There is a really interesting series of articles that began today and is going to be featured in the Toledo Blade for the next two Sundays. Today was the first.
If you are like me and you were curious to read the actual report from the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland, one report is entitled, Altered States: A Perspective on 75 Years of State Income Growth", another one of interest is Employment Growth, Job Creation, and Job Destruction in Ohio.
:-)
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10 comments:
They say that trends hit the Midwest last and this excellent article in today's paper would seem to reinforce that. Ohio's political leaders (and too many of our business leaders, apparently) don't really understand what it takes to compete in an innovation economy.
Third Frontier wasn't a bad idea and neither is Strickland's alternative energy plan. I voted for Third Frontier (obviously not working) and I'll vote for Strickland. Blackwell's not wrong that our tax burden is excessive or that there's a lot of wasteful spending, but there's no credible research that says Ohio can tax-cut and deregulate itself out of this major economic crisis.
If patent growth and college degrees are the major drivers of economic growth (and this is just one of many studies that say they are), why isn't higher education at the top of everyone's economic program?
Strickland's got a college savings plan that will help students two decades from now and Blackwell's answer to rising tuition is the same as his answer to everything else: spending caps, caps that will reduce a mediocre university system to a third rate one.
If our leaders are unwilling to build our research and development infrastructure and unwilling to make more college graduates, they'll never get to take credit for turning Ohio around.
It will be very interesting to see what happens now that this study is getting some public attention.
I admit I am personally very interested in what the October 1st piece on engineering says since my oldest daughter is towards the end of getting her degree in Mechanical Engineering.
I'm hoping that this time rather than just words that there is more action taken on what this report as well as others have stated.
The issue is taxes. Ohio's taxes are near the highest in the country. the answer is lower taxes not more money for professors of women's studies or 17th century english literature. colleges have a lot of cutting to do before they come asking for more tax dollars
I understand the whole principle behind the whole "starve the beast" belief. So given you've selected that as a name it's understandable you'd feel the way you do in relationship to taxes.
However, as I think this article and the research pieces suggest, it is more than just lowering taxes and not necessarily an advocating of increasing womens study programs. Those would not be fields normally associated with technology or patents.
When it comes to the issue of the starve the beast theory, I personally think that this pdf asks some interesting questions.
Such as:
Does the Constitution authorize the program or activity? Is there any reason that the federal government is better qualified
to perform the activity than state and local governments or the private sector? Is the proposed federal activity the best of alternative ways to accomplish a shared goal? Is the marginal benefit of the federal activity higher than the marginal cost to the economy of the taxes necessary to finance the activity?
Then again, personally I lean as more of an advocate for less federal government and more state/local ability to determine what we want to spend our limited tax dollars on as opposed to federal mandates that are the majority of the times not funded completely. Last I checked Ohio was receiving back in tax dollars just a bit more than what it was paying but our ability as Ohioans to determine what is the priority for our State has steadily diminshed as federal mandates have increased.
Ever taken a women's studies or English lit class? Might help you broaden your horizons a little, Starve.
How about funding for bioengineering or aerospace or pharmaceutical development? They teach those at school too, you know.
The Blade was ridiculous this past Sunday. A huge story about how bad Ohio's economy is and a story about Noe's wife staying with him covered the entire top half of the front page. Neither of these are remotely breaking news, they could be run any day. Instead the Blade is turning its Sunday edition into Democratic propaganda at the expense of hard news coverage.
I agree with you on questioning if it was necessary to do the Noe story, especially frontpaging it but I disagree with you on the series on the Economy. I thought that was and is going to be worth reading.
Democratic propaganda? It was a total puff piece on the Noes!!!
Ohio should be turned over to proven achievers to chart its course for the next say, 5 years.
I suspect that we would be better for it. Call it a politician's holiday ;-)
Let those that can, do.
Let those that can't, hold ceremonial office.
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