Many of us will avoid getting infected by, or dying from, the novel coronavirus. But all of us are likely to feel the effects of a sick and wheezing economy. And for the same reasons we can’t celebrate if we are well and our neighbors are sick, we can’t be content if we have employment and money to spend and everybody around us lacks both. In the same way that our neighbor being sick makes us more likely to be sick, our community’s financial distress will be similarly infectious.

This is how Policy Matters Ohio puts it in a recent paper about how the state government should respond to the coronavirus crisis: “We are only as safe or secure as the most vulnerable person…Policymakers must enact targeted interventions now to protect all Ohioans, with no exceptions.”

Wendy Patton, senior project director for the nonprofit research institute, is the author of the April 8 paper “Harnessing Ohio’s resources to take on COVID-19.” In a Friday morning phone interview she spoke at length about the devastating effects the pandemic is having on the state’s economy, how the shortsightedness of previous administrations is intensifying today’s suffering and how more equitable and visionary fiscal policies could soften the blows of future economic downturns.

Between March 22 and 28, 468,414 Ohioans filed for unemployment insurance. That’s 28 percent more initial jobless claims than were filed in all of 2019. The state’s general tax revenue dropped 10.5 percent in March, Patton said, but the next update – due May 10 – “is when the real damage the economy in the month of April will be revealed.” We should also know then “how big the budget hole is going to be in fiscal year 2020.”

If it’s as bad as the 2008 financial crisis, Patton writes in that April 8 paper, “state general revenues over the current two-year budget period could end up nearly $4 billion lower than last year’s projections by the end of state fiscal year 2021.”

If the state is poorly prepared for the current crisis, Patton says, that’s largely the fault of past policy makers who prioritized tax cuts for the wealthiest and cut them to such an extent that by 2018, the “poorest fifth of Ohioans were paying almost twice the share of their income in state and local taxes as the wealthiest.” Those policies have not only forced poor people to get by with less money than they otherwise would; it’s forced the state to do the same.

People who fall ill after exposure to the coronavirus will be especially reliant on the services their municipalities or counties might provide, particularly emergency services, social services, hospital services and health care.

“You know, one thing that we noticed is the cities that had a stronger budget reserve, like the city of Columbus, are better positioned as they go into this recession.”

But many cities don’t have such reserves – in part, because the state characterized them as wasteful.

“Governor (John) Kasich came down hard on the cities over the last eight years,” Patton said, “saying, ‘You're sitting on these fat budget reserves, and we aren’t going to give you more aid until look at your own budget reserves.’ Well, the error of that thinking is made sharply manifest by this recession. Cities that did have a robust budget reserve are much better positioned to continue critical programs like fire and emergency services, and cities that were unable to do so are really struggling.”

The state has a $2.7 billion budget stabilization fund, and at the end of March, Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 197, which allows him to tap into it during this crisis. Ohio’s cities want access to some of that money, and rightly so.

“The Ohio Municipal League’s request for emergency funds through the budget stabilization fund is totally appropriate,” Patton said, “particularly in the light that the state cut more than a $1B, adjusted for inflation, in aid to local governments over the last eight years. Local governments in Ohio have long said the budget stabilization fund was made up of aid reduced from local governments. Now’s the time to give it back.”

Though the governor will have what’s known as the state’s “rainy day fund” at his disposal, he’s asked the state’s agency heads to submit plans to cut their budgets by up to 20 percent. Whatever those cuts, they threaten to hurt poor Ohioans the most. That’s why Ohio Policy Matters prefers a tax policy that requires more of the people who can better afford it rather than budget cuts that will further hurt people who are already struggling.

What will Ohio look like in the near future if it makes all the correct calls today?

“Ohio would become the safest place to live and the safest, least risky place to do business,” Patton said. “Because we would invest in measures that will increase safety and security of the people, and that will support consumer demand and safe operating conditions for our employers.”

We can’t get there doing what we’ve typically done: enacting policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Gov. DeWine has repeatedly said that Ohioans are “in this together.”

May every policy decision reflect that.

Jarvis DeBerry is a columnist at Cleveland.com and a member of the editorial board. Reach him at jdeberry@cleveland.com or on Twitter at @jarvisdeberry.