Nathaniel Adams for
Ohio Statehouse District 72
Nathaniel’s Goals
Property Taxes:
In summer of 2024, Ohioans experienced, a sudden, painful, and ill-timed rise in property taxes. This burden clearly needs addressing, but the state legislature’s short-sighted “solution” is worse than the problem. Their proposal to get rid of property taxes altogether in our state will destroy our public schools and undermine infrastructure and emergency services like fire and police. Eliminating property taxes without ensuring support for these crucial pieces is like torpedoing a boat while we are all still on it. We need true property tax reform to help Ohioans, and we can get it by doing 2 things.
First, we need to reform the homestead exemption for our 65+ seniors by either raising or eliminating the income requirement (currently $38,600) and increasing the benefit up from $25,000 of the market value of the home. This amounts to an increase in the exemption to $40,000 - $50,000.
Second, we are not only going to restore the Fair School Funding Act, we will go further and finally fix fair school funding for K-12 public schools. Public schools should not be dependent on local property tax revenue, which creates inherently unequal funding across districts. We will finally implement a constitutional funding plan and take the burden of public school funding off property taxes.
Infrastructure:
Ohio has not funded infrastructure properly for years. Our roads are crumbling, our bridges are old and in disrepair and we have multiple abandoned buildings in need of repair/replacement so new business can grow. Despite these needs, the legislature continues to insist that we cannot afford to upgrade or repair infrastructure. At the same time, they hand over money to big donors and wasted millions on attempting to overturn the will of Ohio voters in a special election. Your communities deserve to have your tax dollars invested in repairing the roads, bridges, and utilities you depend on.
Infrastructure is Safety. It is the quality of the water at your children’s schools. It is reliability of your electricity in bad weather. It is the condition of the roads you drive to work.
Infrastructure is the Life Blood of Communities. It is crucial to the growth of small, local businesses; poorly maintained infrastructure raises overhead costs for business and undercuts their success. Our towns thrive when main street prospers.
Infrastructure is Employment. Cuts to funding the public agencies that sustain our infrastructure is the reason for poor maintenance. These agencies must be able to hire employees to do the work—good, stable jobs for people in our local communities.
Your tax dollars do not belong to the hands of big donors and corporations funding this legislature's decisions. They belong to the communities whose hard work earned those dollars. As your representative, I will fight to put your money to work for you.
Medicaid:
Medicaid saves lives and covers major medical costs for people who otherwise lack insurance. This includes young adults, seasonal/contract workers, rural residents, and children, all of whom may have no access to traditional insurance. Yet the Ohio State Budget that was passed by this legislature is set to cut millions out of Ohio Medicaid as part of their 1.4 billion dollar tax cut for the wealthiest in our state. That means the over 770,000 Ohioans who rely on Medicaid could see their benefits reduced or cut completely over the next year or two. People will be reduced to relying on emergency rooms for care—driving up costs for everyone, small hospitals will likely close, and more people will die of preventable causes. As State Representative, I will never support any cuts to Medicaid and will work to overturn these massive cuts so that Ohioans will never lose their medical benefits and access to healthcare.
Education:
High quality tuition-free public education for all is one of the forces that made America a worldwide economic powerhouse. Yet our Ohio law makers seem to want to take that away from us: they undercut public educators and redirect funds to those who want to make a profit off our kids. The Ohio legislature has been pushing policies that include attempts to end teachers’ unions, a call for school vouchers that would take funds from public schools, and the implementation of an outrageous and racist overhaul of Ohio education in Senate Bill 1. I will never support any bill that undermines our state’s public education system. We must restore faith and trust in our state education by: 1) increasing funding for both PreK-12 and higher education, 2) supporting educators to use their training and expertise to innovate within the system, and 3) reducing the property tax and college tuition burden of education for students and families. But this funding cannot come from tax increases for working people. It needs to come from ending the billion-dollar corporate giveaways and making sure that the wealthy pay their fair share to educate their own workforce.
Environment:
The truth is fact: climate change is real, and it is affecting our lives almost daily. This legislature continues to deny it because most of them are in the pockets of their fossil fuel industry donors. They sell out our environment and the health of Ohioans with dirty coal-burning power plants and damaging oil extraction in our public lands. They actively prevent the development of cleaner, safer renewable energy sources in our state. And none of this has brought any benefit to our local communities. As State Representative, I will fight to fight against any more blank checks or legislative gifts to the fossil fuel industry. I will also promote the restoration and preservation of our state and national parks, to protect their beauty and the wildlife that lives within them. And finally, I will push for new green energy industry in Ohio and Portage County, bringing the jobs of the future to our workforce.
Health Care for Ohioans:
Politicians should not be legislating restrictions on decisions made between a woman and her doctor. I firmly believe that the right to make personal medical decisions should never be taken away. Ohio voters made that more than clear in November 2023, yet we have members of the Ohio General Assembly who continue to try to undermine the people's choice. Once again, the majority of our legislators show how chaos, ideology, and sound bites are more important to them than the health of the people they supposedly represent. Ohioans of my generation should not have to leave Ohio to get health care. As State Representative, I will fight to protect the Ohio Constitutional right to choose health care decisions.
Gun Violence:
In recent years we have seen some of the worst Gun Violence our state and our country has ever known. I do believe we have the right to defend ourselves and protect our families, and hunting and other rifle sports are legitimate reasons for owning sporting firearms. But the problems with existing gun laws are not about these issues. The current permissive laws and loopholes come at the cost of innocent lives in our schools, churches and workplaces. I strongly support passing limits on the sale of military grade weapons and banning sale of high-capacity magazines to civilians. The Ohio Division of Wildlife says you can only use a three-shot capacity rifle for hunting. If this state is willing to protect our deer from military grade weapons and high-capacity magazines, we should be doing the same for the children in our schools.
Paid for by Committee to Elect Nathaniel Adams
