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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > May > 27
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Editorial: Ohio leading U.S. recovery? Come again?
An editorial here on May 11 noted that, while the national economy added jobs in March, Ohio did not get its share. Seems like Ohio is always — or, too often, anyway — someplace near the bottom of national economic rankings, at least as to the direction of things.
So it should be noted that in April, when jobs materialized faster than in March nationally, Ohio got more than its share.
Remember reading that the country added a promising 290,000 jobs in April? Well, it turns out that Ohio led the nation, with 37,000. That is, it had more new jobs even than much bigger states.
It was the state’s biggest jump in 22 years.
The point is made here not to suggest that happy days are here again. It’s made with an eye on that old Ohio trend of bringing up the rear.
In some measure, the recent good news for Ohio results from progress in the manufacturing and auto sectors. Nationally, April was the best month that manufacturing has seen in 12 years, in job growth: 44,000.
But that may not be the entire explanation. After all, the good news came from all across the state. Construction, tourism, engineering and accounting all added jobs. Montgomery County and Dayton saw their unemployment rates drop a little, from very high levels. The Cincinnati region — 15 counties stretching up through Warren County — added 14,000 jobs.
So why did Ohio lead?
Maybe, Ohio will benefit from the fact that it has fallen so far and stayed down for so long. Maybe it will spring back harder.
Anecdotal evidence suggests this. A national law firm moves its back-shop activities to Kettering, seeking low expenses in an attractive, well-located place. Local promoters and businesses point to the particularly low cost of housing, office space and manufacturing space.
Meanwhile, the availability of good workers who have lost their jobs — whether blue collar or white collar — is seen as an asset from some perspectives.
The strength of the national economy will matter a lot for Ohio. On that score, it’s best not to assume much, what with Wall Street in turmoil because Europe is in turmoil.
The current upswing — modest, but entailing four months of job growth — pretty much obviates a debate about the need for a new national stimulus (not to mention the fact that President Barack Obama would have great difficulty selling any major new spending plan). Now the work seems to be up to forces beyond the federal government.
Meanwhile, many of the most striking stats suggest only a limited role for state and local governments in shaping the current scene. Michigan continues to have the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 14 percent. That’s not the fault of anybody in government in Michigan. It’s about cars.
North Dakota has the lowest, at 3 percent; that’s not because there’s something in the snow that makes people smart about economics.
In Ohio, Clinton County has the highest unemployment rate of any county, at 17.7 percent. That’s about a decision made by DHL, not local or state government.
As for Ohio as a state, it has spent much of this era in the same boat as Michigan, or at least the same fleet. The latest numbers suggest that if the worst is over for that fleet, the recovery here need not lag behind, after all.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio government
Martin Gottlieb: Rand Paul faced up to real meaning of his pitch
2010 ELECTION
During the primary election campaign, I had occasion to ask a certain candidate the Rachel Maddow question: what about the civil right laws of the 1960s?
The candidate was Rene Oberer, who was running against Mike Turner for the Republican nomination to Congress. She came out of the Tea Party movement, but had an emphasis that struck me as more libertarian than conservative.
She was a newcomer to politics and was flying solo, that is, without expensive consultants to advise her. So I don’t mean to pick on her. The subject of this column is really Rand Paul, from across the Ohio River. The point is that he’s part of something bigger.
In the 1960s, the federal government made it illegal to exclude people from restaurants, stores, hotels and other “public accommodations” because of race. This was a revolution, the arrival of a whole new social system. It was the end of the 100-year reign of government-sanctioned repression — known as the Jim Crow era — that followed the Civil War and defined the South.
Though opponents had said “You can’t legislate morality,” the laws did precisely that. Within the next decade, the white South largely turned against its old ways.
So how is all that seen by the government-is-the-root-of-evil crowd? (Oberer opposed even the extension of unemployment benefits during the recession.)
Oberer’s reaction to the question was captured by Clarence Page (who wasn’t there) in a column here about Rand Paul.
Paul won the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate from Kentucky in the May 18 primary. He’s been an object of national attention ever since.
Specifically, he got into trouble when MSNBC’s Maddow asked him how he felt about the historic civil rights legislation. He told her he didn’t believe the government should have told private businesses whom to do business with.
Page wrote, “As Paul backpedaled in subsequent interviews, it became clear that he apparently had not really thought very much about issues like race and civil rights versus property rights, beyond the easy one-size-fits-all libertarian dogma.”
That seemed true about Oberer, too. She thought the question came out of left field. She asked, why would anybody do that (exclude people because of race)? After follow-up questions, she referred to the line of questioning as “race baiting.”
