Coming bloodbath in Ohio to test Strickland, Kasich as each defend, attack size, scope of government

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Whether the General Election next November launches a second term for Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland or signals a first term for Republican challenger John Kasich, Ohio's next executive leader will face the uncomfortable task of finding politically workable solutions to the blood bath made all too real by tumbling revenues, disappearing dollars from Washington and conflicting political ideologies that argue government is the answer to and the problem of a brighter future.

As 2009 ended with a battle of political wills between Strickland and Republican leaders in the Senate over how to fill an approximately $850 million hole in the state's two year budget, the accumulation of billions upon billions from a combination of revenue shortfalls to the state or disappearing stimulus dollars from Washington, that may vanish as spending hawks in Congress pull back on deficit spending to help prop up states hit hard by the Great Recession, will require Ohioans -- and the leaders they elect to represent them in Columbus -- to rethink whether government is a friend or foe to their future.

The gauntlet Strickland, Kasich must run

Estimates from published reports show the state's structural deficit for the 2012-13 budget range from $4 billion to $9 billion. Ohio's next fiscal year, which begins July 1, is balanced with about $3.5 billion in one-time state and federal funding that includes $426 million from the latest budget fix, which delayed a 4.2 percent income-tax cut until Jan. 1, 2011.

What will intensify the drama of where and how much to cut spending on government or whether raising taxes is unavoidable despite declarations by both candidates that that option is off the table, is the fact that the state's so-called rainy-day fund was sucked dry to fill a previous budget gap, leaving the Buckeye State with no emergency parachute to deploy when it is falling the fastest.

Ohio facing billions in revenue shortfalls, loan paybacks

Added to this bitter brew will be the need in 2012 to repay Washington nearly $1.7 billion in funds borrowed to continue paying jobless benefits to the steadily rising number of Ohioans who have lost their jobs in the throes of a Great Recession that some economists say may stay weak for at least another year.

Exacerbating the state's worsening fiscal picture -- GRF tax revenues declined two years in a row and expected to do so again next year -- will be the need to fund its social safety net -- already tattered from billions in budget cuts -- at levels to protect Medicaid eligibility and services, MR/DD services, early care and education programs and disability financial assistance.

Republicans have generally opposed spending from Washington, but reports of new analysis based on Census data showing that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) is keeping large numbers of Americans out of poverty in states across the country have both challenged their ideological bent and kept many Ohioans from falling further into untenable situations.

In addition to boosting economic activity and preserving or creating jobs, the report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows the recovery act is softening the recession’s impact on poverty by directly lifting family incomes.

Kasich income tax elimination plan could add $7 to government spending cuts

If Ohio's future doesn't look bleak enough, consider what it will be like should an energized Gov. Kasich, who one national polling firm says is ahead of Strickland now, is emboldened to follow through on his campaign promise to eliminate the state's income tax -- 7.73 billion or about 44 percent of total GRF tax receipts -- with the help of a House of Representatives again controlled by GOP loyalists.

That stunning possibility, which would demand the virtual dismemberment of government as we know it, will truly be an ill wind of monumental proportions that will blow no good to anyone, not even the businesses Kasich hopes will flock to the state as the gears of government are dismantled, prepping his "new day, new way" plan for improving the state's business climate.

Factor in the imploding budgets of Ohio's six major cities and the landscape for delivering services of all kinds at the state and local level becomes a bleak and burnt nightmare of historic proportions.

A seasoned Republican legislator, who served in the House and who's now a senator and cognizant of what lies ahead, even went so far as to take a swipe at a fellow GOPer whose grand plan is to consolidate government. Bill Seitz of Cincinnati told one reporter that his lawmaker colleagues just "can't come waltzing in the day before a budget is passed and say: 'I know, let's cut state government from 24 agencies to 10 tomorrow.'"

Another budget watcher said that while downsizing government may sound good, as Rep. John Adams wants to do, reality shows that 85 percent of state spending goes directly to local services and schools.

Strickland to Kasich, GOP: Show me your budget plan

Strickland told Ohioans he is proud of his education reforms and said he hopes things will get better. Fit and ready to run what will be a no-holds-barred campaign, the man from Duck Run said is ready to talk with Republicans about future budgets. But he offered them a challenge too: He wants anyone opposed to his remedies to declare "what functions (of government) will be eliminated and how they're going to continue to carry out the essential services that people expect from government."

Of course, what people expect from government and what they are willing to pay for is the key question. For those who see government as an obstacle to progress, employing people who do little but who benefit from great benefit packages, the answer is simple: shrink it. For those who see government as critical to protecting those least able to fend for themselves or that checks abuses spawned by a marketplace unchecked, the answer is simple: defend it.

Follow me on Twitter @ohionewsbureau. Read more stories on people, politics and government here.

Ohio Debt Rating Decline Linked to Stimulus Bucks, Loss of Manufacturing Jobs

Ohio Debt Rating Decline Linked to Stimulus Bucks, Loss of Manufacturing Jobs

Buckeye State Leader in Loss of Manufacturing Jobs

Y-2-Y Revenues Off by 11%

by John Michael Spinelli

August 31, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: The same effect experienced by a borrower whose credit card score is negatively affected by undisciplined borrowing and the borrowers diminished ability to pay off their balance in full in a reasonable time is having a similar affect on on Ohio.

