Congress approved the $787 billion federal stimulus package to boost a sagging economy, but it is difficult to see how the national economy is going to be helped if that money is used to help the economy of one community at the expense of another community.
That’s exactly what will happen if officials in Georgia use stimulus funds to lure NCR Corp. from its hometown of Dayton, Ohio, to the Peach State. No wonder politicians in Ohio are crying foul. After all, the taxpayers of the Buckeye State are helping to fund the stimulus package every bit as much as those in Georgia.
NCR Corp. — formerly National Cash Register — is to Dayton what Ashland Oil Inc. once was to Ashland. NCR was founded in Dayton and grew to become a major corporation there. During its heyday, NCR dominated business life in Dayton and employed hundreds, much like Ashland Oil did in this community.
While times have changed and NCR is not nearly as large as it once was, it remains the world’s leading producer of ATMs. But it no longer is happy in Dayton. NCR announced this week it would move its headquarters from Dayton to the Atlanta area and open a separate manufacturing center in Columbus, Ga. The Columbus center will employ about 870. Meanwhile, the impact of the move on the economy of Dayton and of Ohio as a whole will be devastating.
So how did Georgia manage to lure NCR Corp. from Dayton? Well, Columbus plans to use $5 million in federal stimulus funds on buildings for the new NCR center.
That drew immediate protests from U.S. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio and Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. Brown says stimulus funds should not benefit one local economy at the expense of another.
Brown is right. Stimulus funds should be reserved for creating new jobs, not stealing them from another community.
Editorials
Misuse of funds — 06/06/09
Stimulus money should create jobs, not steal tlhem from others
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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