In Canfield, GOP's Mandel Calls for Creating More Jobs
CANFIELD, Ohio – The Republican nominee for U.S. senator, Josh Mandel, says that the country needs to leverage the free enterprise system to support a robust manufacturing sector and jobs that pay well. He delivered his remarks as his campaign swung through the eastern part of the state Tuesday.
"It's manufacturing jobs that keep our country strong," Mandel said during a press event and tour of the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center. "If we're going to be strong economically and militarily, then we've got to make things."
Mandel, state of Ohio treasurer, is running against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown.
Career and technical centers such as the school here provide an opportunity for students who choose not to attend college, Mandel said, but to instead learn a trade and work in the manufacturing and technical sectors.
"The reality is that most people in Ohio don't have a college degree," Mandel said. "The ones that do, we hope they contribute to our economy. But for the ones that don't, we want to do everything we can under the umbrella of the free enterprise system to ensure they have good, blue-collar jobs to work."
Mandel was accompanied by career center superintendent Roan Craig and principal John Zenhentbauer as the state treasurer observed classes in the power equipment and mechanical, diesel mechanics and aviation programs.
"What these vocational schools do is put the tools in the tool belt of young folks and older folks to work high-paying, blue-collar jobs," he said.
Craig said that it's becoming harder to provide these services for the next generation of tradesmen because funding from federal and state sources are continuously trimmed.
"We've been flat-funded for the last three years, and we think we'll be flat-funded again next year," she said of state support. "We do not know what the funding mechanism will be. Until we know what the formula will be, we can't tell you the direction of funding in the near future."
That means schools in Ohio such as MCCTC are likely to receive the same level of funding despite a rise in student enrollment. "It inhibits growth,” she said, “and especially in this time when we really need to be growing," she said.
Craig also called for congressional reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act, which distributes grants to fund career and technical programs across the country.
"It's not the largest piece of funding we have, but its substantial," she said. "We need Perkins to be reauthorized."
During the tour, Mandel also took a swipe at his opponent, criticizing Brown for voting on policies that he claims have created huge deficits at the expense of the American taxpayers over the last two decades.
"He's one of the main politicians to advance these policies of borrow, borrow, borrow," Mandel said. "During his two decades in Washington, we've borrowed over a trillion dollars from China."
Mandel is on a jobs campaign tour trying to drum up support and also made appearances at the Columbiana County Career and Technical Center in Salem, and in St. Clairsville, where he talked about the efforts to save the coal industry.
Last week, Mandel's campaign announced it had returned $105,000 in contributions that were under scrutiny of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The contributions originated from the Suarez Corp. of North Canton. Federal authorities are investigating whether company employees made illegal contributions to the campaign and were reimbursed by another source.
The campaign said in a letter to the company that it had "no reason to be concerned with the contributions, but out of an abundance of caution and until the investigation is complete, we believe this course of action is the most appropriate."
Sadie Weiner, spokeswoman for Friends of Sherrod Brown, said in a statement that the contributions raise serious questions about Mandel's integrity:
"After skipping every Board of Deposit meeting his very first year in office, hiring his political cronies for top jobs, and being shamed into returning over $100,000 in shady contributions, Josh Mandel appears to be cementing his reputation as a politician who can't be trusted."
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.