Noting decisions to delay $736 million in debt payments by relying on one-time federal economic stimulus funding and on estimated revenue from expanding gambling, a controversial initiative that could further be compromised if legal challenges filed against it gain traction, Moody's Investor Services said its decision last week to reduce its rating of Ohio borrowing from the second-highest to the third-highest was a reflection of its concern that Ohio's budget could experience even rougher seas in the future when federal funds evaporate and gamblers don't lose as much as projected.

While Moody's is concerned about the future, its rating decision also reflected its concern for the past, as reflected in the tremendous number of manufacturing jobs lost in Ohio over time and in just the last twelve months.

For that story, data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle show Ohio led all other states in the loss of manufacturing jobs over a period of one year. For Ohio, its loss of 127,000 manufacturing jobs topped all other states. Its closest rivals in loss were California (123,400) and Michigan (108,900).

Ohio clearly has fewer resources at its disposal to maintain superior borrowing rates. Once an industrial titan of the Midwest whose once well-developed industrial might was the envy of other states and nations, Ohio has lost many battles over the years as its manufacturing base continues to tumble in size from its salad days of being a leader in labor-intensive industries like steel, rubber and glass that among other important industries made Ohio a good place to raise a family and locate a business.

Ohio communities could once count on manufacturing jobs as the bread and butter of their livelihood. Ohio's state budget was similarly blessed by revenue from these and other industries and the workers who pushed them forward that could be transformed into good roads, strong bridges, institutions of education and infrastructure that attracted families and businesses alike.

But with the state budget under attack from cliff-diving revenues exacerbated by business leaving the state and workers looking elsewhere for greener pastures, Ohio seems hard pressed to turn the tide by reclaiming a future that reflects its prosperous past. Even though its two-year state budget of $50.5 billion is still considerable when compared to budgets from other states, the across-the-board pain it delivered to individuals and agencies was considerable.

If the prospect of 30-40,000 more Ohioans losing their jobs due to state budget cuts becomes reality, the added grief that will be visited on Ohio families will be like rubbing salt into an already open wound of a bleeding budget waiting for a transfusion that may not arrive for years.

Response to such news by the Governor's office say the state's rating "continues to be solid despite the national economic downturn" and note as proof of that that "the latest outlook change did not affect the cost of issuing coal-development bonds recently."

"The long-running structural changes affecting Ohio's economy indicate that the state may have difficulty recovering jobs in tandem with national trends as the recession ends," the report said, according to the AP article.

According to the August 11th Monthly Report on Ohio's Economy and State Finances, "Ohio’s economy has begun to see signals of the beginning of a weak recovery from the deepest downturn experienced in the past 50 years." The report stated that as the national recession eases a bit, a weaker than average recovery is expected to begin as early as the end of this summer. "The pace of economic recovery in Ohio will depend heavily on the fate of the motor vehicle industry," a reference to the fates of General Motors and Chrysler, two Detroit-based firms with large numbers of workers in Ohio, who went into and emerged from federal bankruptcy court.

The unemployment rate in June for Ohio was 11.1 percent, the report noted, a figure it said would continue to "show a downward trend throughout July." Consumer confidence also decreased somewhat in July, but the trend still appears to be improving relative to the extreme lows registered in February, it said. Also, for the first time in nine months, Ohio’s total tax receipts exceeded estimates. However, the real news is that "year-over-year performance is still 11 percent below the July 2008 levels."

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com and is available for subscription (99 cents/month) to Kindle owners. His tweets on Twitter can be followed @OhioNewsBureau. To send a news tip or to make a comment, email him at: ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Time Right to Make Ohio General Assembly Part-Timers

Time Right to Make Ohio General Assembly Part-Timers

Elected Officials Should Help Bear Brunt of Balancing Budget

by John Michael Spinelli

July 7, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: While Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland arm-wrestles with Senate Republicans over what combination of hurtful spending cuts or wild-card revenue generators can deliver a two-year balanced budget, one big, blatant expenditure category that could produce real savings is the sacred cow of converting the Ohio General Assembly from one of the longest sessions in the nation to a part-time avocation that could net tens of millions in cost avoidance.

As each day goes by without an agreed-upon two-year budget after July 1, the start of the new fiscal year as required by the Ohio Constitution , the meltdown in cooperation between the executive and legislative branch over what cuts in spending or proposals for new revenue will win the day will only exacerbate the already fiery contest of political wills and agendas Democrats and Republicans are now engaged in.

Current solutions to patch the projected $3.2 billion budget hole include a combination of harmful measures that either weaken the social safety net millions of Ohioans who have lost jobs of late now depend on or undercut the state's investment in education or rely upon the wishful thinking wild-card that bringing new gambling devices and operations to a state that has said no to them four times previously will be a partial revenue White Knight.

Reflecting on the menu of statewide constitutional reform issues brought to a statewide vote in 2005 by progressive groups and labor unions who thought Ohioans would approve them in response to a string of government scandals tied to Republican officeholders and their loyalists, many of whom were judged guilty by a court of law of unethical or corrupt activities, one reform item that should have been included but wasn't should have been to limit the term of the Ohio General Assembly.

While the five reform amendments went down in flames, some by staggering proportions, giving Ohio voters a chance to change how long politicians stay in Columbus, site of the Statehouse, may have been the one that could have passed had it been included. Playing on the general right-of-center gut belief that the longer elected officials are allowed to be professional politicians, the more special interest lobbyists will be able to buy laws that favor their agendas even though the public at large may be the victim of that legislation, it seems the time is right to revisit the issue of converting the virtual year long session of the legislature into a shorter, defined term that will force elected officials to prioritize and address the key issues of the day. If other states can do it, so can Ohio.

