Would Divided Ohio Government Really Be That Bad for Four Years?
Ohioans might want to stop the insanity for a spell and demand more than the status quo from who we hand power. At some point, Ohio will fall too far behind to catch up.
If we lived in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, or South Carolina, such a question would never be raised because policymakers in those one-party Red states do an excellent job of delivering results for their residents. Conversely, if we lived in California, New York, New Jersey, or Illinois, such a question would always be raised because policymakers in those one-party Blue states do a terrible job of delivering results for their residents. But, what about in one-party Red states like Ohio where policymakers do a terrible job of delivering results for their residents? Would divided government here really be THAT bad?
For fifteen-and-a-half years, Republicans have ruled Ohio with supermajorities in the Ohio General Assembly and with Republican governors. Is your life measurably better because of their work (or lack of work)? Do you feel like the people who live in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, or South Carolina feel? Are you jealous of what they have? Are you proud of John Kasich and Mike DeWine? Have you seen an influx of people from other states coming here because Ohio is winning the “vote with your feet” competition?
Yes, my state income taxes have come down a little bit, but that decreases has been more than offset by the increase in local taxes, especially property taxes. Our educational system has gotten worse, not better for our K-12 population, so our kids are falling farther behind. Our jobs economy remains one of the systemically weakest in America, with a net increase of just 81,800 jobs since 2019 (#39 out of fifty). A right-to-work bill has never made it out of committee in decades, as neighbors Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and even Michigan for a bit passed right-to-work. More than half our counties have lost jobs and population since 2000. Higher education has been grossly over-funded for the well-off few while tech and trade has been grossly underfunded leaving the low-and-middle class 85% of our high school graduates holding empty bags as the skills gap widens each year. More Ohioans than ever before are dependent on government entitlements because of Kasich’s expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. DeWine defends the insertion of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who undermine our wages, take our jobs, drive home prices up, grift off our entitlements, and harm our families. Our population remains stagnant as we lose ground to the other states and the political power that comes with vibrant population growth. Under Republicans, gambling was approved driving addiction rates, poverty, and broke families higher; marijuana has been legalized resulting in more teens taking up pot smoking, more schizophrenia, and more driving while under the influence; abortion late into pregnancy was nailed into our constitution making Ohio one of America’s most favorable places to kill babies; and government collective bargaining reform efforts failed making it virtually impossible to rein in the cost of state and local government in which 90% of expenses go towards pay and benefits, which is why your property taxes have skyrocketed.
The only time DeWine was featured on the national stage was when he was applauded as the most pro-shut-down Republican governor in 2020. Do you remember him going on the national television shows to be lauded by the left-wing media hacks? I do. DeWine is never in the same conversations as Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott. Kasich wasn’t either. He made national news only AFTER his failed run for president when he became THE NeverTrump Republican spokesman on CNN and MSNBC who took his marbles from Cleveland and went home. Both men will fade to a mere sentence in the history books, with only their official portraits collecting dust in the State Capital. You’d think eight years in charge of America’s seventh largest state would produce more, but one sentence will be more than generous.
Will Vivek Ramaswamy be any different? Like Kasich, he has his eyes really focused on Washington, D.C. He hasn’t taken a single stance contrary to DeWine in the year-and-a-half he’s been running for governor. Hell, he won’t even gently criticize DeWine and Republicans for their failures, but instead laments Ohio’s long list of problems as if Republicans haven’t mostly been in charge since 1992. Vivek, who exactly failed to fix Ohio over the last three-and-a-half decades? Other than getting rid of the state income tax, which he cannot do unless he raises other taxes or repeals Medicaid expansion, which he has refused to say he will do, Ramaswamy’s platform is the same red meat, consultant-driven pablum we’ve heard from Kasich and DeWine over the last sixteen years. The make-up of the Ohio General Assembly hasn’t changed. The effort to take down the Blue 22 failed miserably. The current Ohio Senate President Rob McColley is Ramaswamy’s running mate. Do you think McColley is suddenly going to support Reaganesque bold color initiatives he stopped dead in their tracks while running the Ohio Senate? Ramaswamy has surrounded himself with the same Kasich hacks who spent eight years under Kasich doing nothing other than pushing Kasich’s desire for the White House (and threatening anyone who didn’t toe the line). Do you think they will do anything different for Ramaswamy who really wants to be president, too? Do you think given his total lack of any government experience those insider Kasich hacks won’t hold more power than they did under the career politician Kasich who at least knew how government works?
