Strickland can play a mean game of kick the can.

I spoke too soon. In my last post I wondered just how long the number of negative stories about Ohio can go on.

Well, I found another one.

Ohio's ailing unemployment-compensation fund is $1 billion in the hole as of this week, and the shortfall is expected to top $3 billion by the end of 2010 -- six years sooner than projected.

Since Ohio's fund went broke earlier this year as the jobless rate soared, the federal government has been picking up the tab. But the money eventually must be repaid.

[...]

Zach Schiller, spokesman for Policy Matters Ohio, a Cleveland-based research group, said, "At some point, Ohio will have to pay this back and we'll have to figure out how to do that. Nationwide, states are more than $12 billion in debt, so it's a national problem."

So Ohio owes 1/12 of the entire country's unemployment compensations debt?

Seriously?

And Governor Strickland got the state there six years ahead of schedule!

Great job, Guv! [/sarcasm font off]

Stricktaft has an uncanny ability to kick the can down the road. Whether it's the budget, education, jobs....or in this case, paying the feds back $3 billion, he never fails to look the other way or hide under his desk.

Ohio needs a real leader.