But the will of the people must be brought to bear for this to happen. That will, it seems, is no where in site despite the constant carping, bickering about government and taxes and the general contempt Ohio voters have for public officials other than the ones they vote for.

Where are the TeaBaggers and the fiscal conservatives , who generally wave their American flags and spout platitudes about the benefits of small government but who have been asleep at the switch of limiting the time their legislators can boost their pay and pension contributions, the two reasons why professional politicians will fight to stay in office.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Ohio legislators who are term limited to eight years in one chamber or the other are always looking for a chance to extend their terms to maybe a dozen or even more years. Their argument has been that voters can term limit any candidate by unseating them in the voting booth and that so-called "institutional knowledge," the intangible wisdom that comes from being in office for decades as was the case before term limits were approved in the early 1990s, would deliver good government because the experience accumulated over time would accrue to a legislator's understanding of various issues, giving them the perspective and wisdom to make good decisions.

Of the nation's 50 states, Ohio has long ranked as one of the top states with full-time legislatures. The cost to Ohio taxpayers, vis a vis the General Revenue Fund, for running the General Assembly, both the Ohio House and Senate, is not insignificant.

According to most recent FY 2010-2011 Redbook analysis of the executive budget proposal for each agency prepared by the Legislative Service Commission, total funding for the Ohio House of Representatives, comprised of its 99 members, 165 full-time staff and 40 pages, is $20.6 million a year or $41.2 for the biennium.

For the Ohio Senate, with its 33 members, 125 full-time staff and 40 part-time pages, total funding amounts to $12.6 million or $25.2 for the biennium.

Therefore, the combined total of our full-time professional legislature for two years is $66.4 million.

For a state whose residents historically have decried government at all levels as being too big, too costly, too intrusive in personal affairs or an obstacle to business development, it is curiously ironic that those who complain the loudest are suddenly silent to clipping the wings of the very people they charge with either playing politics or for partisan advantage or working in opposition to the what's best for the public interest.

Amid the the flame throwing over whether taxes should be increased or more cuts to government should be made, one cut that could achieve the dual goals of reducing the cost of government and forcing lawmakers to address the key issues of the day would be to send elected officials to Columbus for a limited period, to do the public's business on the key issues of the day. Afterward, they can go back home, where they can work on family or personal business without tax payers footing the bill.

But such a sane, common sense proposition seems a bridge to far for Ohioans, who will suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous politicians acting outrageously at a time when outrageous behavior is not their calling.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Spinelli on Assignment is syndicated by Newstex.com, can be followed on Twitter @OhioNewsBureau and available for subscription to Kindle owners. To send a news tip or make comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Budget Battle Leads to More OhiWoe

Budget Battle Leads to More OhiWoe

Ohio Poll Shows 46% of Ohioans Fear American Dream May Fail Next Generation

by John Michael Spinelli

May 11, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: With fewer than 50 days left for a split General Assembly and Governor to hammer out a budget they can both agree on, the news last week that figures for the current fiscal year could be as much as $900 million more out of whack due to plummeting tax hauls was tantamount to pouring more salt into an already gaping wound.

Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, the first of his political ilk to hold that office since Republicans dominated it starting in the early 1990s, has had to trim state spending three times to the tune of about $2 billion in his first three years, due to an economy that was already failing fast when he won the office in 2006, and is falling further and faster with little expectations for recovery anytime soon. The Ohio Constitution requires a two-year balanced budget effective July 1st.

Strickland has stuck to his story that Ohio's woes are the result of a national economy gone sour, due in large measure to reckless management by former president George W. Bush and a Republican-led Congress that turned a blind eye to their leader's flagrant spending on the war in Iraq and his staunch philosophy toward business that regulating them is wrong.

But Strickland, who by one recent poll may still be popular enough to beat any Republican opponent in 2010 when he runs for relection, is taking lightning strikes from Republicans, who want to see his apple cart upended at all costs, and from Ohio media, which is less timid to assign more of the blame for a bad economy on the good governor and his budget director,, who has been lambasted for poor prognostications that fewer statehouse watchers put much faith in these days.

In a one-two punch from Ohio's Greatest Newspaper, the lead editorial in last week's Columbus Dispatch pegged Gov. Strickland and his new Democratic House of Representatives with performing a "profound disservice to the state" by ignoring reality and putting off tough decisions.

Part of Strickland's budget problems stem from his use of $7 billion in one-time federal stimulus money to patch program funding for the next two years while whistling past the graveyard of future budgets that won't have manna from heaven to rely on.

A second problem was the gamesmanship over budget numbers and forecasts used by the Ohio House to justify adding even more funding to placate social service advocates who saw their clients going without with no happy ending in sight. Adding to the mess are the happy budget forecasts Strickland received from the Legislative Service Commission that House Democrats relied on when they padded the budget and passed it to the Senatet, where Republicans rule the roost.

Further exacerbating his budget woes is the news that funding for his new education plan, a plan he said would make or break his administration in terms of being successful, was determined to be under-funded by more than $1 billion.

Republicans, who have been good at throwing brick bats at the phlegmatic governor but who have offered little in the way of realistic remedies, are as happy as pigs in mud over Strickland's plight. State Auditor Mary Taylor, the lone Republican to hold a statewide office after Democrats swept the election of 2006, estimated recently that the "structural deficit" will be as much as $4 billion in each year of the next two-year budget. But estimates are, well, estimates, and things could change, but no one can forecast with any certainty which direction change takes us in.

