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Posts Tagged ‘Jobs and Prosperity’

Snake-oil Economists

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

The Columbus Dispatch ran a front page story by Dan Gearino today on a report being released by the Economic Policy Institute:

The trade deficit with China has cost Ohio more than 100,000 jobs since 2001, and the greatest losses have been in manufacturing, according to a study being issued today.

The report by the Economic Policy Institute, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., was timed for release days before China hosts the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

(more…)

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An Economic Plan We Can Endorse

Friday, July 25th, 2008

The Warren Tribune Chronicle had a great editorial today that should be read by all policyamakers. Its title? Ohio Needs to Cut Burdensome Regulations:

Strickland and other state leaders are well aware that government has a two-pronged responsibility in encouraging growth. First, the state’s business tax climate needs to be appealing. As the governor pointed out, changes now being implemented in business taxes should make Ohio more attractive in that regard. And a $1.57 billion economic stimulus program will help. [No, it won't -- ed.]

But the other side of the coin involves state regulations that businesses often view as unnecessarily burdensome. Strickland and the General Assembly hope to make progress there, too….

A section of Strickland’s executive order in February hit the problem squarely on the head. ”Proposed rules should focus on achieving outcomes rather than the process used to achieve compliance,” the governor wrote in that order. But ”the process” is precisely why many bureaucratic rules exist. Ohioans simply cannot afford for that mindset to persist among state regulators. If the state is to be made more attractive to businesses, change will have to be pushed by both Strickland and legislators.

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Texas beat down

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Some thoughts about Texas left over from my previous post. As mentioned, according to the US Dept of Labor, Texas added 139,000 jobs so far in 2008. Think what kind of job growth they would have there under a strong national economy. So far in 2008 Ohio has added a paltry 6,000 jobs.

Since the bottoming out of national manufacturing employment in March, 2004, Texas has added 40,000 jobs in the high-paying manufacturing sector. Ohio has lost a further 61,000 jobs.

Weekly wages in Texas are $831 through the 3rd quarter of last year. In Ohio, $730.

Could it be just a coincidence that one manufacturing state with no income tax, no compulsory unionization and a regulatory environment that gets out of the way of free markets is growing so much more robustly in terms of employment and wages than another manufacturing state burdened by a lack of economic and workplace freedom?

Nope, no coincidence. Our empirical work has and will continue to demonstrate this truth: the path to prosperity is lit by economic freedom, individual liberty and limited government.

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