Small Ohio Town Needs More Than a Photo-Op and a Handful of Single-Use Coupons

Photo by Harrison Haines on Pexels.com

In 2008, near the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, gas prices rose to more than $4.00 a gallon ($5.79 in today’s dollars) up from $1.49 ($2.60 today) on his first day in office. This created economic hardship on many Americans including a former co-worker of mine who had a 25-mile-or-so daily commute.

The gentlemen, old enough to retire, could not because his employment was the source of his family’s health insurance. In this pre-Affordable Care Act era, he could not afford to purchase it on the open market and with a wife who had health issues, he could not afford to go without it.

So, he purchased a small, moped type vehicle and drove on state routes and back roads in the early morning hours commuting from Butler County to Montgomery County five days a week.

Cheap Gas For A Few

On Wednesday, Aug. 18, American for Prosperity, on a so-called Prosperity is Possible tour, stopped in Trenton to roll back gas prices for a few hours saving a hundred or so customers more than a $1 per gallon. The gimmick, which used gas prices from Jan. 20. 2021 (Trump’s last day in office) instead of January 6, 2021, when prices were about 15 cents lower, was part of the Buckeye Initiative created by the billionaire-funded AFP.

Directly across the street from the gas pumps a Fuck Biden flag flapped in the wind and adjacent to the event was a dollar store. Three Ohio-based politicians also recorded staged interviews with the tour guide.

So, the event had everything one would expect to see in a poor rural area: political tools shilling for the wealthy, flags manufactured in China and those ever-present low-wage jobs the Ohio GOP has been shoving into small towns for decades.

What the AFP Wants for Ohio

According to the marketing text on the website, the AFP as four basic goals for Ohio.

1. Curb worker bargaining power. They want to impose so-called Right to Work laws here even though voters have repeatedly rejected this. But the AFP correctly understands that by completely decimating workers bargaining power they will strip workers of economic, and political, power.
2. Push more healthcare costs onto workers. To the bane of wealthy conservative elites, it was workers who fought for, and won, healthcare as part of the pay. Wealthy business owners have chipped away at this hard-won right and now the AFP wants to embolden this corrupt practice so the wealthy can trap workers in never-ending downward financial spiral by burdening workers with medical costs and medical debt.
3. Divert public education dollars away from local schools and use them to fund private schools. The battle over public schools has very little to do with book bans or religious freedom — that’s just surface noise. The goal is quite simple. Create a workforce that knows its place in American society — a workforce that will shut up, work and accept the crumbs that fall off the plates of the wealthy.
4. Embolden the police state. Even though police forces have grown exponentially since Nixon, and Reagan, reinvigorated the Drug War — a War that targets the Working Class and not the Wealthy — and, even though, the country’s incarceration rate is exceedingly high — it’s not enough for the AFP. They want more laws and restrictions.

None of these policies will help workers, or the communities they live in.

Better Options

Back in 2008, none of AFP goals would have helped my senior co-worker. What would have helped him:

• A robust public transportation system.
• Medicare-for-All.
• Stronger bargaining rights.

What would have helped his community?

• A strong public school where teachers have the freedom to produce critical thinkers — sending workers into the workforce that know their history (Ludlow Massacre, Blair Mountain, etc.).
• Tax dollars that support affordable housing
• An adequate source of high-quality jobs
• Sound mental health strategies to deal with the overdose crisis.

But the GOP doesn’t support these policies. Instead, they treat workers like background props tossing them a $20 gas coupon before they head back to Columbus, or D.C., to do the work of the wealthy conservative elites.

Ohio’s Decline Directly Linked to Decades of Quality Job Loss

“This is just one battle in a much larger War though, because the all-out assault on Ohio, is coming from the radical left. I’ve just begun to fight,” Ohio GOP Secretary of State Frank LaRose declaring war on 1.7 million Ohioans who rejected Issue 1.

