Ohio to Washington: Get Our Motor Running

Ohio to Washington: Get Our Motor Running

Ohio Officials Says Big Three Automakers Must Not Be Allowed to Fail

OhioNewsBureau

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: The governors of the united states of America went to Philadelphia Tuesday to ask the next president, and by extension the future congress for an economic life jacket of about $176 billion. The governors met in the nation's first capital while corporate leaders from Detroit's Big Three automakers traveled to the current capital, downsizing themselves from company jets to cars, asking for a bridge loan to the future of about $30 billion.

Among the 41 governors from states with buckling budgets was Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio. In office for less than two years, the poor boy from Appalachia in the southeast took over a state already in economic trouble, when in 2006 he became the first Democratic elected to governor in 16 years . State finances have waned and worsened from his first day on the job to now, as demonstrated by current income shortfalls that have prompted Strickland to impose two budget cuts already with another one waiting on deck.

As the first capital was in Pennsylvania, current Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, became a default spokesman for other governors whose state finances are either smoldering or have burst into flames, like California, where a $28 billion deficit prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to hope government can help, contradicting his party's patron saint, Ronald Reagan, who famously mocked government for being the problem not a solution.

The day before he left for his meeting in the City of Brotherly Love with President-elect Barack Obama, Strickland spent Monday pulling the curtain to the public on the scary state of Ohio's economic picture.

In simple terms, state leaders are faced with a $640 million shortfall for this biennium, and could be looking at a future hole of $7.3 billion, a figure that skyrockets if the automakers and their related vendors and suppliers, who total nearly 250,000 workers, get called out on strikes by congress, especially in the Senate where enough votes to let them implode could win the day.

One Ohio senate member whose district is nestled in northeast Ohio, where many of the state's auto-related jobs are found, is proposing the Ohio legislature approve a resolution asking congress to provide immediate support for US automakers.

With auto industry and labor union leaders at his side, Dale Miller, a Democrat from Cleveland, wants congressional funders to understand the importance of cars to Ohio, but also wants car industry leaders to know they must undertake big changes to remake their companies.

"America cannot lose its domestic automotive industry," Miller said in a Tuesday afternoon media release. Appointed to the Senate but now in his first full term, Miller said "Too many jobs are at stake, and we cannot be a great nation without a strong manufacturing base...We must take decisive action to help and require our domestic manufacturers to do their part to get their house in order."

So what's at stake for Strickland, Miller and Ohio if the Big Three don't get their tank filled in Washington? According to statistics from the Ohio Department of Development, in 2006, the Ohio Department of Development estimated the economic impact of the motor vehicle assembly and related manufacturing in the state of Ohio to be $93 billion dollars in sales and employment up to 248,000 people. These numbers represented 12.3 percent of totals sales and 3.7 percent of total employment in Ohio.

Ohio's auto industry ranks second in the United States in automobile production and ranks first in the country in the number of auto suppliers.

Nationally, approximately 4percent of U.S. gross domestic product is auto-related and represents almost 10 percent of U.S. industrial production by value. One out of every ten U.S. jobs is auto-related, and in Ohio more than 253,000 people, or about 5 percent of the work force work in the auto industry.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, said plans auto leaders are bringing to congress should be "viable, forward looking and deserving of tax payer investment."

She said intervention will happen one way or another, and that it should be through a short-term TARP loan that can get them to the end of March next year.

If their faux humility and mia culpas extracted under duress win them the funding they are asking for, General Motors will drive away with $18 billion, Chrysler will park $7 billion and Ford will fill its trunk with $9 billion. Chrysler said it will likely cut 25 percent of its workforce, another blow to Ohio.

The labor leaders who will join state senator Miller Wednesday in Columbus at the Statehouse, will be asked to lobby for major new concessions to lower costs of production, a demand Republican leaders, especially one with foreign car makers in their districts, will demand to win their vote.

Everyone, even state leaders, want leaders of the Big Three to come to town with a new plan, not a new sales pitch. Gentleman - start our engines.

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com