,000, for technological improvements. 

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Commentary: Enormous Amounts of Money Flow into the Bottomless Education Pit

Spurred by COVID panic, schools have been the recipient of ungodly sums of money. And it’s not as if the beast was starving before. To put things into perspective, the United States spends about $800 billion on national defense, more than China, Russia, India, the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Japan combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. America now spends even more on K-12 education, with an outlay of about $900 billion dollars a year, which includes an additional $122 billion from the COVID-related American Rescue Plan. 

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Ohio Republican Senator Introduces Gun Control Legislation

An Ohio Republican state senator introduced gun-control legislation that would require a co-signer for 18- to 21-year-olds to buy any gun other than a single-round rifle or shotgun.

State Sen. Matt Dolan, R-Chagrin Falls, who lost a U.S. Senate primary earlier this year to J.D. Vance, said Senate Bill 357 protects both Second Amendment rights and the public.

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Ohio Violent Crime Reduction Funds Raised to $100 Million

During a visit to the Whitehall Police Department this week, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) indicated he will expand funding for the Ohio Violent Crime Reduction Grant Program from $58 million to $100 million, citing a nationwide spike in violence.

According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2011 and 2020 Uniform Crime Reports, homicides in the Buckeye State rose sharply in the decade between those years. Five hundred murders occurred in Ohio in 2011 and 820 took place in 2020. Regional figures also show violence worsening, with one poll of Franklin County police chiefs showing that aggravated assault increased by 36 percent in that jurisdiction between 2020 and 2021.

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As Ohio Gas Prices Surge, Vance Criticizes Ryan and Biden for Energy Policies

Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance criticized the energy and fiscal policies of his Democratic opponent and of the White House on Wednesday, blaming them for the steep gasoline prices Buckeyes now endure.

The average price of a regular gallon of gas in Ohio exceeded $5.00 on Wednesday. That’s a 118.91-percent increase over the $2.32-per-gallon average cost state motorists faced when President Joe Biden took office. In Vance’s estimation, “no one else” bears responsibility for this other than Biden and his “extreme allies in Congress like Tim Ryan (D-13).”

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