ELYRIA, Ohio — Gov. Ted Strickland continues to be concerned about the future of Ohio’s economy.
Yet Strickland, D-Ohio, said he is fully confident President Barack Obama can defeat the recession after listening to the commander-in-chief speak about economics and job opportunities for the state during a town-hall meeting Friday at Lorain County Community College.
“The president is working his heart out, and I believe, to do what must be done to create jobs and opportunity for our people,” Strickland said in an exclusive interview with The BG News.
The recession, which has depleted the American work force and crippled the nation’s economy, has left hundreds of thousands of Ohioans unemployed. Industries, such as steel and automobile, which were once considered a cash cow for Ohio, are now being outsourced overseas because of cheaper labor, Obama said.
Ohio’s unemployment rate was 10.9 percent in December — the ninth highest among the 50 states, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Obama said some manufacturing jobs will return, but it will be naïve to think all the jobs that disappeared will come back.
“The president did not create the recession. He inherited this recession,” Strickland said. “He has kept the economy from completely going over a cliff that could have damaged us for 10 years into the future.”
Obama is already delivering on his promise to produce jobs in Ohio, the governor said.
Ohio has or will receive more than $9 billion to promote its economy and provide jobs courtesy of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Overall, the state will be given money in several sectors, including health care, environment, and education.
Most recently, Ohio received $1.8 million from the legislation to create Connect Ohio, a company mapping and gathering broadband services throughout the state. Connect Ohio will create about 96,000 jobs, reported by the Times Bulletin, a news organization operating in Van Wert, Ohio.
Obama and the federal government can only do so much, Strickland said. The governor said one way the state can fight through this difficult time is for the younger generation to earn a college education before entering the job market.
And while the state budget has made cuts to other sectors, education has remained a No. 1 priority under Strickland’s watch.
Up until the fall, Ohio was the only state in the country to not raise college tuition for a two-year period.
In October, the University Board of Trustees approved a tuition increase of 3.5 percent, ending a two and a half year tuition freeze.
The state is also allocating $5.5 million to its public school systems from kindergarten through high school, Strickland said.
“I believe the greatest hope for Ohio’s future is to educate our young people and to keep college affordable for our youth,” Strickland said.
Strickland said he will continue to support Ohio students.
“We’ve made great progress,” the governor said. “We’ll continue to make progress because we’ve reformed education, we’ve given our state a constitutional framework for school funding and even in the middle of a recession, we are not abandoning our commitment to education at every level.”
