He thought his RTA job was secure. But on April 4, Davidson will be one of 185 RTA workers out of a job.

"Who would ever imagine public transportation would lay off? I put all my eggs in this basket. Now they are cracking," he said.

Davidson and other cities' transit systems' drivers just went to Washington to push for a new law proposed by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown that might save their jobs.

Right now, federal funding for brick and mortar projects and equipment purchases can only be used for those purposes.

Brown is proposing a measure that would give bus systems flexibility to use some capital improvement dollars to run buses and pay drivers for the next five years.

"I get a lot of letters from people who rely on the bus. If we're going to get the economy on track, it means people in neighborhoods have to be able to get to work," Brown said.

"The Census determines the future of our state," Brown said. "It determines the resources, services and funding we'll have available to ensure our children grow up with the education and medical care they need."

Census counts determine funding for economic development, public safety, education, job training, food banks, home heating assistance and many other critical programs, the senator said.

For every person not counted, the state could lose $12,000 during the next 10-year cycle, according to data provided to Brown by the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.

According to the 2000 Census, Lake County had a population of 227,511; Geauga County had 90,895 and Cuyahoga County had 1,393,978 — making it the state's most populous county.

Brown released a county-by-county estimate Wednesday showing how much funding is at stake. If populations in each county were undercounted by just 2 percent, Lake County could lose $54,602,640; Geauga County, $21,814,800; and Cuyahoga County, $334,554,720, Brown said.

The Mansfield Fire Department will receive more than $255,000 and the Portage Fire District will receive more than $185,000. Senator Brown says the funds can be used for vehicle acquisition, as well as operational and safety equipment upgrades.

Dodd is continuing to negotiate with Banking ranking member Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and committee Democrats, though it remains unclear whether he will find the sweet spot that will ultimately win at least 60 votes on the Senate floor for the 1,300-page bill. However, while committee Democrats have expressed some reservations, Dodd is likely still to be able to count on their support.

“It’s tough, it’s a big bill, it’s a complex bill, people have a lot of different ideas,” committee spokeswoman Kirstin Brost said. “But when we talk to committee members, everybody is committed to getting it done.”

Public anger with Wall Street bailouts and exorbitant executive bonuses are the wind at Dodd’s back in pushing his bill before the midterm elections, as Democrats are looking for a consumer-friendly issue to tout on the campaign trail. Indeed, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) noted at a press conference Wednesday that regulatory reform folds into Democrats’ broad jobs agenda and that the issue will be a top concern after the two-week Easter recess.

The Banking panel will begin marking up the measure next week. All 13 Democrats are likely to vote in favor, even as some liberals, such as Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), fight their own concerns with certain provisions. As he works to hold his Democratic colleagues together, Dodd and other Democrats aren’t giving up on finding GOP support.

“Republicans don’t want to be on the wrong side of Wall Street,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said, predicting at least a handful of GOPers will vote for the measure on the floor.

Still, that didn’t persuade Brown to go with a softer measure that would meet Republican priorities.

“I want it to be as progressive as we can get out of committee — [as] strong on consumer as we can get,” Brown said.

The legislation is especially meaningful to LCT because the cash-strapped county’s lack of money prevented it from using available federal funds, according to Commissioner Ted Kalo.

“Since we do not have much local money, we couldn’t even access federal dollars when they were available in 80-20 or even 90-10 matches,” Kalo said. “This sounds like they’ve finally found a way to let us use capital dollars to provide services. We’ll have the flexibility to move capital dollars over to re-establish routes and bring back drivers.”

Transit systems large and small previously had not been allowed to use federal money to cover operating costs.

Government funds could be used solely for buying new buses, repairing existing ones, and building and fixing up transit facilities.

Details of the proposed bill were discussed Tuesday during a Capitol Hill press conference featuring U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Avon, and U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan of Missouri.

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown greeted and met with the students from Wellington High School this week in the nation's capitol.

“We must support communities devastated by the housing crisis. These funds will help prevent further damage to Main Streets across Ohio,” Brown said. “Foreclosures threaten the economic security of households, depress local property values, and weaken communities. We need to help responsible homeowners weather the economic crisis so that more foreclosures do not prolong it.”

NeighborWorks America (also known as the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation) is a Congressionally-created partnership between community, public, and private stakeholders. NeighborWorks provides locally-driven community development and counseling to families facing the threat of foreclosure. Through 235 community-based nonprofit organizations, NeighborWorks helps to reduce the foreclosures that threaten neighborhoods and local economies, produce and manage affordable rental properties, and revitalize surrounding communities.

Five senators including Charles Schumer of New York and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced legislation yesterday to make it easier for the U.S. to declare currency misalignments and take corrective action. Even if the bill stalls, it may have “ripple effects” that lead the Treasury Department to declare China a currency manipulator, William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said.

“I don’t have the sense that the congressional plan here is to legislate,” Reinsch said in an interview. “But addressing the issue is a high priority in Congress.”

Obama’s goal of doubling U.S. exports in five years depends on his ability to get China to raise the value of its currency, said Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat and co-author of the legislation. China’s intervention in currency markets to keep the value of the yuan, or renminbi, at a set value acts as a subsidy to exports and tax on imports, Brown said at a news conference yesterday.

“There is growing exasperation with China,” C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said in an interview. “Now that the United States is committed to relying more on exports and less on borrowing, this issue is even more important.”

The 10-question census form was recently mailed. The U.S. Census Bureau wants all of the forms completed and mailed back by April 1. Between April and July, census takers will go to households that didn’t mail completed forms, Brown said.

Ohio receives about $14 billion each year from the federal government based on census data, Brown said.

