Conservative Ohio groups who for years have shared their concerns about burdensome or unsettling questions from the IRS were vindicated on May 10, when the official who oversees the IRS tax exemption determinations division apologized for targeting conservative organizations applying for nonprofit status.

What sort of questions have IRS agents been asking? Hot Air collated a top 10 list last week, noting that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ohio’s own Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Urbana) sent a letter to the IRS from the House Oversight Committee on March 27, 2012 detailing frequent complaints from right-of-center groups.

In many instances reported during the past week, organizations have shared IRS questionnaires containing multiple pages of detailed questions, often demanding years’ worth of information within a matter of weeks – and the IRS is not exactly a questioner for whom a best guess or approximation will do.

Here’s a brief look at five Ohio conservative organizations’ stories indicating politically-motivated targeting by IRS agents in the Cincinnati exemption determinations office.

1. “My wife and I were audited in 2011 for our 2010 tax return.  When the agent called she said the reason we were audited was ‘because of our association with the Cincinnati Tea Party’.  At the time my wife Nancy was the Treasurer for the CTP.  After the April 2010 Tax Day Rally we made a deposit into the Cincinnati Tea Party account that was in excess of $10,000 which means the bank was required to report the deposit to the IRS.  Since Nancy’s name was on the deposit slip, that allowed the IRS to connect her with the Cincinnati Tea Party.” – George Brunemann, Cincinnati Tea Party
2. “Please supply a chronology and complete description of all activities of your organization since the date of your formation on April 29, 2010, as well as those activities planned for the next 12 months.” – Ohio Christian Alliance received this IRS request on December 12, 2011 with a response deadline of December 30, 2011… after waiting nine months for the IRS to respond to its application
3. “Are you associated with any other IRC 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), or 527 organizations? If yes [...] Describe in detail the nature of the relationship(s) [...] Describe the nature of all contacts with the organizations [...]“ – Liberty Township Tea Party received this request amid a list of 35 questions and sub-questions, and was asked to submit the same information about its association with any for-profit groups; the Liberty Township Tea Party was also, as has been widely reported, asked to “provide details” of its relationship with Cincinnati Tea Party activist Justin Binik-Thomas
4. “Please explain in detail your organization’s involvement with the Tea Party.” – The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law received this demand and several others in May 2010
5. “Provide the following information for all the public events conducted or planned to be conducted by your organization: [...] The time, location, and content schedule of each event [...] copies of handouts [...] workshop materials that instructors will use [...] names and credentials of the instructors [...] If speeches or forums were or will be conducted at the event, provide detailed contents of the speeches or forums, names of the speakers and panels, and their credentials [...]“ – the Ohio Liberty Coalition (OLC) received this request and a number of other questions in January 2011, a year after applying for tax exemption

OLC leaders have been chronicling their back-and-forth with the IRS for years, and are encouraging liberty-minded groups with evidence of government intimidation to contact them.

Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) Executive Director Joe Rugola, who compared workplace freedom to Nazism during a May 1 press conference, also likened workplace freedom to slavery and suggested forced unionism is like universal suffrage, Ohio Capital Blog video shared by Marc Kovac reveals.

While watching the following clip, keep in mind that OAPSE – an affiliate of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) – paid Rugola $253,351 in dues last year. Rugola’s comments began around the 1 minute mark, after Rep. Tracy Maxwell Heard (D-Columbus) lied that workplace freedom backers “want to eliminate collective bargaining.”

Rugola, Rep. Heard, and Rep. Debbie Phillips (D-Albany) all repeated a common progressive sleight of hand, complaining that workers can already decline union membership to avoid paying dues. Without workplace freedom, non-members in unionized workplaces can be forced to pay “fair share” fees equaling up to 90 percent of member dues, typically hundreds of dollars per year.

Currently, Ohioans can request a refund of “fair share” fees not used for representation purposes – if they wish to undertake a lengthy legal process guaranteed to draw the ire of union bosses.

