Editorials from around Ohio

Excerpts of recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers:

The Sandusky Register, March 27

We’re not sure why President Donald Trump proposed stripping 90 percent of the federal funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. In his initial budget proposal, the president outlined a plan to cut $300 million from the program.

It could be simply Trump’s “Art of the Deal” approach, an opening salvo for his budget negotiations with Congress later this year.

It could be his budget team simply misunderstood the president’s intentions and mistakenly put the cut into Trump’s budget proposal.

Or, it could be the president really wants to eliminate the program and let market forces determine the fate of Lake Erie, the Great Lakes and the entire Great Lakes region.

But whether Trump’s reasoning is any of those, or something else, makes no difference in the final analysis. All of them are unacceptable, and just plain ill-advised. The Great Lakes are not negotiable, or a negotiating item.

It’s both insulting and frightening, frankly, the administration could even propose such a cut, and it reveals a stubborn ignorance. Yes, Mr. President, human beings do impact the environment and we must invest our tax dollars to protect it. Ever heard of algal blooms?

If Trump gets his budget enacted with this cut intact, it would damage the health of our environment and our economy in extraordinary and devastating ways…

Online:

https://bit.ly/2nA0jlN

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Cleveland.com, March 29

“Payday loans in Ohio are the country’s most expensive.”

They carry “a typical annual percentage rate (APR) of 591 percent.”

Payday lenders “charge higher prices in Ohio than in any neighboring state.”

These stark statements, by the Pew Charitable Trusts, should remind Ohioans of the General Assembly’s indifference to Ohio consumers.

At the ballot box and in polls, Ohioans repeatedly have signaled their rejection of payday lenders’ usurious rates, and their desire to close the legal loopholes that allow them to be charged.

Ohio’s General Assembly repeatedly has failed to do anything about it.

An important opportunity now exists for lawmakers to end the usury and serve Ohio consumers. The Republican-led Ohio House and state Senate now have before them a bipartisan payday reform proposal sponsored by Reps. Kyle Koehler, a Springfield Republican, and Mike Ashford, a Toledo Democrat.

In a statement announcing House Bill 123, Ashford and Koehler said it would make “loans affordable by ensuring monthly payments do not exceed 5 percent of a borrower’s gross monthly income.”

The bill also limits the annual interest rate to 28 percent and effectively caps allowable monthly fees at $20…

Online:

https://bit.ly/2ngYV6t

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The (Tiffin) Advertiser-Tribune, March 31

We Americans have been blessed. No doubt about that. Simple human compassion dictates that when people are suffering in less fortunate lands, we should try to help them.

For generations, we have done just that. We are willing- nay, eager -to do more. But the enormous waste and abuse involved in how our foreign aid money is spent have lessened our ardor for simply handing over the cash.

President Donald Trump has proposed reducing the dollar amount of foreign aid provided by the United States. An Associated Press reporter put this situation this way: “The world’s largest humanitarian crisis in 70 years has been declared in three African countries on the brink of famine, just as President Donald Trump’s proposed foreign aid cuts threaten to pull the United States from its historic role as the world’s top emergency donor.”

Of course we should not turn our backs on starving people. But too many famines in the past have not been fought successfully because of waste and profiteering by officials in countries we have tried to help. Part of Trump’s plan is to demand that when we do try to help, our assistance actually must get to those in need.

We should insist on it.

Online:

https://bit.ly/2oB0vBY

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The Blade, April 2

After the failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, President Trump met the press in the Oval Office. It was an unusual meeting. The President seemed almost mellow. He said: “We learned a lot.”

And the tweet that immediately followed was similarly un-Trumpian. He said the nation should not worry, that in time something better than Obamacare or the failed Obamacare replacement (Ryancare?) would emerge.

So, what was learned? What should be the takeaway for the country, Speaker Paul Ryan, and the President?

A reasonable answer came from our own governor, John Kasich, one week ago. He voiced what many Americans are feeling right now: To get something done, you have to reach across the aisle to the other party. You have to find a consensus on a few points. And you work up from the possible rather than down from the grandiose.

What would that mean in reforming and repairing Obamacare?

Well, first get off the repeal kick and stop running against Barack Obama. That might be hard for this President, but it is the first necessary step toward a working relationship with some Democrats. Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders are never going to work with the Trump Administration. But Democrats in swing states will- if the offer is good politics for them…

Online:

https://bit.ly/2ot8x37

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