I'm a big believer in keeping it simple. Ohio doesn't need to reinvent the wheel, but let's start by looking at the cities and states that are eating our lunch. Let's focus on why Cincinnati and Cleveland are losing businesses and how Austin and Nashville are taking those jobs and opportunities away. Or, if U.S. News ranks Ohio a lackluster #39, what policies is Utah's Government putting in place to be #1?

My #1 focus as your state senator is to bring you more career opportunities. And by "career opportunities," I'm not talking about low- or no-skill jobs but high-paying professions that give the men and women of the 8th District pride.  

Commonsense measures that I know will help include:

Diversify Industries

Ohio should focus on diversifying its industries beyond manufacturing. Manufacturing will always be critical, but investing in sectors like finance, technology, healthcare, renewable energy, and logistics will create new opportunities and reduce our vulnerability to economic fluctuations.

Alliance Bernstein relocated from NYC to Nashville so its employees could have a higher quality of life. The 8th District and Cincinnati can offer that same benefit. I'm biased, but we can offer a better quality of life than Nashville!  

But Alliance Bernstein, like many other major corporations exploring relocating, never considered the 8th District or Cincinnati. Why?

Do you think your current state senator or anyone else in Ohio's government picked up the phone and called them to explain why they should consider Cincinnati, Anderson, Wyoming, Colerain, Loveland, Delhi, North College Hill, Milford, Maderia, or any of our other great communities?

Being a state senator requires the same skills your job demands. It's about your network, work ethic, and ability to communicate. As your state senator, I would have made that call. I would have fought for those high-paying jobs. 

Living in New York City at Fordham while working on Wall Street, attending graduate school at Harvard, and serving outside Washington D.C. in the Marines blessed me with a best-in-class network. A network that I would use to help bring more opportunities to your doorstep.  

Ask anyone who knows me, and they'll tell you that my defining characteristic is my work ethic. What can I say? I was raised in Ohio! 

Hard work pays off. Life is a game of inches, and hard work gets that inch. As my wife likes to say, "Ty's NEVER not working." Let me work for you. Let me use that drive to never stop working for us.   

Tax Incentives and Business-Friendly Policies:

The best way to start addressing income inequality, ensure all Ohioans make a living wage, and reduce poverty in Ohio is to create an environment for businesses to thrive. Businesses are the lifeblood of a vibrant economy. 

Business can be the driving force towards improving all Ohioans' lives. The Ohio government needs to do everything it can to help start and attract businesses. Far too many Ohioans live paycheck to paycheck because our government is not fighting to make that happen.

As an individual who built a multimillion-dollar business and teaches economics for a living, I understand what's required to start and grow a company. As your state senator, I would fight for policies that help businesses because that is the first step to putting more money into the pockets of all Ohioans. The second step is incentivizing businesses to do the right thing with the additional earnings and care for their employees. That step is challenging, and the differing strategies are debatable. 

Still, if our businesses thrive, it will lead to higher wages and more opportunities for all Ohioans. As we say in investing, "a rising tide lifts all boats." If we can jumpstart our lagging economy and stop losing ground to peer states but instead start winning, then every Ohioan will benefit.    

A few examples:

• Get rid of the Financial Institutions Tax (FIT). It's a biased Ohio tax policy that targets banks, savings and loan associations, and other financial entities operating in Ohio. 

  It adds practically nothing, +.80% or 80 basis points (F.Y. 2022), to our revenue but disincentivizes financial firms from relocating to Ohio and stifles local startups in the industry.  

• Do away with the Commercial Activity Tax (CAT). It's a nuisance tax that only generated 6.8% of tax revenue in F.Y. 2022 but gives corporations another compelling reason to choose a competing state. It's a headache for businesses and an excuse to choose Texas, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, or any other state that does not impose a business privilege tax.

• Offering job development tax credits based on the number of jobs a company creates. The more jobs created, the higher the tax credits given to the company. The company could allocate those credits to employees as performance incentives.

• Infrastructure support tailored to companies' needs. Working with business leaders, the government could improve local airports, prepare worksites, streamline regulations, and construct shared infrastructure facilities to reduce costs.