The paper's senior editor chided state leaders, including Strickland, House Speaker Armond Budish and Senate President Bill Harris, for not acting on the reality they can see before them. Joe Hallet said this about OhioWoe's difficult situation: "The state is bleeding jobs, 269,000 more in the past 15 months. The jobless rate is the highest in 25 years. More than one in 10 Ohioans receive food stamps. More than one-third of Ohio's schoolchildren qualify for the federal lunch program. Food pantries are overrun, and some have closed because they can't keep up with demand."

Hallett, whose paper's long tradition of siding with Republicans against Democrats and backing business over consumers, called for raising taxes, even though his paper regular demonizes the need to raise taxes on the wealthy or business in general.

While journalists are notoriously wrong about what will happen, the results of The Ohio Poll that gaged what OhiWoeans thought of the American Dream was cannily pertinent.

In a media release on whether OhioWoeans see trouble ahead, 46 percent said the next generation of working adults will be worse off economically than the current generation of workers.

"The poll found a majority of Ohioans pessimistic about their current economic conditions when compared to their parents and that a majority say the next generation will be 'worse off' than the generation working today," according to the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati that conducted the poll this April.

Thirty percent of Ohioans, the poll showed, said their household had been impacted by job loss during the last year.

Even though Mark Zandi, economic adviser to Sen. John McCain, said on the Nightly Business Report that the Great Recession had bottomed out, Ohio's woes will not soon rebound. Not having recovered from the recession of 2001, it's a long shot that Ohio can rebound from the crippling blows of lost jobs that will continue to roll its way, especially as we watch the fate of Chrysler and General Motors, two automakers who still employ tens of thousands Ohioans each.

In a news release today from Ohio junior U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), he said a proposed Chrysler plant closing in Ohio will make him explore "all avenues to keep jobs and economic activity in Twinsburg.” Brown said he has "discussed the Twinsburg closing with administration officials and will continue to fight for federal assistance.”

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Hunting Black Swan Will Be GOP Swan Song

Black Swan Hunting Will be GOP's Swan Song

Goodwill Hunting for Obama Successes Signals GOP "Nightmare" Strategy Wrong Weapon at Wrong Time




with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: A Black Swan, as defined by author Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book is "the impact of the highly improbable." Black Swans, because they are so rare, unforeseen and powerful, should command respect and not be hunted as a trophy to be mounted for display. But the GOP and its future leaders clearly want to bag and mount the head of America's first Black Swan president, Barack Obama, an African-American whose election, while highly improbable to say the least, will have an historic impact on the fate of a nation trying to surface for air from a sinking ship of state.

Changing the tone in Washington, according to Republicans and the GOP base who acted as if they were deaf, dumb and blind to the reckless presidency of their two-term leader George W. Bush, is all about letting the hounds loose to dog Mr. Obama from Inauguration Day forward, hoping to trip him up whenever and wherever possible.

The GOP, which got shellacked by voters in both 2006 and last year, signaling what some election observers see as a post-election alignment to left-of-center politics, seems poised to nominate as their next chairman of the Republican National Committee, candidates who haven't learned the lesson voters delivered to them last November and who want to double-down on failed policies that have lost support of Latinos, first-time and independent voters, not to mention African Americans and not a few Republicans who switched parties this year to again court their shrinking base of loyalists.

South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson says in a recent video that he will "expose at every turn what Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid want to do to this country," in terms of "bigger government, limiting your freedoms."

Dawson pledged to become the Democratic trio's "worst nightmare" if elected to lead the GOP out of the swamp voters put them in over two election cycles.

Dawson's competitor for the post is Ken Blackwell,the former candidate for Governor of Ohio, who's running for RNC Chairman is popular among neo-conservatives but unpopular among Ohio Democrats who blame him for President winning Ohio and the White House in 2004, when he was Ohio Secretary of State. Blackwell, an African-American born in poverty in Cincinnati but who has since gained fame and fortune, makes his case that Mr. Obama's stimulus plan is nothing more than a "Trojan Horse" to create government jobs, which he says favor Democratic voters. "Creating 600,000 new jobs might help cement Virginia in the Democrat column, making it harder for Republicans to retake the White House," the Bible backing Blackwell wrote in a column at Townhall.com.

Ken Blackwell told Ben Smith of Politico that he doesn't think his uncompromising stands and lack of interest in getting along with sufficiently conservative would hurt him with the pols who compose the Republican National Committee. Blackwell, big in stature and bold in action, said he only has problems with three potential intra-party foes.

One of those three is out-going Ohio GOP Chair Bob Bennett, who did not endorse Blackwell for the national GOP post and who begrudgingly backed the Cincinnati tycoon in a lopsided loss to Ted Strickland in Ohio in 2006. Bennett, who recently retired from the Ohio GOP leadership post he's held since 1988, took a blatant swipe at Mr. Blackwell in a letter to RNC members. The letter was a reminder of how bitter the state's GOP remains over Mr. Blackwell dragging it down in a nearly historic defeat two years ago.

"As the longest serving state chairman on the Republican National Committee, I have personally witnessed many of our successes and failures. I have seen what works and what doesn't and I have recognized those chairmen whose leadership has been effective and who know how to win elections. With that in mind, I am pleased to offer my wholehearted endorsement to Mike Duncan." [Excerpt from Bennett's letter]

Bennett's successor, Kevin Dewine, 41, a four-term Ohio House member, was unanimously elected to recast his state party. "Going forward, we must be brutally honest with ourselves: The last four years have not been grand for the Grand Old Party,"DeWine said in published reports. "In many ways, the party of Lincoln too often has been divided against itself." He cautioned that a resurgence will not happen overnight and maybe not in two years. perhaps not in the next election in 2010, when he has a shot at retaking the offices of governor, attorney general and secretary of state.

