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Ohio’s Lost Decade, and Its New Hope
Pajamas Media ^ | June 27, 2011 | Tom Blumer

Posted on 06/27/2011 7:33:14 AM PDT by Kaslin

Can John Kasich and Tea Party activists save Ohio?

I first saw John Kasich in person at a county Lincoln Day dinner in early 2007. Though the former congressman was a bit under the weather, his animated, passionate style and strong convictions were still quite evident. When he said, in essence, that “Ohio is circling the drain,” you knew he meant it, even though I doubted it.

I shouldn’t have. With the election of Ted Strickland, I believed that trouble was probably on the way. I didn’t appreciate that it was already here.

A recent USA Today chart compiled from government data reported that from 2001 to 2010, Ohio’s economy contracted. Not by much, mind you — 0.7% — but only auto-overdependent Michigan fared worse (-7.1%), and no other state grew by less than 6%. As a whole, despite the Internet bubble, the 9/11 attacks, and the recession, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by over 16% during the decade. Meanwhile, the Buckeye State’s economy spent the time mired in mediocrity and worse, and all those who could have done something about it did was damage.

Republicans promote economic growth, low taxes, and minimal regulation, right? If that were the case, 2001 through 2006, with the GOP in firm control of all branches of government, should have been the Buckeye State’s golden years. Instead, Governor Bob Taft, a pliant legislature, and pay-to-play cronies at ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only) increased taxes in 2003 and allowed state government, its headcount, and its workforce costs to grow at alarming rates. Ohio’s economy barely budged during those years, and was second-worst in the country (again, only Michigan trailed). On a per-capita basis, the state’s GDP grew by less than 0.3% per year. During 2003 through 2006, while the U.S. economy as a whole added over 6.1 million jobs, Ohio added a pathetic 6,000, gaining back hardly any of the 191,000 jobs lost during the decade’s first two years. The state’s 2005 revenue-neutral tax restructuring, which included an awful gross-receipts tax, did more harm than good.

As bad as the Taft era was, it was just a warmup. Under Strickland, with the hugging cooperation of Republicans in the legislature, Ohio’s economy tanked well ahead of the recession as normal people define it (July 2008 through June 2009). After losing 7,000 jobs in 2007 while the country gained almost 1.1 million, the state saw over 400,000 jobs — an astonishing 7.7% of the workforce — vanish during 2008 and 2009. Under “Turnaround Ted,” there was no jobs recovery; fewer Ohioans were working during Strickland’s final month than when the recession officially ended 18 months earlier.

If the Strickland administration did anything meaningful to stop the bleeding during its four-year reign, I certainly didn’t see it. Dayton high-tech icon NCR, the home of the original cash register over a century ago, left the state for Georgia; politicians of both parties, who clearly weren’t maintaining their business community contacts, were totally blindsided. The only thing I recall Ted Strickland doing is begging Washington for stimulus money. All that did is enable the state to keep its bloated structure essentially intact for two years while delaying and worsening the ultimate day of reckoning. Strickland, who fortunately became the first incumbent Buckeye State governor since 1974 to fail to win reelection, though by a scary-slim margin, left a state which had shrunk by over 3% during his four-year term — fifth-worst in the nation, beating out only Nevada, Michigan, Florida, and Arizona — and an $8 billion budget hole for Kasich, his successor.

Kasich and legislative leaders first pushed through SB5, a union-limiting cost control measure similar in many ways to Wisconsin’s better-known budget repair law, despite a poor performance by the PR-averse ORPINO, the opposition’s fundamentally dishonest claims, and some opponents’ sickening, Badger State-like childishness. As of this writing, Kasich and the GOP-dominated legislature, which lost the House in 2008 but won it back in 2010, appeared on the verge of meeting the budget challenge without raising taxes.

There’s a new constructive attitude in state government which, despite early stumbles, some by Kasich himself, shows signs of becoming contagious. “A new way, a new day,” and moving “at the speed of business instead of at the speed of a statue” may actually be more than corny slogans.

