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Save This PageA five-day trip to Mexico, complete with air, hotel and meals for 14 people cost about $68,000. And who picked up the tab: Ohio taxpayers.
Those trips are called trade missions and in the eight years he spent in office, former Gov. Bob Taft made 10 such trips to Brazil, Japan, Mexico and Europe, NBC 4’s Cabot Rea reported.
While corporations paid their own way on those business-related trips, the governor and his staff did not. In all, the former governor’s bookkeepers said the missions cost Ohio taxpayers just less than $800,000.
While such spending draws critics from watchdog groups, some business owners see it another way.
Supporters said those trips actually benefit the state, producing just under $900 million in new investments. The missions also produced 2,600 new jobs, Rea reported.
“It was definitely a plus to our business,” John Lewis, vice-president of the bioscience company Omeris, said. “When you add a governor or a Lt. Governor, you gain access to a new level of people … especially in Asia.”
Meanwhile David Hanson of the Buckeye Institute – a tax watchdog group – remains skeptical of government involvement is free enterprise.
Hanson said it’s unfair to companies that aren’t chosen to embark on trade missions.
“Why does government have to put itself in the middle of these kinds of economic decisions that happen privately?” Hanson asked.
However, Lewis said any and all efforts should be made to shop Ohio. He also thinks it is worth the tab to taxpayers, citing the former governor’s trade mission to Germany and the effects it had on Columbus-based Roxanne Labs.
“Roxanne expanded here and (it’s) looking to expand again,” Lewis said.
Now, with a new governor in office, some are asking if the trade missions will come to a screeching halt.
At least one important figure doesn’t think so.
“We know that we’ll do foreign trade missions,” said Lt. Governor Lee Fisher. “Every other state is in China, India … and they’re talking to their leaders,” he said.
“If we don’t compete, then we’re going to get left behind.”