The Issues
Over the course of this campaign there have been and will continue to be new issues that are discussed. However, there are a couple of issues that are critically important and affect all parts of Ohio’s 80th House District.
-
Ohio’s Economy
No one can deny that Ohio is economically challenged as never before. Depending on which study you read (see three references below), Ohio ranks somewhere between 45th and 49th among the fifty states in economic competitiveness. That is absolutely shameful, but it isn’t something that has happened over night.
Today, Ohio is the product of tax and regulatory policies that have evolved to effectively make doing business in Ohio comparatively difficult. Both parties can be blamed for this as they have shaped this situation more to satisfy their political supporters than to create an effective business climate. So, whether it is our relatively high business or personal tax rates, our regulatory environment, or the expense of our Workers’ Compensation system, Ohio just is not a place where most businesses outside Ohio would choose to locate. Making it even worse, Ohio’s business climate makes it difficult for its own companies to compete, so many of them either fail, falter or move. These aren’t opinions born of political convenience. Believe me, I would rather be talking about how great Ohio is. Read the reports! (See the links below.)
When asked “what do we do about this,” the answer is strikingly simple. Read the reports.! They identify what is wrong and therefore provide a blueprint as to what needs to be done. It will no doubt take great political courage and much energy to get all this done. But what choice do we have? To do nothing is to extend the economic pain we all feel. To do nothing will only serve to send even more of our children somewhere else to earn a living and raise their families. We have no choice. Change or Ohio will continue to die a slow economic death.
-
Education Funding
Yes, the DeRolph decision brought into sharp focus the problem that Ohio has with its system of funding education. What DeRolph didn’t do was provide an answer as to how to fix it. That has seemed to be as elusive as a unicorn.
Simply put, Ohio’s system for funding education relies on something called remainder funding (in spite of what the Governor wants you to believe). That means that education gets whatever is left after all of the other parts of Ohio government are funded. Well, that is fundamentally wrong and ethically bankrupt. Part of the problem is that Ohio government has evolved into a behemoth made up of thousands of programs answering the needs of hundreds of political constituencies. Put another way, we’re trying to satisfy everyone and we end up satisfying no one. There just isn’t enough money to go around, to say nothing of whether government should even be involved in so many aspects of our economy and our schools.
The solution lies in two areas. First, we need to make education a much higher budget priority. I would argue that aside from public safety, education should be second in line for funding. Yes, this will mean that hundreds of programs may have to be cut. Yes, it should also mean that state government needs to take a huge haircut itself by trimming back the number of cabinet positions and state agencies. However, it is cheaper by far to fund a quality system of education than to pay lifetimes of welfare, Medicaid and incarceration.
Second, we need to return education to local control. Today the State of Ohio and the federal government together dictate everything from curriculum to hiring practices to details about school lunches because they have tied funding to acceptance of their mandates. They then want detailed reports on all of it. It is just too intrusive, too costly to local districts and has the unintended effect of causing local voters to be less supportive of their districts because they don’t see their voices having any affect on their own schools.
This two pronged approach of increased state support and less state control seems to be the sweet spot where most people can agree on a solution. Recognizing that bureaucrats in Columbus won’t like this, it is the one approach I support and for which I am willing to fight.
-
Unemployment
The Decline: The Geography of a Recession
According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are more than 31 million people currently unemployed – that’s including those involuntarily working part-time and those who want a job, but have given up on trying to find one. In the face of the worst economic upheaval since the Great Depression, millions of Americans are hurting. The following interactive map serves as a vivid representation of jut how much. Watch the deteriorating transformation of the U.S. economy from January 2007 – approximately one year before the start of the recession – to the most recent unemployment data available today. Click here to view the interactive map.Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics
Bureau of Labor Statistics Report
For well over a year Americans have been hearing about the “unemployment rate” in America. In recent weeks there has been talk that unemployment seems to be easing. However, this talk does not recognize the desperate situation in which many Americans find themselves. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the gold standard for data on the nation’s labor markets. The following table shows both the raw data and seasonally adjusted unemployment data. Note the U-6 data. While U-3 is the data point most quoted by politicians and the media, it just doesn’t show the depth of the underemployment problem in America today. U-6 is the best standard for that information and it isn’t looking very good through the end of March 2010. Click here to view the Bureau of Labor Statistics Report on Unemployment.