“As we put this election behind us, we now call on lawmakers to listen to voters, stop advancing issues that only serve to divide us and get to the business of advancing policies that help all Ohioans fulfill their potential,” Ohio AFL-CIO president Tim Burga.

In a four-to-six-week period, based on Ohio Rep. Rodney Creech’s daily travel itinerary posted on his state representative Facebook account, Creech has attended four ribbon cuttings for new businesses in Ohio Congressional District 40. The firms — two food establishments. one retail store and a service industry establishment are indicative of the types of jobs Ohioans can expect to be created over the next decade, or so, in their communities, according to the 2028 Ohio Jobs Outlook.

The report states the second-high job producing sector, in Ohio, through 2028 will be the service industry — jobs like food preparation. The highest job-producing sector will be healthcare. Conversely, goods-producing jobs, like manufacturing are projected to decline.

Goods-producing jobs tend to pay higher wages and offer benefits like vacation, sick leave and healthcare coverage.

Historically service-industry jobs, food establishment jobs and retail stores do not offer fringe benefits for many of their employees, often relying heavily on part-time labor so they can avoid dealing with healthcare coverage — pushing the cost onto workers, or the community-at-large. Low-wage positions are also notorious for imposing non-family friendly work schedules — schedules that can change week-to-week making it nearly impossible for families to plan ahead for doctor visits or even routine car maintenance.

These jobs became commonplace after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Reagan’s ‘trickle-down’ policies reversed the high-wage/low-government subsidy approach to Labor, implemented during the New Deal era, replacing that model with our current low-wage/high government subsidy approach. This approach allows businesses to ‘privatize the profits while socializing their costs.’

When a state, or a town for that matter, is filled with jobs that do not pay enough for a worker to thrive, it leads to the decimation of communities. This is highly visible is places like Preble County — and much of Southwest Ohio — where the quality of life has declined exponentially during the past three to four decades.

Maybe They Have It Backwards

Politicians, who love to post ribbon-cutting updates on social media, tend to be mute, when real Labor issues occur. Maybe they should focus on the latter.

A couple of examples. When Carvana opened in Trenton, it was fueled, in part, by taxpayer-funded subsidies: Ohio Job Creation Tax Credit, JobsOhio Development grant, the Butler County Port Authority Enterprise Zone tax breaks and Butler County sales tax incentives. This is in addition to the indirect public funds they received as the Trenton Industrial Park was funded, in part, with SiteOhio dollars. Ohio GOP politicians, excited when the car-processing facility opened in early 2022 were mute when the layoffs began. That fall, across the nation, Carvana laid off 1,500 workers, — eight percent of their workforce — just in time for Thanksgiving. These lays off came just six months after the company purchased an auction house for $2.2 billion in cash.

Carvana is not an anomaly.

Less than 30 minutes north of Trenton in Eaton, Silfex also benefitted from tax incentives. In 2017, the Preble County Economic Director reported that the Preble County plant would add 109 jobs with its $5.4 million expansion. The company received, the director said, more than a half million dollars from Ohio subsidies (you) and the city of Eaton would provide another $130,000 in a Job Creation tax incentive. The electric grid would be updated with new, heavy duty utility posts — designed to carry a heavier electrical load. The posts were installed along U.S. 35, several miles from Eaton, and creating a trail that ended at the manufacturing plant.

When Silfex announced layoffs at the plant last year, sending local workers to the unemployment line, there were no toothy-grinned social media posts announcing the event.

It’s All About Bargaining Power

In Ohio, a worker needs a wage, on average, of $19 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. It is highly unlikely they will obtain that wage working for a food establishment, or for that matter, for any low-volume niche retail store or service provider. Yet, these are the jobs being created in Ohio.

In his 2023 book, Hell to Pay; How the Suppression of Wages is Destroying America, author Michael Lind connects the dots between poor public policies and the current state of political dystopia in the U.S. He sets the tone of his argument in Chapter One: The Big Lie: You Are Paid What You Deserve. Lind opens with a quote from economist Larry Summers, who said: “One of the reasons the inequality has probably gone up in our society is that people are being treated closer to the way they’re supposed to be treated.”

