When will our legislators understand that the economic future of Ohio lies in its ability to bring a much larger percentage of citizens through college. But since the Republican mantra is always anti-tax, the legislature has continuously decreased funding for higher education. This forces Ohio schools to increase tuition just to break even. But the ever-increasing cost of health care means that Ohio colleges are losing more money each year. People don't understand that tuition provides for less than half the cost of running a university in Ohio today.
We can hang our future's fate to the ability of high-school educated children (who will find fewer and fewer jobs that don't require at least a 2-year college degree), or we can spend another half-cent when we buy something and help our children get a college degree.
posted by Chaz at 05:31 P.M. EST on Fri Jan 21, 2005 #
Chaz, how exactly will obtaining a degree for an eminently outsourcable and offshorable job really help "our children"? Electricians cannot be offshored, but almost any Engineer can.
I feel no particular urge to increase the rape of my wallet to support more elitists in Ohio's universities. Ohio's problems cannot be solved by taxing her citizens even more heavily. And if the business share of Ohio's income is any indication, her 92%+ individual share is more than enough indicator of how heavily Ohioans are taxed now. Ohio ranks #3 for local tax burden, and #22 for overall (including federal) tax burden.
Since this has been the case for some time, and Ohio has been decaying in all that time too, I can only posit that increasing taxes and shoveling it towards the universities is simply not going to help the populace at large. Instead of taxes, Ohio needs to take the logical step of using the power of government to stop the offshoring of her productive assets (that is, what assets remain after all the packing up and shipping out of her factories). If Europeans can control the flow of their assets and the extemes of their pricings, then so can we.
posted by Guest at 03:32 A.M. EST on Sat Jan 22, 2005 #
A helf-cent sales tax. Isn't Ohio's emergency piggyback tax about that much? And it's set to expire, right?
And for the past 15 years, Columbus has slashed college funding again and again. The one place we can find our future economy sprouting in Ohio, around the universities, and no one thinks it's important enough to fund. Great!
Face it, people get degrees here and move away because THERE ARE NO JOBS TO BE HAD. I had 2 friends move into the area, search for work for 2 months, then, frustrated, they moved to San Francisco and had work within 3 days! Flipping burgers, working at WalMart, and being a store cashier until you land that good job at the factory is no longer how it works, and it will never be that way again. And, quite honestly, Toledo is not a friendly place to people who could bring high-tech employment to the area. Just look at the fiasco by a few neighborhood associations playing NIMBY with the local student population. Seems pretty clear to me that the message they get is that they aren't wanted. BG students get the same from their town. Why would they want to stick around after they graduate?
-Tim
posted by Guest at 02:28 A.M. EST on Sun Jan 23, 2005 #
The only sales-tax hike that I'll support has to pour exclusively into a "U-Haul Fund" which will pay for the moving expenses of destitute Toledoans. They should leave. Their factories left, so why shouldn't they? Other than that, we can try to make their debts leave (yes, 2004 was another record year for bankruptcies in Lucas County).
I've worked in manual-labor temp jobs beside degreed engineers. I know EXACTLY what Tim is talking about. What remains to be seen is if people like Chaz stop their knee-jerking support of tax schemes which just funnel more money to the leeches upon productive society (that is, what little productive society remains in Ohio in general and in Toledo specifically).
After all, you cannot tax a dying economy back into prosperity ... much in the same way that you cannot spend yourself out of an underemployed state. You must first drop all excess expenses. Since it is rational that college students should pay their own school costs, then is it within this philosophy that they should shoulder every bit of school's allegedly increasing burden.
posted by Guest at 04:49 A.M. EST on Sun Jan 23, 2005 #
"I had 2 friends move into the area, search for work for 2 months, then, frustrated, they moved to San Francisco and had work within 3 days!"
IT workers, I'm guessing. If you're an IT person, Toledo is not the place to be. There are IT jobs around here, to be sure, but nowhere near the number or variety of IT jobs that exist in Columbus. Columbus is twice the size of Toledo, but Columbus has more than twice as many jobs than Toledo in the IT industry.
Toledo is still a manufacturing-based economy. Columbus is an information-based economy.
