Career Insiders' Defense of JobsOhio Is Without Any Objective Support, As They Freely Gamble With Your Livelihoods

Unlike millions of Ohioans, they suffer zero consequences for JobsOhio’s fundamental failure. Thus, they talk tough talk without fear of having to walk the painful walks we face each day.

There are cojones, then there are, as the Dabney Coleman character in “Dragnet,” said, “Balls as big as church bells.” Yesterday, four leaders of Establishment business groups penned a response to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s op-ed calling for greater accountability and transparency when it comes to JobsOhio. Now, because JobsOhio ISN’T transparent, we have no idea if any of the groups—the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Business Roundtable, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), and the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants (OCRM)—receive any funding from JobsOhio, but I bet they do either directly or indirectly. Thus, we have no idea if their op-ed was a classic undisclosed conflict of interest (of course, it was). Two of the leaders are career politicians: former Congressmen Steve Stivers and Pat Tiberi who are likely triple- and double-dipping government pensions along with their chamber salaries (pensions from their time in Congress, pensions from their time in state government, and, for Stivers, pension from his military service). Both left their cushy seats in congress to get paid more money as heads of two large chamber groups. It appears Jared Weiser has worked his entire career as a lobbyist and for NFIB, with Gordon Gough spending his career at OCRM.

Unlike millions of Ohioans, all four men suffer zero consequences for JobsOhio’s fundamental failure, as detailed below. Thus, they talk tough talk without fear of having to walk the painful walks we face each day.

In their op-ed, they claim:

Over the past decade, Ohio has become one of the most competitive states in the country for economic development. From advanced manufacturing to emerging technology sectors, companies are choosing Ohio for major investments that are creating jobs and strengthening communities across the state.

So why are we seeing so much success?

Fifteen years ago, Ohio made a deliberate decision to rethink how it competed for jobs and investment. The result was JobsOhio, a public-private partnership that was designed to give our state the tools it needs to compete for major economic development projects. Its model allows Ohio to engage companies quickly, maintain the confidentiality that complex negotiations often require, and offer the support, incentives and resources that businesses seek.

This is exactly why JobsOhio was structured the way it was. Today, the results speak for themselves.

Literally, very little of what they wrote is actually true. Ohio isn’t competitive at all let alone “one of the most competitive.” Ohio isn’t “seeing so much success.” Ohio’s “results speak for themselves,” but exactly opposite to the point they are making.

As I wrote about just thirteen day ago:

As for the utter pathetic excuse of an economic development entity that is JobsOhio, the table above says it all (unless you are an idiot Republican legislator or statewide official who pretends the figures below don’t matter). Whether you use BLS numbers or JobsOhio’s own claim of added jobs, the four-year average of jobs added has declined since JobsOhio was created in February 2011. Using real BLS numbers, the four-year average went from 85,025 from 2011-2014 to 39,875 from 2015-2018 to just 25,725 from 2019-2025 (excluding the three pandemic loss and recovered job years). Even using JobsOhio made up numbers, the four-year average went from 25,019 from 2011-2014 to 27,071 from 2015-2018 to just 19,552 from 2019-2025.

…

Do you understand what that data is saying? The longer JobsOhio has been working its “magic,” Ohio’s private sector has gotten WEAKER. Shouldn’t it be reversed—the longer JobsOhio does its work, the STRONGER things get? The only defense JobsOhio is left with after this devastating BLS jobs report is that it could have been worse without them, which like much of what they claim is unprovable and the refuge of frauds and charlatans.

The table below, which is entirely comprised of actual data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and made-up data from JobsOhio, shows unequivocally that Ohio isn’t competitive, it isn’t seeing so much success, and the results are abysmal fifteen years into the JobsOhio experiment.

After seeing the four-some’s op-ed, I posted the below note on X in which I included them or their groups. Not surprisingly, they didn’t respond at all. Cowards…just like JobsOhio. For fifteen years, I’ve begged the media and association heads to put me on stage with the head of JobsOhio, JP Nauseff, so we could debate its efficacy. I would ask the very same simple question of Nauseff as I did in my tweet earlier today: WHERE ARE THE DAMN JOBS? I added another tweet in which I noted that had any of their member-driven groups seen a decline in paying members by 70%, which is the decline in the four-year average of job growth per BLS from the start of JobsOhio in 2011 through 2025, they would have been unceremoniously shit-canned. Why does that same reality not apply to JobsOhio after a 70% reduction in private sector job growth? IT AIN’T WORKING!!!!

