Sweet Home Ohio
Pot and politics and some other stuff
Politics is so hot right now. Never has knowing the intricacies of the dual primary-caucus system in Texas been so sexy. These days I just go to bars and straight up explain to chicks that the Democrats adopted the system in the early Seventies to preserve the influence of party activists and will likely benefit Barack Obama due to his campaign’s organizational acumen.
They usually want to make out right then and there.
I’ve been tackling a lot of presidential primary stuff lately, though, so I’d like to use this week to draw some attention to my home state in a way that does not involve McCains, Clintons, and Obamaii (that is indeed the proper plural form of “Obama”; more than one and you call them a “pack”).
Although I live in Chicago now, my heart remains in Ohio, along with most of my liver, which I urinated down the plumbing of bars in Oxford, Ohio. Ohio, as almost everyone knows, has been hard hit by the globalized world. Rust belt cities like Cleveland, Youngstown, and Toledo have seen jobs flee like rats on a sinking ship scampering to the highest ground. These are then replaced by low-paying benefits-free service sector jobs. Throw into the mix the home mortgage crisis—and in the city of Cleveland it’s almost like lenders went looking to screw as many low-income people as they could find—and you’ve got yourself a perfect storm for an economic downturn that will not only mirror any national recession but likely surpass it.
Ohio, like many states, is facing a fairly serious budget shortfall that could be anywhere from $700 million to $1.4 billion.
If you’re not an economist, I’ll put it to you in simple terms:
C’mon, Budget! That ain’t cool, dude!
I’m somewhat heartened by our new Governor, Ted Strickland, who is a bizarrely prudent, thoughtful, and bi-partisan leader. Although after the way the Republicans ran the state for the last few decades, it’s not hard to look good. It’d be like if I stood beside Sarah Jessica Parker in a beauty contest: The judges would just hand me the trophy.
Strickland passed the year’s budget with speed and support that frankly I didn’t think existed in Ohio politics, and the leaders of the state’s Senate and Legislature, both Republicans, seem to have an excellent working relationship with the Governor.
I know most of this because I still read The Columbus Dispatch from time to time, and I had an exclusive interview with Strickland’s Deputy Press Secretary, Allison Kolodziej.
In the interest of full disclosure, Allison was my boss at The Miami Student and we remain friends. The gifts I’ve given her include: a bottle of Yellow Tail wine for her 22nd birthday and the gift of not disclosing some fairly embarrassing stories in this column right now (she has failed to repay me for either so far).
Allison took me on a tour of the state house last summer, where she introduced me to the Governor of Ohio by saying, “Ted, this is my friend, Markley.”
To which Ted Strickland, the Governor of Ohio, replied, “Nice to meet you, Markley.”
I offer this anecdote only to illustrate how warped my world is: Normally the people who call me “Markley” do so following sentences where they instruct me to eat certain unmentionable parts of their bodies (I’ll go ahead and keep this column as clean as possible in case the Governor of Ohio reads it and recommends it to all of his Governor friends).
Anyway, my point is that I like Strickland (even if he did go to the mat for Hillary Clinton), and his plan for Ohio’s economy is as good as anyone can do under the circumstances. In his state of the state address, he unveiled a proposal to use bonds to pay for a $1.7 billion economic stimulus package. This includes money for public works projects like roads and bridges, as well as investments in clean and renewable energy among other things.
I dig this. Rather than simply stuffing a tax rebate into the pockets of Americans (most of which will go right back to China or, in my case, the Chinese annex known as Panda Express Buffet), public works projects put people to work while upgrading decaying infrastructure. They're hoping this creates something in the neighborhood of 80,000 new jobs. It’s not everything Ohio needs, but then again Ohio needs a lot of things: A better way to fund its public schools, for instance (which Strickland has staked his governorship on being able to solve). Also, more college graduates who stay in the state (my bad, guys). And a goddamn point guard for LeBron (Daniel Gibson ain’t winning us championships, Danny Ferry).
This all brings me to the awesome idea I had for creating jobs and fixing Ohio’s budget shortfall, which is to legalize and tax marijuana.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking: “Markley’s insane!” “He’s gone off the deep end!” “I kinda feel like Panda Express now!”
I can assure you, I’m completely serious. Legalizing dope is about as politically viable as starting government-funded gay Islamic daycare, but I promise you, one of these days some cash-strapped state is going to figure out that taxing pot is 1) genius and b) completely harmless.
I could throw a whole lotta facts at you right now—numbers and figures about how marijuana is less addictive than alcohol or cigarettes, that it is no more harmful than being a heavy smoker, that it doesn’t turn children in drug addicts, drug dealers or gang bangers—but anybody who has been young since about 1966 pretty much knows all this already.
As for, Ohio, I can tell you this much: Everyone there under the age of 30 smokes more or less like they have a tub of ice cream permanently grafted to their left hands. Have you been to Northeastern Ohio? The people of Akron and Youngstown treat dope like coffee. Hell, if you legalized pot, I have a friend in Kent who would single-handedly fix the $1.4 billion budget gap himself.
Other than the initial economic benefits of growing hemp, think of the tax revenue. People would pour across the borders—from Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania—to buy a joint. In 2004 Ohio made about $60 million dollars from its meager tax on alcohol. Think of what a heavy tax on pot could bring in. Right now that money exists, but it’s just going into the pockets of poor college kids and other small-time drug dealers. It wouldn’t make up this year’s budget gap, but it would be a luxury product that you could raise taxes on every time the state was in a crunch.
I know no one will listen to my awesome idea, but at least by putting it out there, I’ve now raised the specter of what will someday come to pass when Governor Markley is in charge (free health care and First Lady Meghan McCain make up the rest of my platform).
Okay, so today we’ve covered the following political topics: Ohio, Ted Strickland, the state budget shortfall, public works, and legalizing pot. Now I just sit back and wait for the ladies to start calling.
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