We've all heard about how wonderful the Jeep plant is for Toledo. How great it was that Toledo worked out a deal in the late 90's to keep the plant here. It employs at least 3000 people, and there's expansion going on there.
That lame saying, "thinking outside of the box." I wonder if anyone has ever considered that keeping the Jeep plant in Toledo was possibly the worst thing that could happen to the city? In the short-term, losing Jeep would have been devastating, but maybe in the long-term it would have been a blessing.
Saving Jeep keeps Toledo in the manufacturing-thinking mode. And that's fine. Technology is needed to support manufacturing, so maybe there will be a mini-automation alley in Toledo. But if Toledo had lost Jeep, surely that would have finally pushed Toledo officials to move toward an information-based economy.
But a switch like that doesn't happen overnight. The problem with Toledo and Lucas County is that the so-called leaders of this area didn't have the foresight to see the benefits of moving toward an information-based economy 20 years ago. Of course, hindsight works wonders in a case like this.
Related stories:
Oct 8, 2003: Toledo leads state in high-tech job growth
June 4, 2004: Toledo loses business incubator. There was a good bit of discussion on this posting.
"The Center for Technology Commercialization helped fledgling businesses manage rent, provided common fax and copy machines, and provided business services such as arranging visits with possible investors. "I think the real issue was in general a lack of support for what the CTC was doing and a lack of attention to development of technology-driven businesses on the part of almost everyone that should have supported it," said Donald Monroe, Jr., a member of the board of the CTC."
What about the defeat of Issue 1 in Nov 2003? Remember that?
"Voters rejected [Bob Taft's] plea to approve a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the state to issue up to $500 million in bonds to help finance high-tech projects. [Bob Taft] had said Issue 1 was the final pillar in a $1.6 billion, 10-year program that he said is a "matter of our economic survival as a state." Passage of Issue 1 would have allowed government to use bonds and other sources of revenue to make loans, loan guarantees, advances, direct investments, or in-kind contributions using personnel or property to private businesses."
The Blade op-ed section told us to vote NO on the issue. Supposedly, Issue 1 would not have raised taxes. Yet, it was defeated.
The Blade's reason for voting against high-tech job growth:
"NO: We have grave misgivings about this constitutional amendment and believe it should be defeated. It would authorize the state to borrow $500 million for grants to high-tech enterprises, but it includes no provision for spreading any jobs that might be created to all parts of Ohio."
Spreading the new jobs to all parts of Ohio. Seems like the same thing could be said of college graduates who have their education paid for by taxpayers. How will taxpayer-funded college education benefit all parts of Ohio?
Will the college grads funded by taxpayers be required to work in Ohio for at least a couple of years after graduating? How does it spread jobs to other parts of Ohio if the college grads still leave the state, because Ohio doesn't provide the types of jobs the grads are interested in?
Seems like the 2003 Issue 1, creating high-tech jobs, should have passed first before thinking about raising taxes to fund college tuition.
posted by jr at 11:00 A.M. EST on Sun Jan 23, 2005 #
"I had 2 friends move into the area, search for work for 2 months, then, frustrated, they moved to San Francisco and had work within 3 days!"
IT workers, I'm guessing.
Ironically enough, one has a Masters in Public Health, and the other one a Bachelors in Education (with 3 years of experience teaching English in Japan). With all of our hospitals and schools in the area you think they might have found something, let alone temp work, but only about 4 positions were even posted open for each of them, and not a single one contacted them even to just say they recieved their resume. The temp agency (agencies, they used 3 each) got tired of them calling every other day, even though they were constantly assured something would be available in a day or two.
Toledo does nothing to retain skilled young people, and the lack of a community of such people makes for a bad environment for entrepreneurs in these fields to set up shop here.... a simple chicken or the egg problem: do we try to foster an environment to retain young, skilled, degreed people in the hopes that they will attract or become entrepreneurs in the knowledge-sector economy, or do we try to attract the entrepreneurs to start up a business with the hopes that the people skilled to do these jobs will want to stay or move to Toledo instead of SF, DC, etc.?
