Chester Finn on Ohio's economic decline:

Once known as the Mother of Presidents, Ohio is now getting poorer, older and dumber -- and making all the wrong moves to reverse the situation. . . .

Ohio already has the fifth-heaviest state and local tax burden in the country (up from 30th in 1990) and finds itself stagnating. Its unemployment rate, 6.3%, is above the national rate of 5.5%, even as the state's work force shrinks as people emigrate. Ohio's median household income is also falling -- in 2006 it was $44,500, down 0.5% from the previous year -- while the national figure ($48,500) was up 1.6%. During the closing decades of the 20th century, incomes rose twice as fast across the country as in Ohio. . . .

Any sane strategy for turning this around would start by strengthening the state's human capital for a globalized, knowledge-based economy while making Ohio more hospitable to high-tech and brain-powered firms. . . .

In both the public and private sectors, what one witnesses in Ohio are the most senior employees clinging to what's left of the economy, fending off change, demanding ever more burdensome contracts and costlier benefits. The ship is slowly sinking, but as the more agile passengers and crew take to the lifeboats and sail off, those who remain on board climb to the upper decks, determined to grab whatever plunder they can, confident that the rising waters won't reach them.