There’s an old saying that while you can’t always get what you want, if you try sometimes you’ll find you get what you need. Yesterday, Indiana got what it wanted: the new Honda manufacturing plant. While at first glance this is yet another display of what Ohio’s hostile business climate hath wrought, it leaves the door open to the possibility that Ohio might finally get what it needs: a new, diversified, high tech economy. So what if Indiana got Honda? Let’s get Yahoo!

The oft-quoted statistic is that the Buckeye State has lost over 200,000 manufacturing jobs this decade. This could be a good indication that Ohio’s economy- which is 47^th in job creation- might not be working. Industrial manufacturing (particularly automobile manufacturing) hasn’t been an American strongpoint in thirty years, but some of us in the upper Midwest seem to think it still is. Even as more and more plants close and more and more workers get laid off, five Midwestern states made bids for a band-aid in hopes of healing economies requiring major surgery. Ohio should take all of this as a sign that it needs to buck the trend of its neighbors and get out of the old economy which is too industrial, too unionized, and too backward to function in the 21^st century.

As our Old American neighbors get more entrenched in a stagnant and struggling economy, Ohio has the chance to change itself for the better. We can build a comparative advantage for the region in the ever-expanding high tech sector. We can produce incentives for more and diverse businesses to relocate to Ohio, like eliminating the Commercial Activities Tax. We can create new and better jobs in growing sectors for Ohioans and start attracting people to the state instead of begging for them to stay. There’s more to an economy than getting what you want in the short term, using unionized labor to make cars. Just ask those states that are diversified, flourishing, and have what they need.