..And right now, face it, our local universities are the only places in the area where you can find people learning and doing research in these fields. No other place in NW Ohio comes close to UT, MCO, and BGSU in the employment of experts in these skilled, high-wage fields. If Toledo's future isn't to be found through them, then God help us.
-Tim
posted by Guest at 05:32 P.M. EST on Sun Jan 23, 2005 #
Jr, there's one thing I must take issue with. Think about what you just said: "Toledo is still a manufacturing-based economy."
You know, manufacturing is the veritable foundation of real wealth. (Specifically, the manufacture of capital equipment ... i.e. stuff that you can use to make more wealth with.) If Toledo really had a "manufacturing-based economy", it would have all the support efforts that must exist to provide all the services that such a wealthy thing requires. Hence, there should be enough IT work. But that's not how Toledo works now. And that's because Toledo's "manufacturing-based economy" is being gutted. And nothing exists to replace it. The city is dying.
As for Issue 1 ... well, I for one have no desire to have the entire state put on the hook for paying for bonds that ONLY would benefit the "Three Cs": Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. Toledoans would have watched their state income taxes go south and never come back (since, as we all know, bonds have to be paid back someday, and states pay such things from their income ... hence, our taxes). I helped to vote Issue 1 down, Down, DOWN, and I'm proud of it. Why? Because bonds are just delayed taxation. Because you can't tax yourself into prosperity. Because the benefits would have been monopolized by the politically-connected areas (the Three Cs). And finally, because the one REAL thing that is hardly ever dealt with is an actual need to reduce government spending (thus, size) in an era of economic trouble.
As for Tim ... you know, the only response I can possibly get out of a temp or placement agency is to do what you seem to advise against. The only response I got (resulting in my current position) was BECAUSE I called every 2-3 days like clockwork. I bothered them constantly like this for over 3 months. It was the only way they had to distinguish me from all the other losers looking for work where I'm sure the placment rate was 1%. (If you think about it, the placement rate is probably only 1%, merely by observing that 100-to-1 application-to-job ratios are being commonly seen for Toledo jobs. Yes, an advertised job opening seems to gather about 100 applications now.)
Tim, your further sentiment about "[i]f Toledo's future isn't to be found through [UT, MCO, and BGSU]" is just disturbing. How many people do these 3 places actually employ? Do you really expect good results by continuing the process of corporate welfare (which is exactly what Issue 1 was all about, and is also what a sales-tax increase will be used for). If places like UT really have some useful research going on, then by damn some private investor can spend his own money partnering with the institution to reap the rewards of the results. Students will earn degrees by hanging onto the coattails of this process. But there's nothing engraved in stone that says the public must fund it. Usefulness itself should attract private investment. Anything else is corporate welfare, and Toledo's enormous debts for such things only demonstrate how bad corporate welfare really is for a society.
posted by Guest at 05:10 A.M. EST on Wed Jan 26, 2005 #
You both illustrate the necessity for the esential compenents for regional economic success. Local institutions of higher education do not exist to provide jobs for the community. They exist to prepare students for success. But local government must play a role that have failed at for many years. Government must provide the link between venture capital, higher education and the local workforce. Venture capital has been largely missing.
Ann Arbor's financial success as a community (as does Silicon Valley and the North Carolina Triangle) lies in the capitalization of successful university research. Whether industrial (automotive) or biomedical (spinal disc replacement), much valuable research exists now in our community. But we have a lack of venture capital. Too few wealthy individuals or companies are investing in the success of our local research efforts. We require a government that can match venture capital with local research capability.
I was a director at UT (worked there 16 years before retiring last year). The City of Toledo is virtually absent when we desperately need a broker for our research skills. So, great research is done, but it is often done without connection to venture capital (corporate linkage). Our regional economic development organizations (city, county & Port Authority) look for opportunities from companies interested in locating here, but don't seem interested in understanding how UT's research success might be leveraged into corporate success. Until that happens, there will continnue to be a disconnect between our current state and future financial success.
posted by Chaz at 06:40 P.M. EST on Sat Jan 29, 2005 #
P.S. Ohio ranks 43rd in the nation in funding for higher education. If we keep that up, we will soon rank 43rd in the nation in per capita income.
posted by Chaz at 06:45 P.M. EST on Sat Jan 29, 2005 #
You're right about the VC thing. The last I heard, around 2000 the 4-year total for VC in Toledo was about $6 million. I can only imagine that it's imploded since then since the dotcom crash took a lot of VC funding with it. Toledo is simply not a place to invest in.