All of this leads me to the question in the title of this column: would divided Ohio government really be that bad for four years?
First, and, most importantly, there is zero chance Republicans will lose control of the Ohio House or the Ohio Senate. In fact, it is likely they will keep supermajorities in both chambers. That means they will have the power to stop Amy Acton from doing much of anything and override her vetoes of legislation they deem important. As you may recall, gridlock worked really well for Americans during the second Bill Clinton term when he was checked by Newt Gingrich. Plus, they got welfare reform done and balanced the federal budget for the last time.
Next, the Ohio governorship isn’t that strong of one. Sure, Acton can do some things on the margins via executive power, but every action she takes could be reversed or stopped by the veto-proof legislature. Remember, Kasich couldn’t even expand Medicaid under Obamacare without “conservative” Ohio Speaker Bill Batchelder swapping out members of the Ohio Controlling Board in a backfilled smoky room in the dead of night. Maybe, just maybe, with divided government, some important bipartisan things could get done. Look at my agenda from my 2023 exploratory run for governor down below. Many of those items are needed, but aren’t Republican or Democrat items. For example, eliminating JobsOhio and investing in a world-class airport at Rickenbacker, taking on the hospital industrial complex, rebalancing funding between higher education and tech/trade, solving the “4pm-to-8am” problem harming our most vulnerable kids, and instituting political reforms like replacing term limits with a time limit and putting the legislature and governor/lieutenant governor on a pay for performance system don’t cut Left or Right. Each of those reforms would push Ohio forward in a powerful way. Those items also would make the lives of Ohioans and their businesses better. I’ve implored both Ramaswamy and Acton to adopt those ideas, as all of them would be supported by strong majorities of Ohioans. Ramaswamy erroneously doesn’t think he needs those ideas and is being told by highly paid political hacks that less is more. They couldn’t be more wrong, as nothing except a detailed bold color agenda will overcome Ramaswamy’s likability issues with Main Street Ohioans. Acton needs to realize she will need such grassroots, neutral initiates to overcome the +11 Trump slant of Ohio, as resting on Ramaswamy’s wealth and likability issue won’t be enough.
Finally, don’t we believe failure should have consequences? Republicans have failed Ohio for nearly sixteen straight years now, yet haven’t suffered a single negative repercussion for that failure. Like with our kids, do you expect them to change if they don’t suffer a consequence? None of you would parent your kids in a consequence-free way, so why do you allow Republicans to get away with consequence-free failure? Maybe it is time to send them a strong message by dividing government for four years. Maybe having to deal with divided government again—something they haven’t seen in nearly two decades—they’d get off their asses, ditch the pale pastel incrementalism they’ve come to love, and go big and bold like their peers do in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Maybe divided government for four years will spur Republicans to, well, act like fucking supermajority Republicans when government is once again united.
Look, I’m not telling you who to vote for come November. I’m still not sure who I’m voting for. What I am suggesting is that we’ve handed power for sixteen straight years to Republicans without getting much of a return on that investment in them. The names change, but the results remain mediocre-to-poor. Maybe Ramaswamy will be different. Maybe the next Ohio General Assembly will also be different. Spend the next three months searching your own conscience and thinking about what has materially changed in your own lives because of actions our policymakers have taken OR have not taken. Ignore the spin and press releases from both political parties. Just look around your neighborhood, community, county, and state and noodle on whether divided government for four years would be so bad. We know that one party rule HASN’T delivered much for us. Have Ramaswamy and legislative leaders clearly articulated how they will be different than Kasich, DeWine, and the Ohio General Assemblies since 2011 to warrant four more years of one-party control?