As the GOP licks its wounds delivered by voters who whipped it as punishment for eight years of state and federal policies that have driven many states and the nation as a whole into a deep ditch, manifested by massive job losses, an economic meltdown of staggering proportions and unilateral decisions to start wars of political convenience that have resulted in the death of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of dead men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan, the GOP will find that trying to hunt down America's first black Black Swan will backfire on them, given the hope by Americans that Mr. Obama be give ample time to undo the massive mess their leaders created.

A daily tracking poll byGallup, on the percentage of American who are confident or not confident in Mr. Obama's ability to be a good president, show those who believe he is up to the job is between 66-71 percent. An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted recently show that 80 percent of those surveyed think Mr. Obama is handling the presidential transition well. The same poll shows that 70 percent believe Congressional Republicans will be of little help or none at all to Mr.Obama's agenda. Seventy-one percent think Mr. Obama has a mandate to work for major new social and economic programs, and should not pursue small policy changes.

With numbers like these available to them, GOP leaders, whether local, state or federal, should put down their hunting weapons, and let the political Black Swan that is Mr. Obama engage in free-range feeding and not try to shoot it on sight, thereby killing the goose they hope will lay many golden eggs.

The old, tired GOP mantra that small government, less regulation and reduced taxes is the answer to prosperity for all has been debunked from eight years under Mr. Bush and from nearly a generation of such propaganda that started with the rise of "borrow and spend" started with the Reagan Revolution of 1980.

Incoming White House chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday about deficit spending and how Republicans have turned on a dime from saying it doesn't matter to saying it matters. Emanuel said he finds calls now by GOP leaders and supporters, like Blackwell, Dawson or political icon Rush Limbaugh, to be super wary of spending taxpayer dollars to lift America out of the single greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression ironic. He said it comes from the same Republicans who championed such spending over the last eight years when it came from their party's president for wars and tax breaks for the rich.

What GOP leaders should be very afraid of is not Mr. Obama's $800 or more billion spending plan, but his renewed and invigorated campaign to build on the network of supporters and campaign fund contributors he built on during his two-year odyssey to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In an email to his campaign database Saturday, three days before he takes the oath of office for President, Mr. Obama congratulated his millions of supporters for building the "largest grassroots movement in history." Mocked and derided by the GOP pick for Vice President, a Black Swan candidate in reverse, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin derided and denigrated community organizers positions without any "official responsibility." Mr. Obama's young-man job was that of a community organizer in Chicago.

Now the nation's community organizer-in-chief, with official responsibilities galore, President Obama is charged with extricating America from a deep dark hole neither Ms. Palin nor her political colleagues warned against in the first place. Mr. Obama is rallying those who brought him this far, challenging them to keep going because his movement to bring "Change we can believe in" is just starting.

In his pledge for the future video, Mr. Obama told his volunteers and supporters that they "shaped the future of this country" and told them their movement is "to important to stop growing now." He announced a new effort, "Organizing for America," a new initiative to build on campaign issues like stopping the War in Iraq, health care for all and developing new energy sources that will power the economy and protect the environment.

He said such efforts will necessarily be lead by volunteers, grassroots leaders and regular citizens. GOP leaders should heed his call for expanding and re-powering a juggernaut of organization and technology that took them to the cleaners.

If GOP leaders, elected officials and supporters think all they have to do is say "they lost their way" and want to return to core principles that put their party and its supporters first and the nation second, they will wake up again in 2010 to the news that their party, made up mostly of white, rural, fiscal and social conservatives, will be smaller and more impotent.

"What you built can't stop now," he said, adding, "Together with our partners at the Democratic National Committee and its new chairman, Governor Tim Kaine, this movement will continue organizing and bringing new people into the political process." In solemn words, Mr. Obama said the "challenges facing our country are too great, and our journey to change America is just beginning."

Obama's inaugural address will will focus on "where we are as a country and who we are as a people," according to David Axelrod, Obama's senior campaign adviser who will now advise him in the White House, speaking on ABC's Sunday show "This Week" with George Stephanopolous. Axelrod said "we're in the mess we're in" due to Republican policies that "doubled our debt in just a few years." Like Emanuel, he, too, didn't hear critics ofObama's spending plan be critical of President Bush's spending. Axelrod said Obama's plan is not just spending for the sake of spending. Instead, he said Obama's spending constitutes investments on a variety of issues, all of which will pay long-term dividends. He said they are thoughtful, not frivolous.

The Black Swan has spoken. The GOP should listen well. If they don't, their swan song will be to self-select themselves onto the endangered species of political parties.


John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional, business and travel writer and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is also Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Tin Cup Governors

Tin Cup Governors

Will Alms from Washington Be Enough?

Ohio Asks for Funding for Road, Bridge, Rail Projects

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Governors and mayors from across the nation, especially from the 44 or so states that have widening budget deficits with no shovel-ready sources of money to close those gaping gaps, are rattling their tin cups, hoping soon-to-be President-elect Barack Obama will shower them with tens of billions of federal dollars so they don't have to choose between shedding services, raising taxes or both.

The closer Obama comes to his inauguration day, the more intense will be the call for stimulus funds -- wasteful bailout funding to some, especially fiscal conservatives -- to flow like flash-flood waters to thirsty states whose budget cups are leaky and dry.

