SUDDES: General Assembly should focus on meat and potatoes, not headlines

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.

Credit: LARRY HAMEL-LAMBERT

Credit: LARRY HAMEL-LAMBERT

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.

In 1969, per capita personal income in Ohio was 101.68% of the national per capita.

In 2021, per capita personal income in Ohio was 89.03% of the national per capita.

That’s the issue in Ohio this election year. Or should be.

But it’s not, because (a) it’s complicated and (b) it doesn’t include the words “abortion” or “gender” or “Trump.” And the issue is bipartisan.

Matter of fact, 1969 was the very last year Ohioans received 100% or more of the national per capita personal income measure. (The data are from the Pacific Northwest Economic Analysis Project.)

The cup-half-full school will counter-argue that in 1969, we didn’t have the internet, or Viagra, or Amazon, or all the other cultural … advances … that garnish America today. But debt funds those advances. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, consumer debt at the end of March totaled $15.8 trillion – “$1.7 trillion higher than at the end of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.”

And what has the General Assembly done? Every two years, when Republicans write Ohio’s budget, they produce a sound-and-light show about tax cuts that supposedly will revive Ohio’s economy. The GOP patented the idea after it won control of the state Senate in November 1984 by vowing to roll back a 1983 income-tax increase approved by Democrats.

The tax cuts began in 1985. That year, Ohio’s per capita personal income was 95.60% of the national percentage. And it’s fallen. Go figure. On second thought, if you’re a state legislator, don’t – agitate instead about transgender athletes, or contraception, or same-sex marriage. Yeah, that’s what’s holding back Ohio, not a 19th century legislature.

Then there’s the uneven pattern of Ohio’s economic development. Part of that’s human nature – how many rings an out of state investor must kiss when she or he is seeking a clear shot at building a new business in Ohio: More rings in Northeast Ohio, fewer in Columbus.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, of Cedarville, deserves enormous credit for helping lure Intel Corp. to the Columbus region, where the chipmaker’s building a huge manufacturing operation. True, also, Ford’s expanding its Avon Lake plant to produce electric commercial vehicles. Still, the pivot of development in Ohio has been trending steadily south, toward Columbus.

Youngstown, Canton and Akron (and the Miami Valley) need major, state-fostered development too. As Democratic gubernatorial nominee Nan Whaley, said in April, “We cannot say to young people across the state that if you want to stay in Ohio and not move to the coast, [you’ve got to] move to Columbus. We have to have investment across the entire state.” We also have to have a General Assembly that will focus on meat and potatoes, not headline-grabs.

The Idea Man: Former state Rep. Michael A. Fox, age 73, a Hamilton native, who died June 23, was a veteran Ohio House Republican, later a Butler County official – then for 48 months a guest of the Bureau of Prisons after admitting conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and filing a false tax return. (Those offenses were unconnected to the legislature,)

From the mid ‘70s to the late ‘90s, a Fox House speech might call for things everyone knew wouldn’t pass – workfare; school vouchers – till, via Fox’s pocketful of amendments, they did pass, as did all the bacon he brought home for Butler County.

He was a big man with a big appetite and big ideas. Life was never dull – not even in Ohio’s House – when Mike Fox was around.

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.

About the Author