Defending this status quo, Rugola said, “the last time I checked, states weren’t allowed to opt out on universal suffrage, and ignore, you know, the amendment to the Constitution that granted women the right to vote – that was a decision made by a democratic process and a majority vote.”

Rugola continued, “States can’t undo the amendment to the Constitution that eliminated slavery in this country, just because on a whim they might want to do so.”

“So, the bottom line is, that we’re all obligated by democratic principles to accept the decisions of majorities. And in our case, when our workers make these choices, it’s done – again – by majority vote, and they’re all offered the opportunity to undo that decision by majority vote any time that they want to,” Rugola said, neglecting to mention that it takes 30 percent of workers in a bargaining unit just to initiate a decertification vote.

Public school employees hired into districts organized by OAPSE must choose between contributing to Rugola’s $253,351 salary or finding a new job, based purely on the fact that their predecessors voted to unionize.

“So I think it’s important that we remember that if there’s somebody standing up for freedom, it’s probably the folks in this room and the trade union movement, not the extreme right-wing folks who want to eliminate the right to make democratic choices that will then cover the majority of workers,” Rugola lied.

Workplace freedom would in no way limit workers’ collective bargaining privileges, and would neither prevent unionization nor make it more difficult for any Ohioan to join a labor union.

At the same presser, Rugola demolished his attempt to equate forced unionism with democracy while comparing the fact that a majority of Americans support workplace freedom with the fact that Nazis controlled Germany in the 1930s.

Rugola’s remarks in the next clip began shortly after the 30 second mark, following several cherry-picked data points from Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga:

“If you wanna see which states are generally poor, unhealthy, undereducated, underfed, then go to the right to work states,” Rugola insisted.

For Joe Rugola, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing more job creation, wage growth, and disposable income growth in workplace freedom states than in Ohio are inconveniences to brush off with union propaganda bellowed at high volume.

The union campaign against letting workers choose whether to pay union bosses is being driven by labor front We Are Ohio, with powerful unions parroting the group’s propaganda and steering members to its events. We Are Ohio nonetheless maintains that it is “a citizen-driven, community-based bipartisan coalition.”

“The tea party, greedy corporations and extreme politicians in Ohio have made it clear that they are committed to putting So-Called ‘right to work’ (SCRTW) or ‘The American Workplace Freedom Act’ legislation on the ballot as soon as they can,” the Ohio AFL-CIO website warns – using We Are Ohio’s “SCRTW” acronym on a page whose web address includes the phrase “No Rights At Work,” the previous We Are Ohio slogan.

“Join us to hear the truth about the unsafe, unfair, so-called ‘right to work’ laws,” the state AFL-CIO chapter wrote in an April 10 announcement imploring members to attend one of We Are Ohio’s “urgent member meetings.”

The story featured a co-branded We Are Ohio/Ohio AFL-CIO graphic for the Protect Ohio Workers’ Rights (POWR) events We Are Ohio is holding in union halls across the state.

“Join us starting next week at our Urgent Member Meetings to hear from labor leaders about the unsafe, unfair and deceitful attack on the middle class called Right to Work,” the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA), an American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local, announced on April 17 with a link to We Are Ohio’s POWR events.

Within hours of the April 30 announcement that State Representative Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) and Rep. Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) plan to introduce two workplace freedom bills in the Ohio House, OCSEA was encouraging members to share new co-branded We Are Ohio/OCSEA graphics opposing workplace freedom.

As Media Trackers previously reported, the Ohio Education Association (OEA) announced on April 14 that it was “partnering with We Are Ohio in a series of Urgent Member Meetings” about workplace freedom. We Are Ohio began advertising the events later that week.

The euphemism that OEA is “partnering” with We Are Ohio is clearly meant to maintain the facade of We Are Ohio as an independent “citizen-driven” group. OEA is the largest donor to We Are Ohio, which has received more than 95 percent of its funding from OEA, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, and other labor unions.

