Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Illustrating the dangers of the Healthy Families Act to Ohio


Yesterday, a commenter left the following on my earlier post, Deconstructing the Ohio Healthy Families Act:

What effect will this have on attracting new business to Ohio? Just the administrative burden alone is formidable, let alone the potential costs. If I have the responsibility of choosing between building a new plant in Ohio, which has the mandated 7 paid sick days, or another state which doesn't have such a provision, I would have to have a lot of other positives to the Ohio location.

This comment underscores just how critical it is to defeat this measure in  November. Ohio is at an economic crossroads, and yet we have the opportunity to bring our state forward into the 21st century. That opportunity includes a burgeoning bio-medical industry to work in tandem with our outstanding hospital systems, and Governor Strickland's efforts to lure so-called "green" companies to Ohio to help develop alternate fuel 6a00d83421dda453ef00e54f2e25558833-640wisources. Enacting legislation that will create labor costs to do business in Ohio that do not exist in any other state is not the way to go about curing our state's ills. We need incentives for companies to settle in Ohio, not incentives for them to look elsewhere and leave.

The OHFA is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Ohioans going to the polls in November will be drawn to vote in its favor because people think that they want paid time off. If there are no jobs left in Ohio because this measure passes, what good will it do?