Most important, though it’s far too early to get overly excited, the state’s workforce is finally growing again. Through May, Ohio added 70,000 seasonally adjusted jobs, the fourth-highest in the country in percentage terms, and easily the best of any industrial state. It’s the best January through May result since 1994, which will not surprise longtime Buckeye State residents, as that is about the time when second-term governor and alleged Republican George Voinovich became just another tax-and-spend politician. The Kasich administration has also scored key corporate saves of companies which were considering leaving the state.

If anything will keep Ohio from legitimately turning around, it’s the state-reliant, business-hostile comfort zone in which too many relatively disengaged Buckeye State voters reside. That’s the only plausible explanation why the 2010 gubernatorial race was as close as it was.

The state’s Tea Party adherents have been among the nation’s most active. To help sustain Kasich’s early momentum, they will need to redouble their efforts in the coming months and years. Fortunately, the movement’s leadership is aggressively acting to meet that challenge. Its “We the People” Convention in Columbus on July 1-2 promises to serve as Activism 101 for sensible conservatives, and to build an effective counter to the Alinsky-driven left. Buckeye State residents and out-of-staters who want to leave a free, solvent state and country to their children and grandchildren should seriously consider attending.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: ohio

1 posted on 06/27/2011 7:33:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Whilst I was in Ohio getting my first grad degree in the late 70s, I watched Dayton begin its collapse, with NCR finally admitting that mechanical cash registers just might not survive the digital revolution.

We had two of the worst winters in recent history, and the Ohio electrical worker cretin-unions showed us their concern by going on strike during the worst of each winter...accompanied by actually blowing up a transformer station or two...if I recall.

Trying to combat the oncoming economic downturn, the dim-bulb-crat government responded in typical clueless liberal arts major fashion by threatening to “fine” any company that left the state.

Getting my car registered in that sorry state required three trips - to one location for the title, to the second for the registration, and a third for the license. Each visit was rewarded by typical public “servant” soviet-like coldness.

My wife and I vowed to commit sepulcher before EVAH living in that sorry state again.


2 posted on 06/27/2011 7:41:58 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: Da Coyote

Taft was a disaster for our state, as was Strickland. Kasich is trying to turn this state around, and is being fought by the RATS every step of the way.


3 posted on 06/27/2011 8:15:34 AM PDT by Catsrus
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To: Catsrus

Kasich is a good and competent man, and I have high hopes that he can help turn that state around.


4 posted on 06/27/2011 8:24:06 AM PDT by ilgipper ( political rhetoric is no substitute for competence (Thomas Sowell)))
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To: Kaslin

The midwest states that had as their economic base manufacturing jobs will not recover meaningfully until and unless we address our trade policy issues.

You can see the death of the midwest continuing just be noodling around machine sales websites. You will see quite a bit of very recent CNC tooling going up on liquidation sales, whole plants cleaned out. It is one thing to see the manual machines go up for liquidation sales - CNC has always been the wave of the future, so seeing old manual machines go to liquidation isn’t anything new. A smart plant operator will make that choice along the way to increase productivity.

But when I see CNC machines that are only five years old, of Japanese or German origin, going on the block in numbers large enough to depress the prices of similar machines in the market... that’s a sign that Ohio’s, Michigan’s, etc’s problems aren’t going to turn around soon enough for management to see a way out.

Busting the unions might help, but if it were only a union labor issue, the companies could shut down the plant, call in the riggers and move these six/seven digit cost machines to a right-to-work state. Instead, they’ll sell off the whole plant, which means that they’re not planning on re-opening the business at all, or not re-opening in the US.

The GOP at a national level is going to continue to hang on to their silly notions of trade, and their silly notions of “making college affordable” so we can continue to crank out more liberal arts majors to flip burgers, so the GOP really doesn’t have a plan to cure Ohio’s problems. They’re just going to open the Reagan playbook, run the same plays... ignoring that the referees are different, the field is different, the game rules have changed. And they’re going to wonder why the old 1980’s plays don’t work.


5 posted on 06/27/2011 11:53:21 AM PDT by NVDave
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