The Ohio governor's race is more contentious than ever in the final stretch. With a 10.1 percent state unemployment rate and upcoming budget shortfalls, the winner better have real solutions. It is unfortunate our candidates aren't focused on solutions - they're focused on each other.
The incumbent, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, is focused on his Republican opponent John Kasich's time working on Wall Street for the financial services firm Lehman Brothers. In What did Kasich do on Wall Street?
an ad paid for by the Service Employees International Union, Kasich is falsely accused of pressuring Ohio officials to invest state pension plans with Lehman Brothers. Some pension plans were invested with the firm and took huge losses upon its collapse in 2008, but Kasich was never part of those deals. The ad finishes with the particularly sharp statement, So Kasich got rich while Ohio seniors lost their pension money binding two unrelated events.
Strickland has also tried to pin Ohio's job losses on Kasich using policies Kasich supported during the Clinton administration when he was in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the television ad titled Truth
Strickland's campaign claims Kasich's trade deals
such as NAFTA, outsourced 49
000 jobs to Mexico and 91
000 to China.
First, Kasich's trade deals actually were supported by President Clinton and many Democrats. It would seem inappropriate to attribute 140,000 lost jobs solely to Kasich.
Secondly, those numbers are based on a 2006 study from a progressive think tank that didn't actually count lost jobs. It relied on a variety of data sets and projections. The results shouldn't be used as cold hard facts. Free trade deals could have caused a lot of job losses in Ohio, but claiming Kasich is responsible for 140,000 is wildly unfair. Strickland's campaign should probably focus on regaining the 375,000 jobs lost since 2007 - after the report he uses to attack Kasich came out.
Kasich has fired back consistently with a factually based claim, but one that is entirely misleading. The ads Gone and Worried argue that Ohio lost 400
000 jobs on his (Strickland's) watch. The actual number is closer to 375,000 lost jobs, but that's not the real problem with the ad. No state in the country has avoided massive job losses since the recession, and blaming it on whoever was in charge misses the point. Strickland has tried to attract businesses by cutting corporate taxes and using policy to attract green industries. Kasich should be telling us why those policies won't work and what he would do - not throw out numbers used out of context.
To drive home that Strickland is to blame for Ohio's economic woes, Kasich ads such as New Way and Stronger Ohio claim that Ohio is not business friendly and is one of the highest taxed states in the country. This claim, a common trend among Ohio Republicans, is misleading and bad for the state. Ohio does have high taxes in some regards, but is middle-of-the-road compared to all states.
Kasich's claim is based on a 2008 study from the conservative think tank, The Tax Foundation, and relies on projections made from within the organization. They claim Ohio has the seventh-highest tax burden among states. However, the Federation of Tax Administrators, a non-partisan organization established in 1937, found that Ohio actually had the 16th-highest tax burden and the 33rd-highest tax burden when only including state-level taxes.
Much of Ohio's tax burden comes at the local level from things such as school levies. When discussing taxes under Strickland's control, the reality is only 17 states tax residents less. Kasich's argument picks convenient numbers that don't fully apply to Strickland and ignores the fact that Strickland's administration has lowered business taxes and has overseen a 17 percent cut in Ohio's income tax.
What's particularly dangerous about using this argument is that potential businesses might believe it. I know if I were trying to create jobs in Ohio, I wouldn't go around saying Ohio is a terrible place to do business.
Both candidates are experienced public officials at the state and national level. Strickland was one of the most popular governors in the country a couple of years ago and was actually popular with conservatives. John Kasich has been part of huge decisions in the U.S. Congress and was a major player in balancing the national budget with Clinton.
What could be a great debate between intelligent leaders has unfortunately devolved into name-calling and falsehoods. Take each ad you see with a big grain of salt, and hope whoever wins will be more sincere in their leadership than they have been in their campaigns.
Phil Stephens is a graduate student studying public administration and columnist for The Post. What else can the government do for the public? E-mail him at ps245605@ohiou.edu
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Opinion
