Ohio Gov. Kasich’s budget a stark case of neo-feudalism

To the Editor:

Here's the stark truth: Ohio Gov. John Kasich is again crowing about his plans to raise taxes on oil and gas drilling in order to give more money away to the rich, and then to shift more of the tax burden onto the poor and rapidly dwindling middle class by a dramatic expansion of sales taxes. This is a monstrous agenda.

It would be excellent to raise the fossil-fuel taxes, now some of the lowest in the nation, to pay for our badly strapped Ohio educational system – which, incidentally, has some of the highest in-state higher education tuition in the nation, as well as lacking funding for primary and secondary education. But, then, it would glaringly appear that Kasich doesn't really want to educate everybody, does he?

This is a classic example of the neo-feudalist approach: to create a class of privileged nobility who have little financial responsibility for supporting government and essentially no other responsibility to those less fortunate, while creating a class of serfdom who labor to pay for everything while facing crushing economic difficulties. Tragically, this has become the national Republican approach. This is largely why the Republicans lost so badly in the last election, and why they are going to continue to lose – as long as their opposition, no matter who, is able to afford to pay for "free speech" to get the message out.

We MUST rid the people of Ohio of this monster Kasich in the next election. Almost anybody would be a better governor.

John Knouse
PO Box 1196
Athens