Furthermore, nearly half of the “community-based” organization’s funding has come from unions outside Ohio.

“So-called right to work isn’t what it seems,” the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) warned on a registration page advertising We Are Ohio’s POWR events. “It’s wrong for all workers and the middle class. — Right to Work is just another attempt by corporate interests to tip the balance even more in their favor at the expense of the middle class.”

Workplace freedom is a vital issue for union bosses, who must make greater efforts to provide value to members in states where workers can opt out of the union without being forced to pay “fair share” fees typically amounting to 90 percent of member dues.

Why would the most powerful progressive groups in the state defer to a “citizen-driven, community-based bipartisan coalition” for counterattacks on what they perceive as a terrifying threat? Because We Are Ohio is, as it has been since its creation, a union front group.

Free market think tank Opportunity Ohio focused on “the forgotten man” in the conclusion of a three-part video series opposing Governor John Kasich’s proposal to pay for an income tax cut by hiking severance taxes on oil and gas drilling. Released April 15, the video called out the progressive thought process behind assuming bureaucrats can raise taxes and spend the money elsewhere without causing harm.

“Though the term was used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 to refer to poor Americans forgotten by government, it originally came from Professor William Graham Sumner in reference to ‘the person compelled to pay for reformist programs,’” Opportunity Ohio President Matt Mayer wrote in a message announcing the video’s release.

“It’s a property rights issue, because fundamentally, we’re talking about land that has been in families for four or five generations,” Mayer said in the video. “It’s their land and everything underneath that land is theirs, too.

He continued, “So now they have an opportunity to really create prosperity and economic security for family, their kids and grandkids, and we have a governor that wants to essentially take that money and spread it to other places around Ohio simply so that we can have a tax cut for reelection.”

“Unfortunately, Governor John Kasich now wants eastern Ohioans to be Professor Sumner’s Forgotten Man just so he can redistribute money earned from their property to people in the big cities, which will equate to a small tax cut worth about the cost of a large pizza from Donatos,” Mayer added in the announcement of the video’s release, referring to the results of an Opportunity Ohio study from last August calculating the tax cuts the governor’s proposed severance tax hike is likely to fund.

“That oil, if he wants to tax it, is no different than any other product off this farm,” said a farmer featured in the latest Opportunity Ohio video. “He’ll tax the oil now, then next he’s gonna tax the cattle comin’ out of the barn, then he’s gonna tax the corn comin’ outta the field, then the soybeans – then there’ll be no end to it. I mean, there’s never no end to taxes.”

“It is their property and their opportunity — not the golden goose for a politician to pluck,” Mayer concluded in his April 15 email.

Kasich’s severance tax proposal was stripped from House Bill 59, the biennial budget passed by the Ohio House of Representatives on April 18, but the budget is certain to be amended while under consideration in the Ohio Senate. The budget must be agreed to by both houses of the state legislature and signed by Governor Kasich by June 30 at the latest.

The editors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer slammed the Ohio House in a Wednesday evening editorial preceding Thursday’s budget vote, decrying “a very bad state budget” in a transparent attempt to sway the Ohio Senate. The column, titled “Poorly written budget staggers to Ohio Senate,” featured a photo of Senate President Keith Faber (R-Celina) with the caption, “Ohio Senate President Keith Faber has to make sure a more responsible budget emerges from the Senate.”

“Today in Columbus, the Republican-run Ohio House plans to pass a very bad state budget that ignores not only the wishes of GOP Gov. John Kasich, but also the best interests of the state’s most vulnerable residents and its vital medical care industry,” the Plain Dealer editorial board wrote.

Note to complete lack of any skepticism about absurdly false claims from Governor Kasich and unsubstantiated hospital lobby talking points. Like Ohio’s other major newspapers, the Plain Dealer has acted as an extension of the federal government in advocating for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Medicaid expansion.

