American Forum Op-Ed

OHIO FORUM

By Amy Hanauer

Dear Governor Kasich,

As you begin your term, it is a perfect moment to rethink priorities and map new paths. With high unemployment, big budget shortfalls, and continued erosion of our industrial base, our problems might feel overwhelming.

But during and after our toughest economic time – the Great Depression – Americans created Social Security, wove our safety net, established unemployment insurance and encouraged other innovations that generated the world’s first real middle class, with four decades of improvements to prosperity, equity, living standards, education levels, and life spans. Later we passed the Clean Water Act in response to the burning Cuyahoga, enacted civil rights, and committed resources to public schools and colleges.

Throughout the 20th century, we moved forward. At times far less prosperous than today, we still invested in education, the environment, infrastructure, workers, and families. The result was a state with greater equity, more entryways to the middle class, and cleaner, safer communities.

Good public policy has the power to increase education, productivity, safety, and security. But bad policy can do the opposite. In the past generation, we allowed economic inequality to reach Depression-level heights. We ignored manufacturing and let job quality deteriorate. We deregulated, allowing toxic mortgages, loans, and food to be marketed and sold to Ohio families.

We watched suburbs gobble green space, resulting in an ever-greater need for polluting and imported fossil fuels. We let cities, counties, and states engage in mutually self-destructive competition to slash taxes, starving public budgets everywhere.

Governor Kasich, you can recommit to what made Ohio and America great. At times far less prosperous than today, we nonetheless invested in education, the environment, infrastructure, workers and families. The result was a state with greater equity, more entryways to the middle-class, and cleaner, safer communities. The 20th century moved us forward. Despite new challenges, we must build on past accomplishments, not let them erode. Here are a half dozen ways you can lead us.

1. Restore revenues: Together with other changes, the 2005 remake of the tax system is costing Ohio $2.1 billion in annual net revenue, straining our ability to provide security, education, and basic needs. With the legislature, you can restore the highest income tax bracket, get rid of exemptions and abatements, and ensure that the new corporate tax system generates the revenue that the old one did.
2. Shrink some spending: Most of what the public sector does is needed, and the fiction that we can have a better state while delivering less is just that. Roads, transit, schools, universities, and a safety net cost money and enrich our lives. But some policies cost more and deliver less: sentencing non-violent, low-level offenders to costly prisons, giving new tax abatements despite now-low corporate tax rates, and shifting elderly residents from more economical at-home care to nursing homes. You’ve voiced interest in fixing some of these – we can help.
3. Invest in energy: You are right to support the advanced energy standard, which is creating new markets for Ohio products while reducing emissions. You can also commit to commuter transit. Workers and employers rely on these systems, which vitalize cities and reduce energy use. Ohio could have a great supply chain in transit manufacturing. Also, most buildings remain inefficient so you could put Ohioans back to work on building retrofits. We’d be happy to provide a toolkit for how to renovate communities.
4. Advance assets: Through legislation and referendum Ohioans tried to eradicate exploitative payday loans but these lenders still prey on poor families. Get rid of payday lending once and for all, put in place a state Earned Income Credit to help working families, and establish some structures to help families build savings.
5. Target training, work on work: Too many Ohioans are out of work, as you have rightly lamented. Work with your friend Speaker John Boehner to ensure more federal aid for re-employing Ohio. Retain public workers -- they fill important needs while stabilizing our economy. Strategize with employers and unions about how best to retrain workers for future jobs and guarantee job quality. One first step – bolstering labor law enforcement would improve workers’ lives and ensure that Ohio gets all tax revenue owed by employers.
6. Educate: As you know, about 90 percent of Ohio children attend public schools. Provide solid funding, support innovation and teacher training, and strengthen the public system so that it works for all Ohio students. “Ohio has tremendous parks, neighborhoods, lakes, libraries, and people,” Hanauer concludes. “Governor Kasich, what you do will determine whether these assets thrive or wither.”

Ohio has tremendous parks, neighborhoods, lakes, libraries, and people. What you do will determine whether these assets thrive or wither. Good luck!
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Hanauer is executive director of Policy Matters Ohio.
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Copyright (C) 2011 by Ohio Forum. 1/11

OHIO FORUM

By Pat Marida and Beatrice Brailsford

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is considering giving a $2 billion loan guarantee to United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) to build a uranium enrichment facility in Ohio. Many in the state are hailing this project for bringing in much-needed jobs, but financially, the project is on shaky ground and is unlikely to bring anything but debt and dashed hopes to Ohio’s residents.

U.S. taxpayers are already on the hook for $2 billion in guarantees that DOE offered to the French government-owned company Areva to build a similar uranium enrichment facility in Idaho. Once that $3.3 billion facility gets a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and begins operating in four years or so, it is supposed to supply fuel to about 50 nuclear reactors, but not exclusively to plants in the U.S.

