DEAR EDITOR:

Ohio is getting ripped off. Everyone knows it. Too many insiders are more worried about loyalty tests, branding and planning their next campaign than about what really matters — what people are putting on their dinner plates.

I’m 22. I study finance at UC. I don’t pretend to have every solution, but I know this: Ohio wasn’t built by insiders. It was built by people who showed up to work every day, kept their families afloat and kept this state moving even when leadership failed them.

Look at Youngstown. Whole factories shut down, not because people here stopped working, but because the folks at the top didn’t know what they were doing — or didn’t care. That’s what incompetent leadership looks like.

For too long, politics here has been about spectacle. It’s easier to chase headlines than to stand up for the families who actually make this state run.

But Ohioans don’t live off slogans. We live off the dignity of work, the strength of neighborhoods and the expectation that leaders should put people first.

The tide can turn. Ohio has bounced back before, and it can again. If we stop looking backwards and start focusing on the grit that’s always carried us, there’s no limit to what this state can be.

I believe in the future of Ohio, but it starts with proper leadership.

THOMAS MADDOX

Cincinnati