The Strickland Shell Game Continues…
Sunday, October 4th, 2009Once again, Governor Ted Strickland (D) continues to play a shell game with the citizens of Ohio and their possibilities of employment in this state. This time, its found in creating agencies set to create economic opportunities – which do so by not meeting.
Dispatch Politics, an online division of the Columbus Dispatch, shed a little light on Gov. Strickland’s Economic Growth Cabinet. According to the Governor, they have worked tirelessly to bring jobs back to the State of Ohio. Despite the fact that they’ve only met three times.
From the Columbus Dispatch:
Saying he has no greater priority than getting Ohio’s economy moving again, Gov. Ted Strickland created a new Economic Growth Cabinet one year ago to “focus on creating jobs and increasing economic growth opportunities.”
But the group has met only three times. And although no one denies the effects that the global recession has had on all states, Ohio continues to fare worse than most others in net job losses.
“I will concede to you that I think more can be done,” Strickland said last week after announcing a $33 million expansion of the Rolls-Royce facility in Mount Vernon. “But I am very proud, and very appreciative, of all the efforts of my cabinet members and of our Department of Development.”
Administration officials say the measure of the new cabinet is not how many times it has met but how much work has been done behind the scenes to help agencies work together daily — often in unprecedented ways — that is bearing fruit.
Still, a promised “unified economic development budget” to increase transparency in spending and a scorecard to monitor progress of development remain works in progress.
Further proof that Gov. Strickland is playing a shell game with Ohio’s economic future – saying one plan, creating larger government in order to accommodate that plan, and being completely and absolutely ineffective in that plan. The result is money – which could have gone directly to serving Ohioans, and creating jobs – are being wasted on fruitless plans that serve nothing but the governor’s own inner circle.
Take heart, Ohio – only one more year before we can call John Kasich our governor…and get rid of this perfect mess in Gov. Ted Strickland.
