Jon Husted to SHS Students: 'Go to the Polls and Make a Difference'

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) made a stop at on Tuesday afternoon to encourage the audience to register to vote and to make informed decisions on Election Day in order to put the right politicians in place to help solve the state’s looming short- and long-term problems. 

In the first few minutes, Husted quieted the somewhat restless crowd of mostly juniors and seniors by putting the $14 trillion national debt into perspective.

As it stands, each American owes $46,000 to help pay off the nation’s debt, he said. If one dollar was converted to one second back in time, then a trillion dollars would trace back 31,000 years, Husted told the group.

He said the nation hit its $14.294 debt ceiling on Monday, which will set in motion a scramble to avoid an all-out default by August. Then there’s the $50 to $75 trillion Medicare, Medicaid and social security liability that no one knows how to balance.

Reports show Medicare will be broke in five years and Medicaid funding will dry up in 25 years.

How can kids change things? Husted urged the students to vote wisely -- research who they believe will make the biggest difference in overcoming Ohio’s high taxation and high state and federal deficits. 

“The decisions will be made about your life by somebody,” he said. “It’s just a matter of whether you choose to pick the person that will do it or not, and the first step in that is voting.” 

Out of 11.4 million Ohioans, there are four million who vote and Husted aims to increase that number with statewide voting campaigns and new legislation. 

“What I can do is to make it easy for them and that’s why we’re pursuing legislation to allow you to register to vote online, to request an absentee ballot online, to really use technology to make it easy to get voters access to the polls and to the ballot,” he said. 

SHS social studies department chair Brian Tumino was impressed with Husted’s remarks.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re liberal, conservative, democrat, republican. You need to be educated to vote and that’s what we teach our kids. We don’t preach politics, but we teach them to be educated and they can make informed decisions based on that.”