Ohio Gov. John Kasich likes to tell audiences how, despite spending 75 percent of his career in politics, he understands the private sector due to his short stint in private equity. It goes without saying that working for Wall Street as a former politician is far removed from Main Street America and running a business. More telling is how Kasich has tried to manhandle Ohio’s energy industry to get higher taxes to fund his high spending, which is up more than 37 percent during his tenure.

If just Ohio possessed natural gas, then the tax rate really wouldn’t matter, as energy companies would be forced to pay the Ohio tax to extract natural gas to meet fluctuating needs. Unfortunately for Kasich and pro-tax hike proponents, natural gas exists in rock formations all over America (and the world, for that matter).

In fact, richer natural gas deposits exist in economically more convenient places other than Ohio’s fairly modest Utica Shale, which already lacks worthwhile oil deposits. As noted in the Wall Street Journal in September, energy companies are getting very positive results in Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale, which, after Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale, is America’s second-largest natural gas deposit:

Read the full article at The Federalist: John Kasich’s Energy Tax Hike Shows He Doesn’t Get Markets