Ohio, we're in quite a pickle.

"Because there shouldn’t be any neighborhood in Ohio where the only vegetable for sale is the pickle on a fast food hamburger."

My God. Whoever wrote that majestic prose deserves a bonus immediately.

Hell, even Brandon Fraser loved it.



After an evening to reflect further on the Governor's State of the State address, I'm left wondering - was that it?

He's down 8 points in the polls among likely voters. He's being criticized as a do-nothing Governor that has hid under his desk while Ohio goes into a death spiral.

And the best he could come up with was....pickles?

With that said, there were also a couple things I wanted to make sure were clarified.

On wind and solar companies, the Governor said:

We should give those companies every reason to choose Ohio. That’s why I am asking the legislature to erase Ohio’s tangible personal property tax on generation for wind and solar facilities that break ground this year, create Ohio jobs, and begin producing energy by 2012.

While I already went over how ridiculous it is to offer tax incentives to only some businesses, a reader brought something even more amazing to my attention:

As of 2008, the State of Ohio no longer levies personal property tax on the majority of businesses. (if I recall correctly, banking and insurance companies still have to deal with it)

The personal property tax had a 5 year phase out as the gross receipts tax was phased in.

Strickland waiving the personal property tax for wind generators is like Texas waiving its income tax for billionaires to move there. It's already happened.

Sounds like something the media should check up on.

Second, the Governor repeated the same distortion he uttered on 700WLW last week.

Next door in Indiana they are in the process of slashing 300 million dollars in state funds from their primary and secondary schools. In Georgia, school funding was cut by 440 million dollars. And at least twenty other states are inflicting serious cuts on their school systems.

But in Ohio we are not going backward on our schools. Using a combination of state and federal resources, we increased school funding by 5.5 percent in the last budget.

Fun word play you use there, Guv. You blame Indiana for cutting state funding of schools, while ignoring the fact that you cut more than twice that, over $700 million in state funding for FY10/11. Your use of federal stimulus dollars allowed you to kick the can down the road, and will lead to even greater cuts in the future as stimulus funds expire.

Third, the Governor also has put Lee Fisher in charge of another jobs program. After losing 350,000 jobs under his watch as Ohio's jobs czar, I don't think that's the best idea.

Fourth, he brought up Forbes magazine to help defend Ohio's record versus that of Florida. Well Guv, that same magazine ranks Ohio 43rd nationally for economic climate and 48th for economic growth.

Fifth, Strickland bragged about the diversity of his Administration. Governor, most Ohioans don't care if someone is black, white, gay, straight, male, female, and on and on and on....as long as they are qualified to do the job - which is something these folks in your Administration were clearly not.

Finally, after yesterday morning's recommendations for the state of the State is..., I gotta say I'm incredibly disappointed with "unyielding". Though, I will admit it's funny. The use of the word acknowledges the passive acceptance that things are in the crapper.

There's more, but I'm sure you know the rest of the story - no substantive ideas that will truly incentivize businesses of all shapes and sizes to come to Ohio. No solution for the jobs crisis. No hope.

Until 11.2.10.