“Republicans also control the Senate, but those in the upper chamber tend to be somewhat more pragmatic and somewhat less given to the flights of ideological fantasy that took over the House budget-writing process,” the Plain Dealer editors wrote in a fantastically ideological op-ed.

“The broad outlines of this disappointing budget emerged last week when House leaders announced that they were dismembering Kasich’s imperfect, but undeniably imaginative and forward-looking spending plan,” the editors continued.

“They bowed to oil and gas lobbyists by junking the governor’s plan to raise taxes on Ohio’s growing fracking industry,” the Plain Dealer editorial board complained. “Even worse, they caved in to the most conservative elements in their own party by rejecting Kasich’s call to participate in a Medicaid expansion that would extend health coverage to hundreds of thousands of the least affluent Ohioans. That also hurts Ohio’s hospitals because, according to the ratings firm Moody’s, they will face added expenses for charity care and steeper borrowing costs.”

Consider the lack of logical consistency within this single paragraph. Immediately after criticizing a failure to raise taxes on one industry, the Plain Dealer editors criticized a failure to funnel billions in new taxpayer funds to another.

Also, note again that the Plain Dealer editors have done no research into Ohio hospitals’ financials. If they had, the editors would know that charity care offsets represent a trivial percentage of hospital revenues, and most Ohio hospitals and hospital networks would net millions even with no charity care offsets.

Socialized medicine is a progressive dream, so the leftist Plain Dealer editors have given the hospital lobby – and millionaire nonprofit hospital executives – a free pass. What other explanation is there for the newspaper acting as a public relations firm for the PPACA Medicaid expansion?

Furthermore, why would anyone expect evenhanded reporting on political issues from the Plain Dealer when “the voice of the newspaper,” as editorial board columns are described, aggressively advocates for specific positions on the policies covered in the paper’s news sections?

“Since the House appears hellbent on passing this disaster, the Senate needs to break out the pruning shears — or, better yet, the chain saw,” concluded a Plain Dealer editorial board hellbent on shredding any claim of objectivity.

As a bullhorn for Governor Kasich, progressive activists, and the Ohio Hospital Association in Kasich’s pursuit of “free” money from a federal government more than $16.8 trillion in debt, the Plain Dealer has done terrific work. As an independent media outlet one would expect to investigate the claims of politicians and lobbyists, Plain Dealer coverage of the budget has been… well, a disaster.

The Columbus Dispatch edited the opening sentence of an April 15 DispatchPolitics.com entry on April 16, replacing the inaccurate “today” with “recently,” without noting the piece was revised after publication. Media Trackers reported yesterday that Jim Siegel’s story, “Moody’s warns of hospital trouble with no Medicaid expansion,” was linked on the Dispatch home page and gave the inaccurate impression that a mid-March report was breaking news.

The story from the Dispatch Politics “Daily Briefing” is still featured in the right column at Dispatch.com, and although the web address clearly indicates the post was published on April 15 the byline reads April 16. See a Google cache version of the story as it was originally published.

This afternoon, Governor John Kasich’s office sent out an email titled, “NEWS: ‘Moody’s warns of hospital trouble with no Medicaid expansion,’ Columbus Dispatch,” sharing Siegel’s surreptitiously-edited April 15 story.

The email from the governor’s office highlighted a quote from Siegel’s story which, as Media Trackers noted yesterday, was pulled directly from a March 14 Moody’s Investors Service press release.

While this issue may seem like small potatoes, the Dispatch is arguably the most powerful newspaper in the state. Online-only outlets like Media Trackers are routinely ignored by print giants like the Dispatch because of the supposedly higher standards of the legacy media.

In the few cases where we’ve needed to correct an inaccuracy in a story after publication, changes are spelled out in a footnote. This is common practice for online publications.