Republicans, who never batted an eye when President George W. Bush ran up record deficits to pay for expensive wars and who defined not spending massive amounts on supporting the troops as un-American and un-patriotic, have switched back to traditional anti-tax arguments.

They are warning that Obama's proposed stimulus package, designed to produce millions of jobs to replace the millions lost just this and over the course of the two terms of out-going President Bush and his tribe of fiscal and social conservatives, shouldn't be too big because it will necessarily shift the burden of repayment to future generations.

But as the debate escalates over how big the economic recovery package should be, governors of states like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Ohio, among others, are indeed the Chicken Little's of our time. Only in their version of this classic children's tale, the sky really is falling.

In Ohio, for example, a Republican-controlled state since 1992 that elected Democrats in 2006 and went for Obama last year, the projected budget deficit so far is about $7.1 billion, the greatest budget gap in history.

Strickland, Ohio's first Democratic governor since the early 1990s, said in early January that the situation facing the state of Ohio is so dire that in order to balance his state’s budget, he would have to fund every state program at 75 percent of its current level, according to Politico.com. “If I were simply to flat fund the operations of this government, I’d end up with $7.3 billion in deficit,” he said, adding, "We’re just trying to keep afloat.”

The governors have collectively requested Obama and a new expanded Democratic-led Congress for $1 trillion. Hard hit by jobs losses across the board, manna from Washington would be spent to prevent cuts in social services and education, as well as “shovel ready” infrastructure projects that could begin with 18 months, according to published reports.

In the Buckeye State, jobs numbers are grim. Numbers from the Department of Job and Family Services show that employment decreased by 26,600 jobs, while goods-producing industries were down 29,330; manufacturing was down 22,100; and construction lost 7,500 jobs. For a state that never recovered from the Bush recession of 2001, losing 95,000 in the past 12 months, pushing the unemployment rate to 7.3 percent, is shock and awe of a different kind. In some areas of the state, like Lucas County, home to Toledo, the unemployment rate is 9.5 percent. In nearby Ottawa County, it is 10.3 percent.

As dire as conditions are, Republicans are being taken to the wood shed on the efficacy of tax cuts versus direct government spending. Obama's economic team says alms for poor states pack a bigger bang when spent directly than through tax cuts, which recipients might save instead of spending.

For a state like Ohio, which experienced $1.2 billion in state budget cuts in 2008, the hundreds of millions can't arrive soon enough.

In one region, Cuyahoga County and four other northeastern Ohio counties, the cost of their proposed projects are at $197 million, published reports say. County leaders, the report says, have added tens of millions of dollars more to the list.

Howard Maier, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, which funnels federal money to local transportation projects says, explaining the sum to a central Ohio newspaper, said: "We have to be ready the moment a stimulus package is approved." He added, "It's not just the direct jobs; suppliers are involved. There's a multiplier effect of the construction."

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman is using the opportunity to get his push for light rail back on track. Coleman wants $200 million to build a 13-mile transit system. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson wants $730 million to fund road and bridge projects.

But as this page has reported before, so-called "shovel-ready" projects may not be "future-ready" projects.

Which alms flow in what amounts to which states will be a fierce contest for sure. With consumer confidence just one point above an all-time low, doors will be open for the greenback cavalry when ever it arrives.

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional, business and travel writer and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is also Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Blame Forward: Holding Republicans Accountable as Obstructionists to Revival

Blame Forward: Holding Republicans Accountable as Obstructionists to Revival

with John Michael Spinelli

Op-Editude

Columbus, Ohio: Having stymied important legislation from passing for two years by preventing Senators from reaching the magic number of 60 in the Senate, backing a reckless war launched by a reckless president that will end up costing us all trillions of dollars and loosing big time in two successive election cycles that show just how fed up Americans are with their brazen, party-first policies that have brought us to the brink of disaster, it seems appropriate that Republicans be blamed forward for what appears to be their strategy of opposing at all costs President-elect Barack Obama's spending plans to bring America back to life again after eight straight years of pet Republican policies that put the nation, and much of the world, on life support.

Republicans, from George W. Bush in the White House to their control of both chambers of Congress for four years starting in 2002 when the GOP regained control of the US Senate, can rightfully be adjudicated as the party who endorsed at best and sat by idly at worst as their leaders, who said government was the problem but who became intoxicated with its power, took us from Clinton budget surpluses to massive Bush budget deficits.

It would seem that people who constantly carp about government as the enemy, who don't know how to run it efficiently or effectively when put in charge of it yet feel as happy as a pig in mud when they have that responsibility and who say starving it so it can be drowned in a bathtub is good, shouldn't be allowed to have anything to do with it; but that would be un-American and un-Democratic, not matter how much sense it makes.

As compassionate as a fox in a hen house, Republicans have brought great harm and heartache to the nation. As the minority party, they now intend to thwart the first African American president and his agenda to revive an economy that's tanked, put to work millions of people who have lost their jobs and bring about the kind of change that garnered him eight million more votes than John McCain or Sarah Palin, showing just how tired and disgusted the nation is with them and their party's so-last-century social and fiscal models.

Woody Hayes, the now infamous football coach of Ohio State University who won several national titles but who will forever be known as the military-like curmudgeon coach who was fired because he slugged an opposing team's player in a bowl game as the tide turned against the Scarlett and Gray, used the phrase "paying forward" to teach the lesson that "paying back" is retrospective while doing good deeds along the way instead of at the end of your career is prospective. Doing so, Hayes believed, you'll have built up a line of credit in being humane that will make you and those you touch better off for it.

