Attracting People to Ohio

Dear Thomas Suddes,

Regarding your piece “My Opinion” pg A7 of the 2/8/21 Dayton Daily News (also here)…

You quote DeWine’s observation that people are packing up and leaving coastal cities and his desire to advertise Ohio as a possible destination. You then critique his goal with shoddy logic, as a thin veneer to disagree with underlying Ohio legislative action.

You opine that attracting people to Ohio won’t work because Ohio is not the same as the coastal cities. Specifically, you pick on 3 issues and identify that Ohio is not like “every Atlantic Coast state from Virginia north, plus Georgia.” You ridicule the Ohio legislature for being a “stick-in-the-mud”.

Uhh.. you forgot something. The obvious premise is that those people are LEAVING coastal states because they DON’T want to live there. Why in the world do you argue we should make Ohio the same as what they’re leaving?

Sure, people are welcome to come to the wonderful mid-country states from all over. But I think very few mid-America “fly over” state residents want to import the policies, politics, and propensities coastal residents are fleeing. More damaging to the logic of your entire piece is the fact the people fleeing those states probably ALSO would like to leave behind what they’re fleeing — as witnessed by their very behavior. You didn’t even touch the exodus from high-tax states like New York. Shall Ohio also raise taxes to attract ex-New Yorkers? This logic is broken.

Don’t force fit your policy preferences onto the migration narrative. Instead, perhaps question your policy preferences ~because of~ the migration narrative.