It seems that you're trying to say wealth in Toledo must invest with the "mental output" of the schools, primarily UT (with Owens thrown in for good measure, but I discount schools like Davis and Lourdes).
Well, that does seem like a good idea. Unfortunately, I don't control the wealth of the individuals who should be doing said investment. Instead, as statistics only indicate, they like to sink their money into prosperity-destroying speculations like derviatives, dotcom stocks ... and now I'm sure a lot of their money is flying offshore at near-light speeds in order to get that alleged 5%/yr more ROI. I'm utterly convinced that India and China are the new investment hotspots. And that's going to do F-all for the prosperity of people in Toledo.
I do recall an article in the Blade about 18 months ago, in which another factory closed in NW Ohio. The workers were being quoted, saying things like "the management said we were profitable, so why did they close us down". Of course, the operation moved to Mexico.
The point is that being profitable is not enough. Not by a long shot. You've gotta make your numbers, or your remote or foreign owners are simply going to fire you. So eventually you bow to the pressure, and obeying self-interest, you close down a factory. You also fail to invest in your local university, no matter WHAT comes out of their labs. Your eyes are constantly on the prize of the cheap Indians and Chinese. This is the worst part of globalism. This is what in part makes people like Jim Hightower call it "globaloney".
In the mid 1990s, I noted when I lived in Boston that MIT received a staggering $600 million yearly from the US Government for research proceeds. How much partnership or investment funds does UT get?
The answer can't lie in government investment, since Toledo's horrible investment record (anyone recall ESM from the 1980s? I do) only means that more Toledoan taxpayer money will be largely wasted as political cronies make every arrangement that the average bank loan officer would jump up and down in alarm about. Chaz, I can't agree with you here. I can only ask you: what is it about Toledo's foul investment record that gives you confidence that the city and county politicians will make sound investment decisions?
P.S. In 2003, Ohio ranked 3rd in local and state tax burdens, but that sank to 22nd when federal taxes are taken into account. That means that Ohioans generally have low incomes, since the Fed slice is primarily due to income taxes. (In a mirror, Massachusetts' ranking rises significantly since her citizens enjoy relatively high incomes on average.) It will be a problem if it does shrink from 22nd to 43rd, but really, given the general economic collapse in Ohio, that's not much of a fall. Eventually many Ohio municipalities must bankrupt in one form or another as their tax base finally stops voting themselves into bigger holes. Finally, the self-taxing destruction will come to a halt and Ohio levels out into a low-energy economy. Toledo itself can return to pre-1980 levels, provided that all the post-1980 taxation is erased. Garbage collection will subside. Police may or may not become a better organization for actual police work, but there certainly will be fewer cops on call (since Toledo is still losing population, that's OK). Leaf pickup will stop, and people will simply go back to composting it as they should always have done. Snow removal will ratchet back, but since more people will be unemployed, it's not like they will need to go anywhere urgently in the first week after a storm. And so on. Low energy is coming. I consider it unavoidable. Even if Toledo ignores this economic reality, eventually she will bankrupt herself into state receivership, and the same harsh measures will simply be simply be imposed from Columbus by force.
posted by Guest at 06:36 P.M. EST on Sun Jan 30, 2005 #
You need to look at the big picture, not just "my friends looked for a job for two months" or "tax burdens in 2003." We are still in a recession in Ohio, especially in Northwest Ohio. A bad one. But think back just seven or eight years ago. The economy was cruising, Ohio and Ohio's cities enjoyed the largest tax collections ever. The economy runs in cycles. It is never a problem to be solved, but a paradox to be managed. Toledo was a high-performing city in the past and it probably will be again. When the paradox is well-managed (in the center of the four quadrants) all is well. The solution is to keep us there as long as possible.
We can cry about outsourcing or we can do something about it. One example... Nobody has yet parlayed UT's fantastic College of Pharmacy into local business start-ups. But venture capital and creative economic development could bring in entrepreneurs and result in new jobs. And those jobs might not be so vulnerable to outsourcing.