As Albert Einstein famously said, “Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.” Ohioans might want to stop the insanity for a spell and demand more than the status quo from who we hand power. At some point, Ohio will fall too far behind to catch up.
P.S. Speaking of failing and a consequence-free life, I did a little quick digging into JobsOhio track record on big projects in light of the much-maligned CNBC ranking that Ohio is #1 for business, which we now know from the guy who did the ranking that it really was just a “who had the best marketing pitch” ranking. No serious business or policy person thinks Ohio is better than Texas given Texas’s stronger job growth, higher population growth, #1 ranking for corporate headquarters, and other key business activity. See the above article in yesterday’s Dallas News showing just how strong Texas is in closing mega deals. After operating for fifteen years, I could identify fourteen projects that involved 750+ promised new jobs, so less than one big project per year. I’m sure I missed some, but these capture what I could find online. Make of the below what you will. Here are JobsOhio larger job “wins” — though none of these projects have fully ramped up and all seem to have long windows within which to fulfill their jobs promises:
1. Anduril Industries (Pickaway County) — 4,000 jobs promised — currently ramping up;
2. Amgen (Franklin/Licking Counties) — 750 jobs promised — currently on pace;
3. First Quality Tissue (Defiance County) — 800 jobs promised — currently ramping up;
4. Medpace (Cincinnati Area) — 1,500 jobs promised — currently on pace;
5. Ford Motor Company (Cleveland Area) — 1,800 jobs promised — dependent on Ford’s new electric vehicle launching so…;
6. First Solar (Toledo Area) — 1,750 jobs promised — structure of promise and what is already here seems a bit dodgy; and
7. Great Day Improvements (Multiple Area) — 995 jobs promised — structure of promise seems a bit dodgy.
Here are JobsOhio larger job losses, with some still in the works, but clearly these projects will produce nothing close to what was promised and promoted by JobsOhio:
1. Peloton Plant (Wood County) — Failed
The Promise: Announced in 2021, Peloton pledged a $400 million manufacturing plant (Peloton Output Park) in Wood County. It was slated to bring 2,000 to 2,200 permanent jobs to Northwest Ohio.
2. PTTGC Ethane Cracker Plant (Belmont County) — Failed to Launch
The Promise: This multi-billion-dollar petrochemical complex in Dilles Bottom was hailed as a generational economic “game changer” for Eastern Ohio.
3. Abbott Laboratories Plant (Wood County) — Delayed/Pending
The Promise: A $536 million specialty infant formula plant in Bowling Green promising 450 jobs.
4. Intel Semiconductor Plants (Licking County) — Long-Term Delay
The Promise: Hailed as a generation-defining win, JobsOhio directly awarded $125 million to Intel in 2022 as part of a broader state incentive package to construct two massive microchip factories, creating 3,000 direct tech jobs. Saved by federal government intervention.
5. Lordstown Motors/Foxconn Hub (Trumbull County) — Corporate Collapse
The Promise: The state heavily backed efforts to turn the historic, shuttered General Motors Lordstown plant into a thriving electric vehicle hub, providing state tax credits and localized development assistance through JobsOhio networks to Lordstown Motors and eventual site-buyer Foxconn.
6. RM Biltrite (Franklin County) — Clawback & Litigation
The Promise: An Atlanta-area industrial rubber sheeting manufacturer pledged to create dozens of high-wage manufacturing and logistics jobs at a newly opened Columbus hub in 2020, backed by JobsOhio loans and grants.
7. LG Energy Solution-Honda (Fayette County) — Business Plan Switch/Mixed Success
The Promise: While the electric vehicle battery plant facility originally promised 2,200 local jobs, it currently operates with a significantly leaner workforce of roughly 600 people as it navigates the reduced demand of the new product pivot.
Can I write in your name for Governor?