Republicans who ruled Washington and state capitals from the mid-1990s to the election cycle of 2006 and who ladled out opportunities for Democrats to me partners in policy formulation as sparingly as a jailer giving food to prisoners and who believed unbridled spending was good as long it was for the war in Iraq, are now whining that Obama needs to be mindful of spending so future generations won't be unduly burdened. Such overt, disingenuous hypocrisy is a wonder to behold. But Republicans have no shortage of brazen chutzpah when it comes to telling others to not do what they do.

Now the minority again after an electoral drubbing of staggering proportions that will be achieved again in 2010 because hopeful GOP leaders think that doubling down on their agenda of making the rich richer, the middle class poor and siphoning off tax dollars to pay their cronies is what you do when you get elected, Republicans are staging, and the media is swallowing it whole like they did the bogus reasons for going to war in Iraq, that too much spending to put people back to work and remedy a housing situation made possible by the greedy Wall Street crowd their economic policies were crafted to satisfy, an assault on Obama and a new, expanded Democratic congress voters installed last November for following through on the campaign promises they ran on and won on.

New York Times columnist and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, Paul Krugman, sees the new-found caution on spending by Republicans as their way to water down Obama's spending plans to a point where they won't do the job, thereby giving them the chance to say his agenda doesn't work, and please elect us again.

Krugman displays his math skills, arguing that Obama's plan to spend about $775 billion over two years is a conservative amount to do what's needed to put people back to work. He says it "takes $300 billion to reduce the unemployment rate by 1 percentage point" and that spending less will do less, playing into Republican arguments they media is already regurgitating that tax cuts for the wealthy and business is what's needed.

"I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell [aka "Dr. No"] says “See, government spending doesn’t work.” [Paul Krugman ]

Job losses just in 2008 is about 2 million, and news from the Gallup polling group released Tuesday forcast that the unemployment rate is likely to surge on Friday, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to show that jobs lost at the end of the year will exceed the seasonally adjusted four-week average of 552,250. The Gallup poll also predicts that the unemployment rate is likely to "surge past 7%." And for those of us who believe the official unemployment rate is tamped down from what it shoud be, the real rate, made up of categories of workers not normally factored in to calculations, could be 4-5 percent higher.

While this debate is taking place, we learn that manufacturing activity fell to its lowest point in 28 years. We also hear that some state governors, especially five from the Midwest including Ohio, are asking the new president and congress to open the cash-flow sluice gates to prevent more cuts to education, social services and infrastructure.

For states like Ohio, where about 250 thousand jobs are directly or indirectly tied to the fortunes of Detroit's Big Three, news that Chrysler sales are off 54 percent, General Motors 31 percent and Ford over 32 percent is downright scary. Even without a collapse of car makers, Ohio and two other states, New York and North Carolina, had to shut down their electronic unemployment filing systems due to system stress and heavy volume.

The report by ABC News said about 4.5 million Americans are collecting jobless benefits, a 26-year high. Web sites and phone systems now commonly used to file for benefits, it said, are being tested like never before. That's not all, folks.

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional, business and travel writer and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is also Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

I Now Pronounce You Mr. and Mrs. Neocon

I Now Pronounce You Mr. and Mrs. NeoCon

Will GOP Peg Future on Shotgun Wedding of Ken Blackwell and Sarah Palin?

Republicans On Leadership Ledge Find Democrats Shouting Jump

with John Michael Spinelli

Op-Editude

Columbus, Ohio: The news that J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's former two-time secretary of state roundly criticized for his partisan administration of the 2004 election that gave the state and the White House to George W. Bush, is a leading contender among GOP neocons to become the next leader of the Republican National Committee (RNC) warms the hearts of Democrats.

Instead of fearing what a wealthy, Evangelical African-American who lost a race for Ohio governor to Democrat Ted Strickland by historic margins in 2006 can do to resuscitate a party many now believe is a regional party because it only reflects the voters in mostly southern states, some Democrats are encouraging the GOP to peg its future on Blackwell and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, two polarizing politicians who embraced social-wedge issues against gay rights and stood for guns, melding the Bible with government and fiscal conservatism that delivered big losses for each of them in successive election cycles.

Two dozen conservative luminaries are poised to announce their support for Blackwell for Republican Nation Committee chairman, according to Politico reporter Ben Smith. A group backing Blackwell that "mixes leading economic conservatives, including Steve Forbes and Pat Toomey, and leading social conservatives, including James Dobson and Tony Perkins" has agreed to endorse and campaign together for a candidate based on a questionnaire assembled by veteran GOP neocon activist.

"The conservative endorsers noted that there were other good candidates, but all agreed that Ken Blackwell is the best choice. They intend to contact grassroots conservatives across the country and ask them to urge the three RNC members from each state and U.S. territory to vote for Ken Blackwell for RNC chairman." [Ben Smith of Politico]

Smith says Blackwell appears to have the public support of 12 RNC members now, but the winner will be whom ever can garner a majority of the RNC's 168 members. Among his other post-election positions, Blackwell is now the Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment at the Family Research Council and the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow for Public Policy at the Buckeye Institute in Ohio's capital city Columbus.

Blackwell, a Xavier University football player who once tried out with the Dallas Cowboys, will compete with southern state contenders like current RNC Chairman Robert "Mike" Duncan of Kentucky, South Carolina Chairman Katon Dawson and former Tennessee chairman Chip Saltsman. The physically imposing Blackwell, who hails from conservative southwest Ohio, joins former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele as the only two black candidates. The last RNC hopeful is Saul Anuzis, the Michigan GOP chairman. One of these candidates will be selected to lead the GOP back from the brink on Jan. 28.