Thankfully, AG Yost retweeted my post, thereby expanding its reach. I hope he comes around to my view that JobsOhio should be eliminated, with its funds used to make smart investments in key infrastructure like a world-class airport down at Rickenbacker. Let’s make Ohio more competitive by eliminating the state income tax, enacting right-to-work, lowering local taxes, and substantially cutting regulation. Those policies work magic in other states. Let’s stop trying to pick winners and losers with taxpayer funds. That never works.

When you rack-and-stack the BLS data for all fifty states, it shows that during JobsOhio’s entire life from 2011 to 2025, Ohio ranked 34th best in America for net percentage private sector job growth (net percentage normalizes for population differences among the states). Under Mike DeWine’s tenure starting in 2019, Ohio ranks 37th best in America. Maybe you are thinking that JobsOhio’s process is so good that certainly Ohio’s recovery from the pandemic would be in the top ten in America. You’d, of course, be dead wrong. Since the start of the pandemic, Ohio’s recovery ranking is 39th best in America. 34th. 37th. 39th. Notice a trend? No matter how you look at those rankings, Ohio isn’t competitive, it isn’t seeing so much success, and the results are abysmal fifteen years into the JobsOhio experiment.

Even taking a micro view of the Manufacturing and Information industries—those industries most tied to “advanced manufacturing to emerging technology sectors,” Ohio has lost jobs in both industries, with 48,300 FEWER jobs in Manufacturing and 10,600 FEWER jobs in Information since JobsOhio started. Again, Ohio isn’t competitive, it isn’t seeing so much success, and the results are abysmal fifteen years into the JobsOhio experiment.

All of the above is the reason why these career insiders wrote an entire op-ed without once citing any objective, independent data in support of their claims. If JobsOhio is working, why didn’t they cite the BLS data that I cite? The only figures they cite are those generated and claimed by JobsOhio that aren’t subject to any scrutiny and cannot be objectively proven. That is pretty thin gruel, my friends. JobsOhio can make whatever claims it wants, as it has for fifteen years, but when the rubber meets the road, the only number that actually matters to Ohioans and their businesses is the one number published every month by the BLS showing private sector job growth in Ohio. For the fifteen years of JobsOhio’s existence, that number has consistently gone down, not up. If that isn’t mission failure, I don’t know what is.

P.S. See the two articles below. I’m not aware of any objective media entity writing similar articles in which Ohio is included in the destination states—and I read A LOT EVERY DAY. As I’ve documented, in addition to systemic weak job growth, Ohio has been losing population and billions of income as those who can leave Ohio, do.

• A new economic iron curtain is falling across America as trillions in wealth flee to the ‘Boom Belt’

• Texas emerges as the top destination for companies leaving blue states

Even Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s company, Strive Asset Management, high-tailed it down to Texas. Hey, Vivek, you should buck the Establishment by showing some cajones and joining my fight against JobsOhio. Then, you could be intellectually consistent by stating that you want to make Ohio great again so that the best decision for any company going forward won’t be to leave Ohio for Texas. If JobsOhio was succeeding, people and businesses would be flocking to Ohio, not fleeing. Based on the objective BLS and U.S. Census data, Ohio isn’t competitive, it isn’t seeing so much success, and the results are abysmal fifteen years into the JobsOhio experiment.

Shame on those four “leaders” who should be joining AG Yost and me to hold JobsOhio accountable for its weak results after fifteen years. Their members deserve much better from them than defending the status quo.

P.P.S. Some of you may be uncomfortable that I raised the careers and lucrative retirements of the four insiders. To you I say, their careers and comfy retirements are entirely relevant to the position they take on JobsOhio’s failure, as they write checks they won’t have to cash BECAUSE OF THOSE CAREERS AND GOLDEN GOVERNMENT PENSIONS. It is easy to gamble with other people’s money when the outcome of your gambling won’t impact your lifestyle. That reality is precisely why I proposed when I explored a run for Ohio governor in 2023 that the governor, lieutenant governor, and all 132 Ohio legislators should be put on a pay for performance plan in which their pay is cut by 50% with the right to get the other 50% back if Ohio’s net percentage private sector job growth is in the top ten in the previous year. If pay for performance is good for teachers, it should be great for politicians, right?