The Dispatch – and in particular senior editor Joe Hallett – has been a vocal advocate of Medicaid expansion. The Daily Briefing story published April 15 carried a tone of urgency, reinforcing the Ohio Hospital Association narrative that Ohio must expand Medicaid for the sake of its hospitals precisely as the Ohio House was preparing to vote on amendments to the state budget.

The Columbus Dispatch reported a new development in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Medicaid expansion debate on April 15, citing a warning “today” from Moody’s Investors Service that rejecting the expansion would endanger hospital credit ratings. However, the Moody’s report treated as breaking news by a newspaper cheerleading for Medicaid expansion was released over a month earlier.

“Failing to expand Medicaid under the federal health care law will put hospitals at risk of budgetary shortfalls and put their bond ratings at risk, Moody’s Investor Services said today,” Jim Siegel wrote at DispatchPolitics.com.

Noting Moody’s concern about a talking point the Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) has hammered for the past two months, Siegel explained, “In a report on reduced federal reimbursements for uncompensated hospital care, the credit rating company said states that opt out of the Medicaid expansion, which would cover 275,000 low-income Ohioans, will force hospitals to face large uninsured populations at the same time their federal disproportionate share hospital payments are cut significantly.”

Compare the following excerpts from Siegel’s story and a Moody’s press release more than a month earlier. Here is what Siegel reported was announced “today” on April 15:

“States that opt out of Medicaid expansion will have to choose whether to compensate for the shortfalls with their own funds or leave hospitals to absorb the costs, which will increase rating pressure on the hospitals,” says Nicole Johnson, a Moody’s Senior Vice President. “States that choose to fund uncompensated care costs themselves could face budgetary strain.”

And here is what Moody’s wrote on March 14:

“States that opt out of Medicaid expansion will have to choose whether to compensate for the shortfalls with their own funds or leave hospitals to absorb the costs, which will increase rating pressure on the hospitals,” says Nicole Johnson, a Moody’s Senior Vice President. “States that choose to fund uncompensated care costs themselves could face budgetary strain.”

President Obama’s budget proposal, released last week, would delay the PPACA provision that phases out disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments. Siegel did not mention this fact, which the Dispatch has not reported at all.

More importantly, Media Trackers reviewed the charity care funding reported by OHA members and published the results on March 11, using publicly available data to show that most Ohio hospitals would net millions of dollars even without DSH payments or any other charity care offsets.

On March 13, Buckeye Institute president Robert Alt cited our analysis in testimony before the Ohio House. The Dispatch, which has printed ample one-sided quotes from events promoting the PPACA Medicaid expansion, published a perfunctory news story about conservative policy experts’ testimony against expansion but did not mention the refutation of a key OHA argument.

In the intervening month Dispatch reporters have reprinted OHA warnings in both news and opinion coverage while failing to report Media Trackers findings and failing to conduct any similar research of their own. Maybe in another month or two – after the PPACA Medicaid expansion fight has ended one way or another – The Columbus Dispatch will provide its readers this simple, factual context.

Free market think tank Opportunity Ohio released the second video in a three-part series opposing Governor John Kasich’s proposed severance tax hike on oil and natural gas fracking on Monday, focusing on a Cambridge small business. With the story of coffee shop owner Heather Swingle’s success tapping into the early stages of a southeastern Ohio energy boom, the video built on themes from last week.

“People are coming in, opening businesses, starting businesses, because of the oil and gas industry coming to town,” Swingle explained. “I think we’ve seen a huge, huge increase in business here.”

“A proposed severance tax threatens to drive the oil and gas industry out of Ohio,” on-screen text in the Opportunity Ohio video warned.

“My business would take a huge hit if the oil and gas business wasn’t here right now – especially a start-up business. I think it would be pretty devastating,” Swingle said.

The Ohio House of Representatives introduced broad alterations to Kasich’s proposed budget on Tuesday, March 9, with the governor’s severance tax hike removed. However, budget negotiations in the House and Senate could continue through June, and Kasich had planned to use new severance tax revenue to pay for an income tax cut.