All this taxpayer money is being waved around in the name of moving the U.S. toward a clean energy policy. But what are American taxpayers being asked to invest in? Let’s take a closer look at the bets Washington is making with our tax dollars.

In Ohio, USEC's effort to build the American Centrifuge Plant has been riddled with ever-escalating costs and delays. The original estimated cost of $1.7 billion has soared to $4.6 billion in three short years. DOE actually rejected USEC’s initial loan guarantee application in July 2009, because of financial and technology problems.

USEC no longer has an estimated completion date, but the timing of the project is critical. Half of USEC’s business goes away in 2013 with the expiration of the U.S.-Russian agreement to use Russian down-blended uranium from dismantled nuclear weapons as fuel in U.S. reactors.

USEC has invested $1.8 billion in the project and obtained commitments of $100 million each from Toshiba and Babcock & Wilcox. These two companies won’t invest unless the $2 billion loan guarantee comes through, and the deal guarantees them huge profits off the top. Still, USEC will have at least a $600 million cost gap plus enormous financing costs.

In Idaho, Areva is planning to build the Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility on the upstream end of the Snake River Aquifer, the sole source of drinking water for about a quarter of the people who live in the state. Decommissioning will cost an additional $3.5 billion, for which Areva has offered something akin to a wink and a promise to pay. The facility will be situated a few miles east of the Idaho National Laboratory, which has left a sad legacy of nuclear waste that has already cost taxpayers billions to clean up.

Enrichment is a messy business, with a long history of contamination. Producing one ton of enriched uranium for use as nuclear fuel creates, on average, seven tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride waste – a highly toxic material that reacts violently with water and corrodes most metals. DOE is currently storing nearly three quarters of a million metric tons of uranium hexafluoride from decades of past enrichment activities.

The hexafluoride has to be removed before the depleted uranium can be disposed. Once it is removed, the remaining depleted uranium becomes increasingly radioactive over the course of a million years. At present, there is simply no place to put the stuff.

The USEC facility will generate another 265,300 metric tons of uranium hexafluoride; the Areva facility 320,000. This waste will be stored on-site until its turn comes for treatment, which will take at least 25 years because of the current backlog.

But is the investment of taxpayer dollars necessary to produce the fuel to keep U.S. reactors humming? Apparently not. On June 2, Urenco, another international company, cut the ribbon on a new uranium enrichment facility in New Mexico. The $2 billion facility will also serve a global market, but was built solely with private funds.

With three new enrichment facilities up and running and the ongoing delays and cancellations of new reactor projects, we will go from having too little reactor fuel to having too much. That means taxpayers will be asked to guarantee billions of dollars in a market that may soon be glutted.
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Marida is the nuclear issues chair of the Ohio Sierra Club. Brailsford is the program director of the Snake River Alliance in Idaho.
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Copyright (C) 2010 by Ohio Forum. 11/10

OHIO FORUM

By Wendy Patton

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 cut taxes for businesses and households, boosted safety net services for the eight million who lost their jobs, and jump-started job creation.

Midway through the three years of Recovery Act programming, a little more than half of the money has been awarded. Policy Matters Ohio took a look at how the state is faring in getting and spending the money in the categories of energy and the environment. So far, the news is good.

The Recovery Act allocated over $100 billion to jumpstart job creation in energy and the environment. Companies, schools, agencies, universities and individuals across Ohio jumped on the opportunity. A billion dollars have already been awarded here and Ohio ranks seventh in getting the money out on the streets, with more awards coming every week.

Funded projects have created jobs in construction as workers have been hired to upgrade housing and buildings for energy efficiency. Close to 19,000 homes have been weatherized, creating over 2,000 jobs. A water treatment plant in Wilmington will be powered by solar panels, cutting water bills for residents. A jail in Wood County will get new and more efficient boilers, lowering costs. Homes will receive smart meters, allowing customers to monitor their own energy use. Clean water and sewer projects have been built throughout the state, employing construction workers in repairing or expanding infrastructure. Nuclear sites are being cleaned up. Factories have received tax credits to start new lines and to develop new clean energy products. Demand for manufactured goods for these projects -- from insulation, windows and solar panels to industrial sensors and controls -- has pulsed through Ohio’s industrial base, boosting orders and creating factory jobs.

We found these projects in all counties and in towns and cities of all sizes. Funding has reached the places hardest hit by the recession, as mandated in the legislation. Using a formula that adds poverty and unemployment rates in each county to measure economic distress, we divided the 88 counties into four equal groups (quartiles) based on economic conditions. The 22 counties with the weakest economies received the highest per-
capita funding of $172 per resident in the categories of clean energy and the environment, almost double the state average.

The second largest per-capita funding of $79 went to counties with moderately lagging economies. The third quartile, made up of counties with moderately strong economies, received a per-capita average of $73. The fourth quartile of counties, with relatively strong economies, received $60 per resident. Distribution of Recovery Act funds in clean energy and the environment reached all counties in a way that provided most to the neediest places.

