Strickland's speech was a dud

(Columbus) - Faced with a projected budget deficit and the loss of thousands of jobs on his watch, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland fell dramatically short of bold leadership today in his State of the State address.

"This is an administration that has presided over the loss of 12,000 jobs in the last year, and now they're predicting a nearly two-billion dollar budget deficit," said State Rep. Kevin DeWine, Deputy Chairman of the Ohio Republican Party.  "It will take more than additional bond debt and a takeover of the education department to fix that.  We've heard this speech before.  His job creation plan sounds like a repackaged version of the Third Frontier program."

Under Ted Strickland's watch:

• Ohio ranks in the top five states for large-scale layoffs.
  
• Ohio ranked third in home foreclosures last year, with filings up 88 percent.
• Ohio's unemployment insurance claims were the fourth highest in the nation in 2007.
• Ohio ranked third in the nation in the most recent job loss reports.
• Ohio has lost 12,000 nonfarm jobs since Ted Strickland and his party were elected to take the helm of state government.

"Ohioans are looking for bold leadership from the governor, and this speech was pedestrian at best," DeWine added.  "It was a missed opportunity.  I hate to say it, but the state of our state is worse than it was when Gov. Strickland took office, and this speech failed to get to the heart of that problem."

SOURCES:

"The number of Ohio workers left without jobs by large-scale business cutbacks put the state among the five highest in the nation last year, the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. Despite the drop in filings in the final month of 2007, Ohio's unemployment insurance claims ranked fourth highest in the nation for the year..." (Business Courier of Cincinnati, 1/24/08)

"Ohio solidified its place as one of the nation's worst home-loan default zones last year with an 88 percent boom in foreclosure proceeding filings over 2006, newly released data show.  Only California and Florida had more filings last year... Foreclosure filings are up 207 percent from 2005, and the rate doubled in the last three months of 2007 compared with the same period a year earlier." (Jim Nichols, The Plain Dealer, 1/30/08)

"In the 12 months following the 2006 election, when Ohio elected a new governor and U.S. senator, the state lost about 12,000 nonfarm jobs." (Elizabeth Auster, The Plain Dealer, 1/30/08)