More of this please:
The Democratic group Senate Majority PAC on Tuesday is launching a $640,000 ad campaign attacking Republican Sen. Rob Portman’s record on creating jobs in Ohio.
The super PAC’s new ad criticizes Mr. Portman, who is in a heated re-election battle against Democrat and former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, for supporting trade deals that critics say cost Americans jobs. It is Senate Majority PAC’s first ad in the race.
“In Congress Portman voted for NAFTA, creating thousands of jobs in Mexico. Working for President Bush he pushed for CAFTA, creating jobs in Central America,” the narrator reads. “And Portman supported special trade status for China, even more jobs, in Asia. Rob Portman, a job creator everywhere but Ohio.”
Foreign trade is becoming a central issue in the race between Strickland and Portman. Edward Hill, a professor of public policy at Ohio State University, explains why trade is the key issue in Ohio:
Trade, as Hill likes to say "is a perfect thing to demagogue on" because "the benefits are abstract and the perceived loss is real."
As Ohio has shed manufacturing jobs, the state’s gross domestic product has mushroomed from $342 billion in 1997 to $583 billion in 2014, a sign Ohio companies produce more goods with fewer workers.
Ohio’s exports leaped from $24.8 billion in sales value in 1999 to $52.2 billion in 2014, before declining slightly last year — in large part because of reduced demand from China's sluggish economy. Last year, Ohio farmers exported $1.4 billion worth of soybeans and $300 million in corn.
"As you drive down a road in rural Ohio, one of every three rows of corn or soybeans gets exported," said Adam Sharp, vice president of public policy at the Ohio Farm Bureau.
The job losses, however, are real. A report released last year by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington concluded that 311,000 manufacturing jobs in Ohio vanished between 2000 and 2014, in large part because of unfair trade practices that made it easier for foreign nations to export goods to American consumers.
"That was the era when China trade was decimating manufacturing," said Robert E. Scott, senior economist at the institute and author of the report. Saying that productivity growth has slowed massively in the past seven years, Scott said, "Trade is responsible for essentially all of the loss of manufacturing job losses."
This is why I want Strickland to win this race because of his record fighting against trade deals. We need more men like him in the Senate, especially with the TPP still in play. Click here to donate and get involved with Strickland’s campaign.