I was reading a series on the working poor [1] from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer [2] (you know, Cleveland had two newspapers once--Seattle has the Times and the P-I--but I digress) and I thought of a way to (1) jumpstart Ohio's economy and (2) bring bright, motivated people to Ohio.
How about this:
We reward people who give time to Ohio. I can envision a program where the State by way of educational credits and loan forgiveness (not unlike how Teach for America operates) that encourages people, especially those in lower-paying fields such as social work and education, to move here and get loan help for a given time period (1, 2, 5, 10 years) and earn loan forgiveness. Even if they depart Ohio after their term is up, they will have done good work while they are here. They get their load lifted and experience, the state gets people who like what they do and provides some of the services that were lacking.
Also, as an added inducement, people who are Ohio natives (born in Ohio or have a H.S. diploma from an Ohio high school) or graduated from an Ohio university will get a little more loan help.
I bet you are all wondering how this should be funded. I am glad that you asked...
The state should repeal all of the tax cuts for the wealthy and for big businesses that have been passed in recent years. Any business or wealthy person that complains simply does not believe in Ohio. So, frankly, who cares what they have to say? Their businesses will benefit anyway because they will have more potential customers. These customers will be very educated and will need resources just as the current citizens do. This money sitting in their bank accounts collecting dust or in shareholders accounts collecting dust (or interest) does the masses in Ohio not as much good as it would providing funds for teachers, social workers and various educated but financially burdened citizens.
Comments?Links:
[1] http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/workingpoor/
[2] http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/