• Offer grants, tax credits, and funding opportunities targeting small businesses that serve as hubs for social interaction, culture, and local engagement. Coffee shops, farmers markets, art galleries, breweries/distilleries, community centers, co-working spaces, and community gardens are businesses that bring communities together. Businesses that attract top-tier talent to a neighborhood and make every area of the 8th District a great place to live, work, and play.  

Anytime you're talking about eliminating taxes, increasing grants and tax credits, or expanding infrastructure, the question that needs to be asked is, "Where will we make up that revenue or generate those funds? Where is the money going to come from?" In the case of Ohio, we have a very regressive tax structure. Ohio's largest revenue generator is a sales tax that disproportionately impacts low-income Ohioans. A billionaire and a hard-working blue-collar Ohioan should not pay the same sales tax. A millionaire and a single mother working two jobs but living below the poverty line should not be taxed the same amount. And that is what a sales tax does to the people of Ohio.   

In the case of my proposed initiatives, I would advocate for spreading any potential budget shortfalls or costs on capital gains for individuals with incomes over $1,000,000. I understand that those high-net-worth individuals also worked extremely hard for those gains, and at times in my life, when my focus was making money, I would have fallen into the camp that would shoulder that tax burden. However, it is the fairest way to help offset Ohio's current tax policy that benefits the wealthy. I would have recognized it as a way to help make Ohio work for everyone.   

An Ohio Sovereign Fund Supporting Small Businesses 

In an economy of "The Magnificent Seven stocks" (Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla) closing out huge years that drove a majority of the S&P 500 gains and big-box retailers in every neighborhood, it is easy to forget that small businesses account for 99.9% of all U.S. businesses. Small businesses also employ nearly half of the private-sector workforce and are responsible for creating a substantial portion of new jobs. Ohio needs small businesses.  

My wife and I are small business owners. We understand the challenges of running successful businesses. We also understand small businesses create jobs, drive local growth, and give communities character. 

I aim to create a structure where the Ohio government is "eating its own cooking" or has a personal stake in our state's growth. A structure that will stop them from wasting $1 BILLION of our hard-earned tax dollars on failed companies that bought them into the office and then bribed them for a bail-out while Ohioans footed the bill.

My plan focuses on increasing incentives, grants, and other resources to small business owners and startups to spur technological advancements, innovation, and job creation. A state sovereign fund managed by Ohio investment firms invested exclusively in Ohio companies. 

I spend enough time putting Bearcats to sleep in my economics class. I'll spare you my professor hat, but I encourage you to research an economic concept called the expenditure multiplier effect. The bottom line is that the government can stimulate disproportionately larger gains by investing in the economy. For example, suppose the Ohio government invests $100 million into the Ohio economy. In that case, it can create $400 million in economic growth to benefit all Ohioans. It would create high-paying career opportunities and higher wages, skyrocket our middle class, reduce poverty, improve our schools, result in more extraordinary healthcare, and enable us to deliver funding for countless local causes. 

At the risk of causing REM sleep, I'll throw out another economic term: virtuous economic cycle. A well-managed Ohio Sovereign Fund investing in Ohio is not only a force multiplier of good, but it would produce a positive feedback loop or a series of events reinforcing and contributing to Ohio's continued economic prosperity. The initial $100 million delivers a win, which leads to positive outcomes (more wins), creating conditions that further enhance Ohio's economic well-being (wins-on-wins-on-wins). It provides positive momentum that compounds. It leads to more people from Indiana deciding to cross the border and move to Ohio, more high-caliber students starting their careers in Cincinnati over New York City, and more companies relocating to Ohio over Texas. 

The issue is that the Ohio government cannot allocate capital as well as the private market. I am a capitalist to my core and have worked in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. Milton Friedman, legendary U.S. economist and Nobel Laureate, jokingly said, "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years, there'd be a shortage of sand." It's funny and too harsh, but he's correct that the private sector is far more efficient and better suited to determine which small businesses and startups should receive the money. 

Ohio-based investment firms would compete to manage and allocate the capital. And Ohio-based small businesses and startups would compete to earn the money. Competition breeds results. The best money managers in Ohio competing to manage the portfolio and Ohio's best small businesses and startups competing to earn the funds would jumpstart Ohio's lackluster economy. I know it because I believe in Ohio.