Asked what she would tell a legislator considering Kasich’s severance tax proposal, Swingle said, “think about the little people. Think about people like me – I’m a single mom, I have my own business, that’s gonna have a huge impact on me.”

“Everybody thinks, ‘oil & gas – big money, big business,’ but, you know, think about the people that are just trying to make it day-to-day, and what the oil and gas industry has brought to us,” Swingle added.

Opportunity Ohio President Matt Mayer released the first in a three-part series of brief videos opposing Governor John Kasich’s proposed severance tax increase on oil and gas fracking, building on a September 2012 video which highlighted numerous southeastern Ohio small business owners the tax hike could harm.

The video, included below, was posted to the Opportunity Ohio website on Tuesday.

“My property – my opportunity” was the underlying theme, as expressed on posters held by several small business owners near the end of the video. Although proponents of Kasich’s plan to fund a statewide income tax cut by levying higher taxes on the energy industry suggest only Big Oil will pay, even the governor has conceded that some Ohio landowners could be affected.

“Over the next three weeks, we will be releasing a three-part video series about the opportunity of the Utica Shale formation to Ohioans, especially those farmers, landowners, and energy entrepreneurs in eastern Ohio,” Mayer wrote in an email announcing the video series. “If we are to make Ohio great again, we must do it by reducing government, the taxes it takes, and the burdens it places on our businesses and entrepreneurs who are our best bet to create broad-based prosperity for all Ohioans.”

“As has been the case since 1776, America’s prosperity starts on our family farms and in its small businesses.”

Compared to the Ohio Rising video released a day earlier, the Opportunity Ohio video took a minimalist approach. With the exception of background music, the only audio came in the form of Governor Kasich expressing opposition to higher taxes – and then stressing the need for higher taxes on oil and natural gas fracking.

“Every time that we can reduce the cost of doing business, we are in a better position. None of these businesses come to Ohio because they want higher taxes,” Governor Kasich said in the first clip included in the Opportunity Ohio video.

In a second clip, Kasich said, “There will be a severance tax, it will be higher, we will have tough regulations. Everybody is making money on this – and everybody in Ohio oughta benefit from it. And frankly, our proposal is probably a little low, so we’re gonna continue to look at that.”

The second and third videos in the series will be released in the next two weeks, as the Ohio General Assembly continues to debate the governor’s budget proposals.

Free market political activist group Ohio Rising released a video on Monday opposing many of the tax proposals in Governor John Kasich’s budget, with an emphasis on Kasich’s planned severance tax hike on oil and natural gas drilling. Below is the full video, as posted to a new page on the Ohio Rising website titled “Stop John Kasich’s Tax Increases.”

The Ohio Rising video opened with a clip from Ronald Reagan’s farewell address.

“Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce less of it,” President Reagan said.

The 4-minute video then continued with an excerpt from one of Governor Kasich’s 2010 campaign commercials, where Kasich said, “We do have big problems in the state, and they have to be solved – and they can’t be solved with raising taxes, because it’s like having a restaurant where you have no customers. If you wanna get more customers, you don’t raise prices. We’re pricing ourselves out of business.”

The video’s narrator then characterized key aspects of the governor’s proposed budget as “huge tax increases – a greatly expanded sales tax and a huge severance tax increase to pay for a tiny reduction in the state income tax.”

“How disappointing. Just halfway through his term, the tax-cutter is now a tax-raiser,” the Ohio Rising video added, repeating many of the points made by Ohio Oil and Gas Association President Jerry James during a June 2012 interview with Media Trackers.

“If you have been following the Ohio budget talks, you know that Governor John Kasich is proposing that Ohio increase taxes on Ohio business owners and land owners,” wrote Ohio Rising founder and spokesman Chris Littleton in an email announcing the video’s release.

“Make sure to contact your legislators at ohiohouse.gov and let them know the last thing Ohio needs is higher taxes on our business and land owners,” Littleton added.