We must see another bigger picture. Toledo is not just within city limits. When we say Toledo, but refer to its economy, we should also include the suburbs and regional counties. That's where Toledoans live and work. Would we not benefit if a large company moved into Sylvania? Might that company employee people who live in Toledo city limits? So, it's important to consider the circumstances surrounding the region, not just how something might effect Toledo's police or fire departments.
Finally, we must work together in ways never before accomplished. Instead of competing against each other (Mercy vs. ProMedica, UT vs. Owens, vs. BGSU, downtown vs. Arrowhead, city vs, county, etc.) we must for the first time collaborate. Economic development units from the city, county and throughout the region must recognize the value in working together. Snagging a new employer for the region is more important than fighting over where it might locate and allowing them to locate elsewhere. And, the collective venture capital of the area is larger than of the city.
Perhaps one of the most interesting Supreme Court cases in recent history will be whether the State of Ohio (and Michigan, Indiana & Kentucky) can provide taxpayer revenue for the purpose of convincing (some might say bribing) a company to locate here. Tax incentives have long been used around the country to lure new businesses. Now the constitutionality of that process is under examination. That single Supreme Court decision may well become the most influential decision over business issues in our generation. Ohio used creative tax incentives to keep Jeep in Toledo. Daimler officials admitted as much. But, in the bigger picture, it keeps us from courting business on a level playing field. It prevents poor states from competing for new business. Ohio may well be on its way to becoming a poor state. Ohioans lag behind in citizen access to higher education (which leads to higher paying jobs. And, high-paying manufacturing jobs are decreasing throught the State. A Supreme Court decision declaring the use of tax incentives unconstitutional for the purpose of luring new business might be welcome. Furthermore, it would be ultimately fair for every state, regardless of their current prosperity or willingness to give away much needed tax dollars to corporate shareholders, just to lure the business into your state in the first place.
Finally, unless the State seat of government moves to Toledo, we will never have the same diversified base of employment as Columbus and central Ohio. We must find a way out of trouble on our own. All the more reason for someone to convene all of those competing entities and convince them to collaborate. A very, very strong, popular and persuasive mayor might have a chance. It's probably been fifty years since we had such a mayor. I don't see anyone like that waiting in the wings of either party. We sure could use a political savior right now.
But my earlier point about funding for higher education is critical. The wage difference between a high school diploma and a bachelors degree is very large. Even an associates degree qualifies a person for a decent-wage position. Companies that offer high paying jobs typically require a college degree. So, reducing the cost of college and supporting higher education is very important.
Unfortunately, the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature would rather die than raise taxes -even while millionaires in Ohio use loopholes in tax code to avoid paying their fair share. Check it out. The states with more college affordability have better companies and better paying jobs. That, in return, insures higher tax revenue for the state, allowing it to reduce tax burden for those in need (if they have a legislature with a heart).
posted by Chaz at 05:00 P.M. EST on Thu Feb 03, 2005 #
"The state's public four-year universities say they would lose money to benefit two-year colleges under Governor Taft's budget proposal. Nine of the 13 four-year schools will get less. More would shift to 11 of the 15 community colleges with rising enrollment."
Rising enrollment because community colleges cost less than four-year schools.
posted by jr at 06:45 P.M. EST on Sun Feb 13, 2005 #
I saw UT President Dan Johnson Thursday evening on WBGU's The Journal. I was impressed by Johnson and his ideas about funding four-year schools. He has several ideas, and he's aware of the pros and cons of each. But he said something has to be done and no one else is coming up with a solution. At least Johnson has started the conversation.
posted by jr at 07:49 P.M. EST on Fri Mar 04, 2005 #
Yes, Johnson has some good ideas.
Unfortunately, our state legislators and governor cannot see beyond the next election cycle. They refuse to make the connection between funding all levels of education and future prosperity.
A highly-educated workforce is a necessary component for long-term economic growth.
Cutting higher-ed support provides short-term cost savings with a tremendous long-term penalty.
posted by historymike at 08:43 P.M. EST on Fri Mar 04, 2005 #
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