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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 > 2011 > January > 02 > Entry
Editorial: For the times, Strickland had right priorities
Gov. Ted Strickland should get to take a bow on his way out of office. To those who would give him nothing else, he at least did shepherd Ohio through a bona fide economic crisis.
Smack in the middle of his term, the national economy collapsed, sending Ohio’s already sputtering economy into a free-fall. Like it or not, fair or not, voters sometimes hold governors responsible for how the world near them looks.
Gov. Strickland shouldn’t hang his head about being narrowly defeated in those economic circumstances.
In so doing, he broke a long streak (going back to James Rhodes in the mid-70s) of governors winning two consecutive terms in office.
Still he leaves a legacy: His demanding expectations for higher education in promoting economic development; his support for the Third Frontier; his downsizing of the state workforce; his insistence on mostly protecting K-12 schools from budget cuts and holding down college tuition costs are each significant achievements.
Even in victory, Gov. Strickland’s successor won’t grant that Ohio did not stand still during the last four years, a point of the view that clearly exasperates Gov. Strickland.
He recently told the Columbus Dispatch, “…it seems like the guy who is going to succeed me is looking at whatever I’ve done and trying to undo it, and I don’t know why that is because you would think that, even by mistake, I may have done a couple of things right.”
Gov-elect John Kasich has indeed been unbecomingly combative. He’s talked about throwing critics of his ideas under the bus, hurling fruit at the few (as an alternative to imposing regulations on the many) and suggesting that those who criticized him in the campaign should take out advertisements in newspapers to apologize.
Gov. Strickland, a Methodist minister, finds Gov.-elect Kasich’s style woefully lacking in meekness. On that front, these two are never going to agree on whether humility is a requirement or a handicap in pursuit of getting things done.
Some of the issues Mr. Strickland couldn’t resolve or chose not to tackle Mr. Kasich says he’s happy to take on. Though overall state employment has been reduced and workers did take furlough days to cut spending, it falls to Gov.-elect Kasich to address unsustainable public pensions. He also must face an anachronistic system that guarantees government workers raises just for time on the job. (These raises show up even when supposed pay freezes are in effect.)
Gov. Strickland did make round after round of budget cuts, but the really difficult decisions are yet to come. Again, the new guy all but says he relishes that opportunity, but we’ll see.
So much of what the state spends money on — particularly in the realm of schools — flows directly back to communities. Cutting spending at the state level to avoid a tax increase imposed by Columbus won’t mean anything if that move just results in property taxes going up at the local level.
Voters are smart enough to know that is not progress.
Though other states — California, Illinois, Nevada and New York, for example — have arguably even bigger problems than Ohio, this state is unquestionably fragile. It’s hard to see what Gov. Strickland could have done, given the times, to change that.
In fact, things could be decidedly more dire today if he had pushed the state to borrow too much money; allowed Columbus to become politically paralyzed over budget cuts; hired people who got caught up in scandal; or finagled to delay payment of bills.
Gov.-elect Kasich, too, is going to govern in the most demanding of times. As he gears up, he ought to grant that more than a little effort went into to ensuring that his job would not be impossible.
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