The short-term mission of the Recovery Act of providing relief to workers, families and communities struggling with the recession, is being fulfilled, while the long-term national economic strategy is being addressed at the same time.

The international market for clean energy investment is immense. By 2020, clean energy will be one of the world’s biggest industries, totaling as much as $2.3 trillion. Our international competitors have integrated national policies to build their own domestic clean energy companies and capture market share in global markets. Spain and Germany, major contenders in green markets, invest heavily in companies that make products for clean energy generation, but also mandate a transformation to renewable sources. China, the world’s largest supplier for these markets, provides incentives for firms from around the globe to come and manufacture clean energy products there, and also has national goals to shift domestic energy supply to renewable energy sources. The only policy employed by our federal government here is the funding under the Recovery Act, and Ohio is doing well in grabbing that opportunity.

In the short run, Ohio has benefitted from Recovery Act support of clean energy and the environment. Funding has reached all counties and has helped those places most hurt by the recession. In the long run, a foundation is being laid for a competitive manufacturing base that can compete in global clean energy markets. It’s a good deal for Ohioans.
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Patton is a senior associate at Policy Matters Ohio.
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Copyright (C) 2010 by Ohio Forum. 10/10

OHIO FORUM
By Alice Faryna, MD

Despite the acrimonious debate, there is actually consensus on both sides of the political aisle -- our current health care system is seriously flawed, dysfunctional and requires major change.

As Congress prepares for a final reconciliation, we are bombarded with messages containing language designed to either persuade or frighten us.

In a country as diverse as ours, we need to find common ground for deeply held beliefs and values. Values held by most Americans are quality, affordable, choice and American. Surveys consistently find that over two thirds of Americans favor health care access for all Americans, even if it means a major government role. The words government health care had a negative response, yet the same people wanted a choice of private and public plans.

Recent messages from politicians say they favor a uniquely American solution. Unfortunately, we already have a unique system. Our system costs twice as much as those of most other wealthy nations and fails to cover almost 50 million of us. Since World War II, our health system has relied on employer-based coverage purchased from private for-profit health insurers.

Our uniquely American employer-based private health insurance solution is unraveling. Any employer-based system is particularly vulnerable to economic downturns. Since the current recession began, tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs and therefore their coverage. Even before the recession, the percentage of employers offering health benefits was falling. Only the expansion of public insurance like Medicaid and SCHIP prevented an even worse epidemic of lost coverage.

Health care costs have continued to soar at twice the rate of the Gross Domestic Product. Employers have responded by asking employees to pay a greater portion of insurance premiums and larger co-pays and deductibles.

Over a million American families fall into bankruptcy each year partly due to large health care bills. Even those with employer-based insurance are at risk since over 70 percent had insurance at the start of the bankrupting illness. Consumer Reports National Research Center released a January 2009 survey of over 2,000 Americans who regularly take medications. It shows that 22 percent have delayed a doctor visit, 18 percent put off a recommended procedure, 17 percent declined a test, 16 percent delayed filling a prescription and another 16 percent stopped taking a medication due to costs.

Other wealthy countries cover all of their citizens for about half of what we spend. Some are entirely public programs. Others like Germany and Switzerland allow private companies to offer insurance products, but they do not allow them to operate for profit. In these countries, universal coverage creates a large stable risk pool which combined with government run insurance or strictly regulated not-for-profit private insurers results in lower costs, better health outcomes and no bankruptcy from medical debt. These countries have covered everyone with high quality care at a more affordable price.

The House proposal retains many of our uniquely American flaws: preserving a for-profit system and relying on private insurance competition to bring down premiums. The proposal does contain new regulations that require insurers to take all applicants regardless of gender or health status, and guarantees the renewal of existing policies.

However, the much debated public option, originally conceived to ensure real competition, is at risk. In order to avoid a government takeover of health care, the proposal dictates the creation of a new bureaucracy -- the Health Insurance Exchange -- to help bewildered consumers choose an insurance plan. Our tax dollars will be spent on subsidies for low wage earners who cannot afford insurance but will be required to purchase private or public insurance.

Wouldn’t it be simpler and more efficient to allow people to buy into Medicare and set the premium at a level that covers costs? This “uniquely American” solution serves our seniors well. Medicare has proven to be a durable and reliable insurance program that has controlled health care costs better than private insurance exchanges. We know Medicare works. Medicare, unlike private insurance, allows you to choose any doctor or use any hospital. However, the insurance industry asserts that competing with Medicare is not a choice they will allow; calling it unfair and not on a level playing field.

We must continue to ask tough questions. For example, in a year where private insurance companies are posting record profits, why is the taxpayer being asked to subsidize them in order to cover the uninsured? Why isn’t a public option like Medicare a choice for everyone? Real reform must cover everyone and controls costs.
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Dr. Faryna is a retired internist and an organizer for the Ohio chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program.
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the Ohio Forum. 9/09

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