Just saw a new ad for John Kasich, in which it was claimed he made all sorts of new jobs appear and fixed the budget 'all without raising taxes'. In reality, he raised our state sales tax. It's not an *income tax*, but yes, sales tax is still a tax, and is even more a regressive one.

Link to article showing that Kasich signed sales tax increase into effect as of Sept 1, 2013.

I guess it's still ok to lie in ads in Ohio as long as you're not trashing someone else while you lie.

UPDATE edit: Ok, I just saw it again, and it's maybe NOT a blatant lie, just incredibly misleading. The specific claim is that he 'erased the deficit without raising taxes'. He may well have done this - he slashed all sorts of money that cities were getting from the state in the past. So he could have 'erased the deficit without raising taxes'. But he DID raise sales taxes, to allow him to make sure he had the money to hand out right and left for tax breaks to corporations, since he wasn't doing it specifically to 'erase the deficit'. This, of course, ignores the fact that money is fungible, and it doesn't matter which particular dollar you allocate to buying a soda, you're still spending a dollar on a soda. Or in Kasich's case, raising taxes, even if you say 'this tax increase is totally separate from how I 'erased the deficit''.

(in Ohio, you get to 'change parties' only at primaries, by changing which ballot you ask for.)

Because John Boehner has a primary challenger, and I would like nothing better than to see the Weeper of the House out of office.

But I resisted the urge... He'll at least have a Dem challenger this fall, which is more than could be said last cycle.

Everybody else get out there and vote this morning?