Sarah Palin, the GOP 2008 candidate for vice president who energized the GOP base with her feisty, small-town style of stump politics that tried to replay a hand of divide and conquer that worked so well for the GOP over a generation but came up craps in a staggering loss to President-elect Barack Obama, is the focus of many pundits and media types who think her good looks, aggressive opportunism and taste for the kill will put her ahead of the tired old white guys who lost to one of their own, Arizona Sen. John McCain, but who are now jockeying four years out for another run at being top of the ticket.

If the marriage of two unabashed, unrepentant neocons like Blackwell and Palin is what the GOP thinks is their turnaround ticket to the post-election alignment of the nation to Democrats and a socially progressive agenda, they will indeed have headed the call of progressives and Democrats to "jump" from the narrow political ledge the GOP finds its self on, made possible by stunning gains by Democrats at all levels of government in states like Indian, Virginia, North Carolina and Nevada that Republicans thought they had in their back pocket.

It would truly be a contemporary exercise in Double Think and Double Speak -- concepts at the center of 1984, George Orwell's tale of a dystopian world -- to believe that two ultra social and fiscal conservatives like Blackwell and Palin can be true to their agendas when the nation has chosen to another road, one more open to a progressive agenda that embraces values so anathema to the GOP's shrinking base now mostly isolated to Deep South states. Moreover, Mr. and Mrs. Neocon were front and center in support of President Bush, whose presidency ended with sky-high disapproval ratings and whose political party is now being characterized as a "party of whiners."

Ohio, a state now facing historic budget problems in part due to the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs over the last eight years, was run stem to stern by Republicans like Blackwell from the halcyon days of the "Contract with America" in the mid-90s to 2006, when Buckeyes, tired of Republican scandals and pay-to-play politics, gave Democrats a turn at bat.

If President Obama and a new, expanded Democratic Congress can pull America out of the steep economic dive Bush and company has put it in, the challenge of Blackwell and Palin, already daunting, will become an exercise in futility as whites, their voting base, become a minority and as progressive programs show that working together rather than pitting one group against another is the smarter, humane course to pursue.

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional, business and travel writer and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is also Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

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

Ohio Budget Problems Worst in Half Century

Ohio Budget Problems Worst in Half Century

Strickland, State Leaders Gird for More Painful Cuts




OhioNewsBureau

by John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Gov. Ted Strickland and state leaders, facing a worsening financial picture by the day, are girding to make evem more budget cuts on top of current ones, as they try to patch a projected $7.3 billion deficit.

On the Monday after Thanksgiving week that Americans were officially informed that the economy has been in recession for a year, a fact nearly everyone but Washington leaders and the mainstream media understood, Strickland, who came office in 2006 on a platform to "turnaround Ohio" from years of policies devised and pushed by the Ohio GOP, is hoping the slip-sliding state he inherited after 16 years of total control by Republicans, and which has plummeted even further in his first two years, can be bailed out by a new Washington led by President-elect Barack Obama and a Democratic congress.

The news from Strickland's budget director Pari Sabety is that Ohio is expecting a shortfall of $640 million for the balance of the fiscal year that ends June 30, 2009. This figure syncs up with forecasts of a $1.9 billion deficit projected earlier this year. Two budget reductions order by Strickland this year to the tune of $1.3 billion are under way.

“Over the next two years, Ohio will confront the most serious erosion of revenues it has experienced in the last 40 or 50 years,” Sabety said in the Dayton Business Journal. She added that officials are forecasting the first-ever annual decrease in wage and salary income.

Even if all state agencies cut budgets by 10 percent over the two-year budget period, Sabety said the deficit still stands at about $4.7 billion. This effort still accounts for a $2 billion deficit in fiscal 2010 and a $2.7 billion shortfall in the following year.

Strickland won't know how bad things are until after the holiday shopping season is over and sales tax revenues are factored into the size and scope of future budget cuts. With Ohio's economy being what it is, it's tough to a good consumer when you have lost your job or fear loosing your job, as has happened to many thousands of workes across the state.

Strickland's real ace in the hole is President-elect Obama and a sympathetic Democratic congress. Strickland supported New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in Ohio's Democratic primary, but then buddied up with Obama during the General Election.

In his letter to Washington, a city and its leaders who he said is to blame for Ohio's dismal economy, the first-term governor wrote Obama, saying in part: "In Ohio, even though we have already made nearly $1.3 billion in budget adjustments this biennium and most agency spending levels have been reduced to 87.25% of their originally budgeted levels, we are still facing a projected shortfall of $640 million in 2009. Ohioans have sacrificed and have been resilient in the face of the cuts taken thus far. However, additional cuts would be devastating as we are trying to provide basic safety net services during this recession and to stimulate the economy."

He asked Obama and congress to send $100 billion in block grants go to states and $3.2 billion in additional funding under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. The prison psychologist and former Methodist minister also urged the immediate passage of a recovery package.

Ohio is a state whose job base is heavily dependent on Detroit's Big Three automakers and their supply chain. Strickland called for passage of a $25 billion to help out General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, who together employ about 25,000 Ohio workers.

"There will be no national economic recovery without strong states, and I have no doubt that Ohioans, with their resolve and creativity, will do their part and come together in extraordinary partnerships to meet the challenges before us. It is with this collaborative spirit and resolve that I write this letter asking for your partnership. I stand ready to work with you and your incoming administration on this challenge," Strickland concluded in his letter.

For news tips or comments, email to ohionewsbureau@gmail.com