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Gov. John Kasich used his 2014 State of the State speech in Medina Monday night to pitch more state income tax cuts but that isn't what ails Ohio, the editorial board writes.

(Tony Dejak, Associated Press)

If hope were a stock, Republican Gov. John Kasich's fourth State of the State speech, delivered Monday night in Medina. could have been a prospectus.

"I can say tonight," he said, "the state of the state is stronger, more hopeful, more optimistic, more excited, and more confident."

He sent a powerful message about the courage that lies within each of us with his moving presentation of 2014 Ohio Courage Medals to Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, the three women who, as he aptly said, "rescued themselves" from serial Cleveland kidnapper-rapist Ariel Castro.

Conditions in Ohio, Kasich vowed, will be even better if the General Assembly acts on a hefty wish list he outlined Monday , part of his quest to bolster Ohioans' prospects by offering better job-training options and more vocational education at earlier grades.

Kasich also indicated that he and his administration will continue its outreach to black Ohioans. Kasich and House Speaker William Batchelder, a Medina Republican, have built notable bridges to black officeholders, including Democratic Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson. Kasich strongly backs Jackson's quest to reform Cleveland schools -- although Jackson last month endorsed Kasich's likely re-election opponent, Ed FitzGerald.

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But Statehouse actions speak louder than Medina words. On Friday, Kasich signed Amended Senate Bill 238 and Substitute Senate Bill 205. S.B. 238, his office daintily said, "reforms early voting," and 205 "revises the law concerning the mailing of absentee voters' ballots." That's political double talk. The bills aim to hold down turnout by black voters who, inconveniently for Ohio Republicans, tend to vote for Democrats.

The centerpiece of the program Kasich announced during his State of the State is an income tax cut that would "finally succeed in getting Ohio's tax rate below 5 percent."

But if tax cuts were the key to rebirth, Ohio's troubles should have ended long ago. In 1985, legislators, quarterbacked by then-Senate President Paul E. Gillmor, a Seneca County Republican, cut the income tax by 15 percent over three years. Effective in 1987, they cut the income tax again. In 1996, they created a mechanism to cut the income tax when Ohio runs a surplus. In 1997, they indexed the personal exemption to inflation; and in 2005, they cut the income tax by 21 percent over five years.



What's more, Ohio's current budget, signed by Kasich last June, cuts the income tax by 10 percent over three years. The state income tax is not at the root of Ohio's economic challenges. Those stem instead largely from a comparatively under-educated workforce -- something Kasich is addressing in part by tying college graduation rates to a portion of the state funding formula. He could do much more if he devoted more state resources to education. Compounding the problem are an aging Ohio population and an absence of the economic dynamism that more robust population growth and innovation could generate.

That last point is why Kasich and his team need to return the successful and voter-endorsed Third Frontier program to its original format where scientists, not politicians or business executives, made the major funding decisions and where alternative energy innovation -- an area in which northern Ohio has already shown its strengths -- is recognized and funded as a potential driver of regional growth.

By contrast, Kasich's signature JobsOhio program -- which he touted at length in the speech -- is a black hole of question marks because the Kasich administration has managed so successfully to shroud its workings in secrecy. It's "beginning to hit its stride. ... It's working," Kasich said Monday night. Then prove it by opening its books.

Income tax cuts don't prepare Ohio for a changing world. They instead limit the resources Ohio, its schools and its localities need to confront to those economic changes, to adapt to them, and -- ideally -- to profit from them.