John Kasich has an impressive resume. He has been governor of Ohio since 2011. Kasich won by a narrow margin in 2010, but he was reelected by a landslide in 2014 by 64-33% margin. The state budget had a shortfall of between $ 6-8 billion when he took office and Ohio has a surplus of about $ 1.5 billion today. The economy of this rust belt state was revitalized by cutting taxes and encouraging small business growth. He established a private, non-profit organization designed to manage economic development in Ohio called “JobsOhio.” During Kasich’s first term in office, 316,800 new jobs were created in the state of Ohio, and the unemployment rate dropped from 9.4% to 5.1%. In the interview, he described this accomplishment as changing Ohio from a dying state to one that is alive and well.
Kasich is also proud of his accomplishments as a US Congressmen (1983-2001). When he served as Chairman of the House Budget Committee, John Kasich was the architect of a balanced budget. After Congress, he worked for 10 years in the private sector–most notably as an on air personality for Fox News. He also worked for Lehman Brothers as a managing director.
Ohio is considered to be a swing state because its electoral votes are critical to whoever wants to be president. John Kasich is the key to winning Ohio. That’s the main reason why he can afford to wait. At this point, Governor Kasich has yet to announce, but he is acting like a candidate. This is his fourth trip to New Hampshire. His state committee is headed by none other than John Sununu. He and his team agree that the field is wide open, so there is no advantage to his making an announcement at this time.
Governor Kasich had an interesting take on why Jeb Bush hasn’t run away with the field. “It just hasn’t happened for him.”
Because the field is so open, John Kasich likes his own chances. As he says, “If it wasn’t doable, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
In the interview, Kasich also called for a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). He feels that from top to bottom, it’s a bad program that doesn’t control health care costs, causes business uncertainty, and has driven up insurance costs. “It’s got to go!”
On the economic front, he described measures that he would take to improve the situation of the middle class. These steps would include training programs to improve the skill sets of our workers and ways to encourage businesses to invest improving plants here in the US.
The Kasich foreign policy would not be accused of leading from the rear. He would rebuild the western alliance by strengthening our traditional relationships and showing that we are committed to leading. “Don’t draw red lines in the sand and then walk away.” He would stand up to Putin who he compared to Pacman. Also, Kasich would support and not undermine our allies, like Israel. He would be in favor of strengthening our military while reforming how we fund it.
