In November, many voters chose the values of a former Methodist minister who has devoted his life to service and sees the economy one hard-working fully employed person at a time. Some chose this man who became governor in 2007 and in the face of circumstances well beyond his control looked forward and began to prepare the foundation for an Ohio economy that will put people to work now and in the future.
That man, Gov. Ted Strickland, gave the last major speech of his term in office today at the Columbus Metropolitan Club. Summing up much of where he comes from as a policy thinker and leader, Strickland said:
There is much we must leave unfinished. But I know this. The foundation of Ohio is stronger now than the day I took office.
Because we’ve built a strong foundation for 21st century economic growth. We’ve built a strong foundation to support Ohio’s great middle class. And we’ve done it with investments and policies that value job creation and job creators; we’ve done it by providing Ohioans a world-class, modern education system; and we’ve done it with a commitment to live within our means so that we can invest in what matters.
And it’s true.
Strickland was faced with a flight of jobs out of the state when he took office. No governor can create jobs from whole cloth or stand as a one man sea wall against a generational economic storm, but governors can move policy in a way that mitigates the damage and strengthens the state to withstand the next, inevitable tempest.
For one, Strickland took a debate that had raged across two decades, school funding, and turned it into a reform of the entire public education system. Yes, there are parts of the reform agenda that today remain unfunded. But Strickland recognized that one of Ohio’s problems is that we’ve got to do a better job of educating kids and adults in the information age. Our public schools need to uniformly prepare students for an innovation economy so that today’s kids are the ones who move Ohio from Rust Belt to resurgence.
Strickland also drove more cooperation and reforms – like a statewide tuition freeze - through the state’s public colleges and universities, making it easier for people to get a two or four year college degree. One brick in the Strickland foundation: education.
Another brick in the Strickland foundation was reforming government. Regulatory reform, cutting the size of state government, forcing state agencies out of their silos to create efficiencies and being a champion for transparency. Taxes are lower than when Strickland took office and Bureau of Workers Compensation rates are at their lowest point in 20 years.
How about technology? Strickland steered the Third Frontier to continued success and pushed for an advanced energy agenda in the Statehouse which has yielded investments and jobs in Ohio while keeping rates low for the businesses that are here. Through Connect Ohio he brought more Ohioans broadband and strengthened Ohio’s internet infrastructure. There’s another block in the foundation.
There is no “easy button” for the economy. The federal government is at a great advantage because it can prime the pump when the market fails. But even with historically low interest rates, quantitative easing at the Fed, stimulus efforts and bailouts, the national unemployment rate is hovering near 10%. State governors can’t do much in the moment except extend their hand to Washington — and Washington has become the panhandler’s worst nightmare — the guy with nothing in his pockets but plastic. They can, however, look forward, and Strickland did that for four years.
This past election was described as a referendum on the economy by some. Apparently on the way to the Field of Mars, many Ohio voters forgot – or had paid no attention to – the work being done by Strickland. Perhaps the message didn’t get out.
In the end, we know that when the choice was made last November, more Ohioans voted for John Kasich. He’s an interesting fellow who has quite a few opinions and in a short while we’ll find out what his ideas are. He and Haley Barbour hung the nation’s economic woes around Strickland’s neck like a noose and enough Ohioans believed them to award Kasich his prize.
Gov.-elect Kasich might do well by Ohioans to step outside his ideology for a moment once he takes office and consider the foundation his predecessor has left him. He just might be able to build on it.
