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Joe
Uecker
State
Representative
07/25/05
Third
Frontier Project to bring high tech jobs to Ohio
I
recently got back from attending the Bowhay Institute for
Legislative Leadership Development (BILLD). This was a
grueling whirlwind five days of non-stop seminars and a
group project designed to cram as much information as
possible on how to be a good legislator and legislative
leader. There were eleven states who sent three
legislators plus three from Canada.
I thought you couldn’t teach an old dog new
tricks, but I was wrong.
It felt like the old days before an exam, cramming
for finals. (Note that I didn’t say the good “old”
days).
We
touched on subjects from legislative decision-making to
school funding; from legislative ethics to time
management; and from the China economic threat, to the
Medicaid problem. Just
enough time was allotted to the various topics to get us
started on ways to gather further information.
In essence, the five day seminar will really keep
us busy for the rest of our legislative lives.
Probably
the most compelling for our area was the topic on the
“China Threat to Midwestern Competitiveness and
Efficiency”. We
continue to hear how jobs are being outsourced to other
countries. As a result, we also hear how China is gaining
ground on being an economic powerhouse. Most important to
Ohio is how China is outpacing us in terms of jobs in
manufacturing. Ohio
is a manufacturing state. It is what we have done for
decades and we’re pretty darn good at it. However, we
see that statistics tell us that we are losing
manufacturing assembly jobs.
But that is not the whole story.
To drive the point home, look at the giant airplane
manufacturer, Boeing.
To build a large 747 aircraft, Boeing tells us that
it takes 50 tons of aluminum, three million e-mails, and
20,000 web transactions.
But what about all the rivets, the steel tubing,
and the plastic and rubber?
The point is information technology has become the
larger component to manufacturing.
The actual assembly is a shrinking input into
manufacturing. Unskilled
labor is shrinking and educated workers are growing as an
input to manufacturing.
We
see big headlines when American based companies send
components to China for assembly but you see no headlines
when that same company adds a staff of high tech
information technology employees.
This is the “new age” manufacturing of Ohio. We
can still be the “Manufacturing King” of the nation,
but we need educated workers to make this shift.
We hear when jobs leave the U.S. but we don’t
hear that even more jobs are coming into the U.S. from
other countries than we are sending out.
Guess what kind of jobs they are… that’s right,
information technology.
My goal and the goal of many in the Ohio
legislature is to bring more of those high tech jobs to
Ohio.
Why
do I bring all this up? Many have heard of the
Governor’s “Third Frontier” initiative.
This program plans to make a billion dollars
available to bring high tech jobs to Ohio.
This is done with the State of Ohio using its
ability to sell bonds. This is the exact same way money is
raised to fund the Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC) to
fund the rebuilding of roads and bridges (also known as
State Issue Two funds). In the same way as the OPWC, the
funds are disbursed by a commission after a review
process. All
this has to come to the voters for approval as a ballot
initiative this fall.
This will not raise taxes.
But it will bring jobs to Ohio.
I’ll go into specifics in my next column. You can
get more information at “www.thirdfrontier.com”.
Ohio
will continue to lose manufacturing assembly jobs to other
countries that do not put as high a value on employees as
the U.S. We
can still be a manufacturing powerhouse if the voters of
Ohio will look at the Third Frontier Project for what it
is intended to be - a high tech jobs incentive.
Joe
Uecker
State
Representative
Ohio’s
66 District
Representing
Batavia, Goshen, Miami and Union Townships as well as the
Cities of Loveland and Milford and the Villages of Batavia
and Amelia.(614)
466-8134
District
Office (513)-248-2565
Website:
www.JoeUecker.com
Email:
Joe@JoeUecker.com |