According to information released Wednesday, March 17, by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ohio counties stand to lose millions if populations are undercounted.

“Critical funds that promote economic development, keep our communities safe and help those in need are at stake,” Brown said in a release. “The Census determines ... resources, services and funding we’ll have available to ensure our children grow up with the education and medical care they need. It determines the funding we’ll have to train our workers and ensure our small businesses can grow.”

Based on a 2008 population of 139,859, Clark County could lose an estimated $33.5 million if the census count misses 2 percent of the population.

If 5 percent go uncounted, the county could lose around $83.9 million.

“We would hope it would be enough to get us through the tough times without any service reductions,’’ said Mark Donaghy, executive director of the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority. “We’re currently operating our system on 1996 revenue levels, so the challenge for us is to find ways to keep the service we have on the street.’’

Brown’s bill would allow local transit systems to steer federal dollars from buying more buses and building bus stops toward operating the buses and avoiding layoffs.

Authors of the bill insist it would not lead to increased federal spending, but provide local transit systems with greater flexibility to spend their federal dollars for either new buses or maintaining current service.

“It gives them a little shot in the arm,’’ Brown said Tuesday, March 16, after speaking to a rally on Capitol Hill attended by unionized transit workers and a handful of reporters. “It’s temporary; it gives the local authorities flexibility — it doesn’t say don’t spend on capital.’’

"These funds will ensure the physical infrastructure of our schools matches the quality education that Ohio's teachers provide," Brown said.

"These funds will create immediate construction jobs and a better learning environment for Ohio children."

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office said Ohio’s take in the allocation, made through the 2009 federal stimulus package, topped $431 million. Nearly $294 million of that is headed to the state to award to school districts, while four major districts received individual awards. The largest piece of funding – $51.1 million – is headed to the Cleveland Municipal School District, while Columbus City Schools was awarded $39.3 million.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, announced the funding in a news release Monday, March 15.

“These funds will help promote economic development by allowing for critical airport infrastructure upgrades,” Brown said in the news release.

“They will help improve the safety, capacity and life span of Ohio’s airports,” he said.

The draft bill, similar to a measure considered in 2007, would require the Treasury Department to determine if a nation has a currency misaligned with the dollar. The bipartisan proposal also would make it easier for companies to seek import duties to compensate for an undervalued currency.

“President Obama has outlined a plan to double exports but you simply can’t do that if you don’t address the currency issue,” Brown, an Ohio Democrat, said at a news conference in Washington today. “China’s current policy is out-and-out protectionism.”

Lawmakers are prodding President Barack Obama to take a tougher line on China’s currency policies, which have held the yuan’s valuation at rates more favorable globally to Chinese exporters. Schumer, a New York Democrat, said the U.S. is losing export opportunities and jobs, and China’s policies toward the yuan, or renminbi, can only be changed by legal force.

Brown's plan aligns with a House bill sponsored by Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) and endorsed by 95 other Democrats. At a press event today announcing the Senate bill, the duo was joined by transit-boosting Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) and members of the Transportation Equity Network (TEN), Transportation for America (T4A), and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU).

The Brown-Carnahan measure would allow urban areas -- now barred from spending federal money on operating, save for 10 percent of their stimulus allocations -- to use between 30 percent and one-half of their federal transit grants to defray the cost of keeping trains and buses running.

The bill also would free up more funding for urban transit agencies that have demonstrated cuts in carbon emissions after getting anti-pollution stimulus grants and those agencies that can increase the amount of money raised for transit operating using sources other than the farebox.

“The steel industry greatly appreciates the leadership demonstrated today by Senators Debbie Stabenow, Charles Schumer, Sherrod Brown, Lindsay Graham and Sam Brownback on the China currency issue,” AISI President and CEO Thomas Gibson said, commending the Senators. “American businesses cannot compete in the global economy while China continues to deliberately undervalue its currency, which provides an export subsidy to Chinese goods. This puts U.S. manufactured goods at a competitive disadvantage in every market around the world. If we want to double U.S. exports and create more jobs in the United States, the U.S. government must act to end this unfair trade practice and the first step is for the Treasury Department to name China a currency manipulator in its upcoming April report.”

That's because in order to get the votes needed for the bill's passage, House Democrats are considering pairing the reform bill with far-reaching student aid changes that have so far been quite popular with the party.

The student aid proposal would essentially eliminate the "middle man" between students and institutions of higher learning, said Kevin Lamb, director of student financial services at Marietta College. That would free up billions of government dollars, which would then be offered to more students through Pell Grants.

"The direct lending program takes the bank out of the middle. The subsidies (to the banks) would be saved since they wouldn't go to the banks to help fund the increases," Lamb said. "That (Pell Grants) certainly has made a big impact this year. I think in the short-term that will continue to make a big impact."

...

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, supports both the student aid measure and the health care reform bill, said Meghan Dubyak, Brown's press secretary.

"The senator is a strong supporter of passing student aid reform to ensure that more students who are struggling to go to college can afford it," she said.

On the call, Gore emphasized that it it now more important than ever for the Senate to hear support from around the country for comprehensive solutions to the climate crisis.

Listen to the update here >>

Mr. Obama, speaking in a gym of the Ehrnfelt Recreation and Senior Center in this suburb south of Cleveland, highlighted the plight of Natoma Canfield, a Medina, Ohio, cancer survivor who came down with leukemia just two weeks ago after dropping an unaffordable health care plan in January.

House Democratic leaders have vowed to bring a Senate-passed health bill up for a vote this week, but it is not known whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a majority to pass the bill. Congress is proposing to use the so-called reconciliation process that avoids the requirement of 60 votes in the Senate, but which Republicans claim should be reserved for budget measures.