Lind, who admits the outrageous remark is conventional wisdom for many economists, rejects Summers’ argument stating, that although there is some relationship between skill and pay, what determines a worker’s pay, and the benefits they receive, is the worker’s bargaining power. Those without it, get what they are given, which over the past five decades has been an ever-increasing amount of low-wage jobs with no benefits. But those with bargaining power, like we witnessed this past week with UPS workers, get paid a wage that more closely aligns with the company’s profits. This can only happen with strong union representation.

To accomplish that at the state level, that is to create an economic environment in Ohio that creates quality jobs, requires electing officeholders who back American workers. Currently, the Columbus Statehouse is populated with politicians sending tax incentives to businesses while letting hard-working Ohioans fend for themselves, even if that means an Ohioan must work two low-wage jobs just to subsist.

It’s why the GOP wages a so-called culture war. They need workers distracted, and angry, so they can keep picking their pockets — sending tax breaks to their business cronies — using the taxes withdrawn from a worker’s paycheck to pay the bill.

Fundamental Churches Weigh In on Issue 1: What They Are Saying Is Wrong

In Ohio, for more than a century, residents have been able to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. Issue 1 seeks to effectively end that by changing the rules and moving the goal posts.

So, on August 8, Ohio voters will decide if they believe in democracy and trust each other enough to continued this tried-and-tested approach to amending the state constitution.

For Some Churches Only 2 Issues Matter

I recently read an insert, placed in a fundamentalist church bulletin of an Eaton, Ohio church, and the flyer, provided by the Ohio Christian Alliance, zeroes in on one of the two issues that matter to fundamentalists — reproductive health care. In OCA’s worldview, Issue 1 will unleash a world where women would control their reproductive care, and for the OCA, women simply cannot be trusted to handle this.

Despite the organization’s framing of Issue 1 — and they are skilled at framing having cut their teeth on the 2004 ballot issue that attacked the LGBTQ+ community by denying them their constitutional right to marry — the ballot issue, is about many things, but it’s mostly about freedom. The personal freedom, of citizens, to hold their legislators accountable.

It is an open secret that Ohio’s GOP is corrupt, especially at the state level. They passed legislation, HB6, that raised the utility rates for Ohioans so former GOP Representative Larry Householder could put a deck on his Florida vacation home. Years ago, they changed how the Local Government Funding was doled out — harming and crippling small cities and villages. But, they are also power hungry — seeking further control over local community by upending Local Rule precedents. This hobbles local governments by preventing them from enacting laws that would benefit their local community.

This can be seen in the GOP attack on the city of Cleveland.

Several years ago, when Cleveland officials sought to implement a $15/hr minimum wage for workers employed inside the city limits, Ohio’s GOP, in Columbus, nixed this by passing legislation at the state level prohibiting cities, or local municipalities, from setting wage standards. It was, and is, an assault on worker rights. In the state of Ohio, a worker needs a minimum wage, now, of $19/hr to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

For workers, the Cleveland law, should be enshrined into the state Constitution so legislators cannot override it. This is what workers did in 2006 when they forced up the minimum wage by putting an amendment on the ballot. It passed — by 56 percent — meaning, if would have failed under Issue 1.

Also, if passed, Issue 1 would deny workers even the option of getting it on the ballot as the new rules are so onerous it could not be accomplished.

Issue 1 Is About Freedom

Democracy, by design, is messy.

When the Founding Fathers established the country, they built the founding documents on the relatively new ideas of the Enlightenment. This movement was birthed in response to the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages was a time when religious institutions wielded power over humanity, creating a population of serfs — landless serfs who lived, and died, simply to generate money, and power, for the Church and for Kings.

The Founding Fathers rejected this ideology, correctly believing that humans could be trusted to govern themselves — and they knew that power is legitimate only if, and when, it is granted by the governed.

I agree with them, so I voted No on Issue 1.