My read was that talk radio, Fox television and like-minded Internet outlets do not pause long over the indisputable successes of “big government.” So the people who look to those outlets have a certain gap.
Ultimately, Oberer suggested that civil rights law had done more harm than good, making everything about race and resulting in discrimination against whites, especially white males.
Again, it seemed like the myopic talk-radio take.
There, the issue isn’t fundamental civil rights, but affirmative action and “quotas.” Both Oberer and Rand Paul deserve credit for a certain consistency (at least before Paul backed off).
The people who portray government as the root of all evil, but make exceptions for the popular stuff — civil rights, Social Security, Medicare, wars, defense, veterans benefits, interstates, public universities and federal aid in oil spills and other emergencies — have an incoherent position.
Their own exceptions — acknowledging where government is good — overwhelm their own generalization about how “government is the problem.”
After all, that little list of exceptions entails most of what the federal government does, certainly in terms of spending.
Paul is relatively hostile to the war in Afghanistan. Add that to his civil rights comments, and you get the sense that he doesn’t want to allow too many exceptions to his generalizations about the evils of government.
Some people have always stuck rigidly and honestly to the government-as-the-root-of-all-evil position. Typically, however, they stick to writing articles, calling talk shows and posting on the Internet.
They don’t run for office. Or at least they don’t get a major nomination for a major office.
Rand Paul sometimes looks like he might be happier writing articles and calling talk shows.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, National Politics
Editorial: Wright brothers ties to Ohio should count
Strange thing about this business of picking a bygone Ohioan to be immortalized at Statuary Hall in Washington: Some of the biggest competitors weren’t really Ohioans.
Thomas Edison? He was born here, but didn’t even grow up here, before going off to fame on the East Coast.
Ulysses S. Grant? He grew up here, but, even outside the military, lived in Illinois and Missouri as an adult, then settled in New York after the presidency.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”? Grew up elsewhere, spent 20 years here as an adult, then went east, where she wrote her book and spent the rest of her life. (She did say she based her book in part on experiences she had in Cincinnati.)
Dr. Albert Sabin, creator of the oral polio vaccine? He did spend 30 of his 87 years in Cincinnati (with time out for World War II).
Wouldn’t it be kind of pathetic to pick somebody who might be picked more legitimately by another state? Does Ohio want to remind people of North Carolina, with its overestimation of its role in aviation history?
The names above are among the 10 finalists culled by a special legislative committee from 90 nominations. Others: Jesse Owens, Rep. William M. McCulloch (a congressman from Piqua who played a role in historic civil rights legislation), astronaut Judith Resnick, Harriet Taylor Upton (a prominent suffragist) and James Mitchell Ashley (a Toledo congressman and abolitionist).
Then, of course, there are Orville and Wilbur Wright, who are counted as one entry.
They started from modest beginnings, changed the world through vision, determination and ingenuity — and spent their lives in Ohio.
Wilbur was born across the Indiana border. Orville was born in Dayton and died here 76 years later.
Is there any point in worrying about which Ohioans are immortalized in statues? Some people have treated the subject as a just-for-fun thing. One journalist nominated Roy Rogers. What the heck.
Well, true enough, the state has bigger things to worry about. But a decision has to be made. And the occasion has functioned as, to use the fashionable phrase, a teachable moment. School children have been confronted with the case for a wide array of people, learning their stories in the process.
But as to who gets selected, there is simply the principle of the thing.
Other finalists might reasonably be considered as worthy as the Wright brothers. But they are not equally Ohioans.
If you traverse the Internet, you will see cases made for Mr. Owens, Rep. McCulloch, Ms. Stowe and others; and for a woman generally. Some of the agitation is local boosterism. Ms. Resnick gets support in her hometown of Akron, for example.
Some people see the campaign for the Wright brothers as local boosterism, too. But come on. The case is so clear.
The Ohio Historical Society is running a vote. You can cast yours at www.legacyforohio.org, or physically at the Dunbar House in Dayton, or the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce. The vote continues to June 12.
But the final recommendation to the state Legislature will be made by the committee. Those who have joined in the push for the Wright brothers include Congressman Mike Turner, the Dayton Development Coalition and the National Aviation Heritage Alliance. So have people from less visible walks of life.
This is entirely appropriate. Having Dayton’s most famous sons officially embraced as the state’s historical representatives certainly couldn’t hurt.
But, really, above and beyond that, it’s the principle. What’s Wright is right.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Local History, Martin Gottlieb
