Earlier this year, Governor Ted Strickland stated the following:
“I am responsible for the decisions I’ve made and am making in helping this state move through the recession.”
So maybe he’d like to explain CNBC’s new rankings of the Top States for Business.
As we all know, everything is relative. If you aren’t more attractive to business than your neighbors, then you are losing out on business opportunities.
So where does Ted Strickland’s Ohio rank? 34th overall and 2nd only to Michigan for worst in the Midwest.
But that has to be an improvement, right? Not so much.
CNBC ranks the states in 10 categories, from Workforce to Access to Captial to Business Friendliness.
From last year’s rankings, Ohio dropped five spots overall and received worse scores in 8 out of 10 categories.
One thing that stood out to me, besides Ohio’s increasingly bad performance, is where we ranked well and how that corresponds to Ted’s priorities.
Governor Strickland says a key to reviving Ohio’s economy is the 3-C Passenger Rail Project. But guess what, Ohio already ranks 2nd overall in transportation, and has maintained that ranking for years. Someone needs to explain why we should drop $400 million in taxpayer dollars on something Ohio clearly doesn’t need.
Overall and relative to other states, Ohio’s business position since last year has worsened under Ted Strickland.
He can blame the “global recession” all he likes for Ohio’s troubles, but that doesn’t explain how Ohio has performed worse relative to the rest of the nation.
But it does explain why the Governor’s own economic council predicted Ohio is going to be recovering so much slower than everyone else.
Thanks for that, Ted.
