You wouldn’t know it from Gov. Mike DeWine’s State of the State statement on Wednesday, but Ohioans are currently hurting under state government caught by corruption and joined extremist lawmakers burdened with dysfunction and I intended to do little else imposing a radical ideology on the safety of unconstitutionally distorted neighborhoods.
Sweetheart Special Interests Republicans often get everything they ask for in Ohio, while community advocates who fight every day to get proven policy solutions that improve the lives of Ohioans are largely ignored. Wealthy families and corporations continue to do phenomenally well in the Buckeye State, while millions are left behind or outright attacked.
In 2010, Ohio was recognized by Education Week as having: The fifth best public school system in the nation. The last Education Week ranking was in 2021 and placed Ohio in 20th place. Recent ranking by US News and World Report ranks education in Ohio at 29. When you break down these numbers, Ohio ranks 21st for pre-K to 12 education and 37th for higher education.
The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics has calculated state support for higher education per full-time student in 2021. Ohio we ranked 40th in the amount of money spent on funding higher education, which is approximately $5,600 per student compared to the national average of almost $8,000.
So Ohio’s Gerrymander lawmakers are looking at how they can facilitate better support our well-known and valued higher education institutions as they struggle. enrollment decline and right size? NO. They attack them. They are attacking free speech and expression in the classroom and all diversity efforts on campuses.
They they proposed and then backed away from their ultimate desire to attack the labor contract and collective bargainingand true to their strange occupations, they also want to forcing transgender people on campus to operate restrooms that do not match their gender identity and appearance.
Meanwhile, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office put fear into Ohio colleges for awarding any diversity scholarships. Our student loan debt after graduation is higher than the national average, and our high school graduation rate is lower than the national average.
On the K-12 side, in 2008, Ohio distributed $69 million in private school vouchers. In 2023, Ohio lawmakers were gerrymandered imposed near-universal eligibility for private school vouchers. This year, Ohio’s public funding for private school vouchers is expected to exceed $1 billion by June.
Who will all the money from the fresh vouchers go to? Mainly families whose children already attended private schools. For the 90% of Ohio’s K-12 students who attend public schools, many of them live in cash-strapped neighborhoods in the face of budget cuts.
Ohio doesn’t do much better in either of them other rankings by US News & World Report. Overall, this places us in 34th place.
Ohio ranks 31st in crime and incarceration; No. 37 in economy; No. 42 in the natural environment; No. 32 in infrastructure; and No. 29 in health care.
But make no mistake, Ohio has a $3.5 billion state rainy day fund and ranks 14th in fiscal responsibility. But don’t count out those chickens just yet. This is what Ohio’s captive lawmakers want final state income taxeswhich would leave a state budget deficit of $13 billion.
They claim they could make money by raising the sales tax, cutting spending, and letting the economy supposedly “fix itself.” In other words, the affluent get richer while everyone else pays a higher percentage of our income in other taxes and fees to make up the difference, and low-income families have their support services cut. This is in the state where 1 in 5 children already suffer from food insecurity.
But wait, what is this? Ohio ranks 11th in “opportunities”? What does it mean? Well, this is not an economic opportunity. In this respect, we rank 35th. However, living in Ohio is affordable, which is why we placed 16th in this ranking.
However, our average household income is below the national average and our poverty rate is above the national average. Ohio has it too one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the countryand rank It ranks 29th in income inequality, with the top 1% of Ohioans taking home nearly 16% of all state income.
We often hear from our leaders that Ohio is a great place to do business. We certainly have a top-tier ranking there, right? NO. We rank 29th in the business environment, 34th in terms of growth and 42nd in terms of employment.
We outperform the top half of states in access (No. 24) and quality (No. 23), but our public health is terrible, ranking 42nd. Our pollution ranking is also dismal, at No. 45. Columbus even recently took the crown as the most polluted city in America. And while gerrymandered lawmakers we have now opened our attractive state parks and fracking siteswe still rank 35th in the energy ranking.
The national average for renewable energy operate is 12.3%, and in Ohio it is 4.4%. We once had one of the strongest alternative energy commitments in the country, but if you remember, the corrupt Ohio House Bill 6 which DeWine signed the same day was it the result of a $60 million political bribery and money laundering scheme that provided $1.3 billion in bailouts to FirstEnergy and several failing coal plants? This it also destroyed the state’s renewable energy portfolio.
The insult to injury caused confusion among Ohio and DeWine lawmakers deprived Ohio communities of self-government over fossil fuel drilling rigsBut made sure that local solar projects could be astroturned into oblivion.
This may all sound pretty bleak, because it is.
But hey, pull yourself together, Ohio. We may not be number 1 at anything. (In fact, we don’t even break the top 10 at anything good). But ultimately, we can at least pick up the kids from one of our underfunded public schools or colleges, meet our over-work and underpaid family and friends, and get out in the sun to enjoy the pollution.
We could have a picnic at one of our favorite state parks and enjoy the soothing views of a fracking operation.
“We are number 34! We are in 34th place!” 🔥
