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The Columbus Dispatch
Leap year
After repairing state, Kasich's bold 2012 course is transforming Ohio
For Ohio and its governor, 2012 has been a transformative year. John
Kasich sped through his second year with his trademark zeal for getting
done the big and difficult things, hardly skipping a beat after his
2011 reforms stabilized the state.
When Kasich took office that January, the state’s budget had an $8
billion shortfall and its economy was in a freefall. More than 400,000
Ohioans had lost their jobs. Former Gov. Ted Strickland clearly was in
over his head. Hopes were high that Kasich, having learned politics in
Congress and business in boardrooms, could repair the damage by the end
of his first term.
He did it in a year.
The man who once balanced the federal budget, line by line, took a
scalpel to the Buckeye spending plan and erased the deficit without
raising taxes. He launched reforms of Medicaid, prisons and job-killing
red tape, to name a few.
He got rid of the estate tax, shed government bureaucracy and proclaimed Ohio was once again “open for business.”
Is it ever. In a year-end review with reporters on Wednesday, Kasich
cited employment statistics. Ohio went from being nearly dead-last in
job creation to No. 5 in the nation this past year and No. 1 in the
Midwest; we’re up 132,900 jobs. And unemployment, nationally at 7.7
percent, has dropped in Ohio during his tenure from 9 percent to 6.8
percent…
Read the rest of the article at The Columbus Dispatch
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