Boehner taps Kasich to tee-off on Obama, Ohio Dems ask Budish to KO Kasich

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CGE) - Ohio Congressman and US House Speaker John Boehner tapped Buckeye State Governor John Kasich to team up with him again to take on President Barack Obama, not on a golf course as they did in June when no scores were released and they had drinks following the last putt, but in a war of words over whether lower taxes, less regulation and a balanced budget is the best recipe for a struggling nation or whether more federally sanctioned stimulus can bridge the gap until a paralyzed private sector feels confident enough to add jobs to meet demand.

 

 

Gov. Kasich, a former Congressman from central Ohio, won the race for governor last year by only two percentage points over a Democrat, Ted Strickland, whose administration had the misfortune of being aligned too closely with the onset and duration of the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. During is four-year term, Ohio lost over 430,000 jobs, many of them from the manufacturing sector, a fact Kasich drove home at every opportunity.

 

Kasich was confronted with an $8 billion budget shortfall, and like Strickland and ever other governor before him, was constitutionally mandated to balance the budget, a requirement not required at the federal level.

 

"When I entered office in January, Ohio was facing the largest budget shortfall in our history and an economy suffering from the same uncertainty that's hurting small businesses across the country," Kasich led off with in GOP rebuttal to President Obama's weekly address to the nation. "My administration worked with members of the General Assembly to reduce our shortfall to zero, all the while cutting taxes for every Ohioan."

 

Kasich, saying he and Buckeye lawmakers "looked our problems square in the eye and we didn't blink, said his new $56 billion budget, ironically the largest in history, achieved real savings and made long-overdue reforms to provide better value to Ohioans, without raising their taxes. "To the contrary, we cut their taxes and eliminated the death tax, which was driving successful entrepreneurs out of Ohio."

 

The former Fox News Channel TV host, who later held a lucrative position as a managing director for the investment bank Lehman Brothers, whose demise triggered the meltdown on Wall Street during the last months of President George W. Bush and his treasure secretary Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, that opened the flood gates to the flash flood that washed away millions of jobs across the nation, said privatizing economic development in Ohio, through an "innovative and new non-profit organization run by successful businesspeople and entrepreneurs," will "bring businesses and jobs to Ohio, and give the Buckeye State the economic competitive advantage it needs."

 

Kasich recalled that, when he was in Congress 15 years ago, he voted for a a Balanced Budget Amendment that would have gone to the states for ratification but for one vote. "I can't help but wonder how different things would be had we succeeded," he said, adding that both parties should come together this fall to send the states another chance to vote on a balanced budget amendment.

 

 

Quick to respond to Kasich's talk was Armond Budish, a Democrat from Cleveland, who became Speaker of the Ohio House in 2008 when the nation's voters sent Obama to the White House and gave Democrats roaring majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House. 

 

"It's comical that Speaker Boehner calls Gov. Kasich a success, and claims this is the kind of example that should be set for Washington," Budish, an attorney, said in his opening KO of Kasich's remarks. "Gov. Kasich's policies are failing Ohio. Under Gov. Kasich, Ohio has seen two straight months of rising unemployment rates following adoption of the Kasich budget, which comes after 15 months of job creation under Democratic leadership," Budish noted. As he's done before, Budish, who became the first Democratic House Speaker since 1994, looked Kasich in the eye and punched him in the face. "Gov. Kasich has governed with an air of absolute arrogance. He passed the biggest spending budget in Ohio's history, yet slashed funding to education, police and fire protection, mental health services and long term care for seniors."

 

Budish mocked Kasich's budget balancing, saying it gave huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Ohioans and offered lavish benefits on special interests and major Republican friends. "This week the governor has implicitly recognized that one of the largest pieces of his agenda, Senate Bill 5, is flawed," said Budish, referring to an offer by Kasich and GOP legislative leaders to union officials, who rejected it, to compromise on SB 5 in order to avoid voters weighing in on it this November as Issue 2. 

 

"And let me make very clear that there has been absolutely NO opportunity for meaningful input on any significant legislation from Democrats, working people, or middle class folks who have been irreparably harmed by Kasich's radical agenda," the former Speaker said, adding, "I take great offense to Speaker Boehner's praise of Gov. Kasich's leadership."

 

 

In this weekly address, President Obama spoke from the Corner Country Farm in Alpha, Illinois on the need to create jobs and strengthen the economy. President Obama reminded the American people that we still have the best workers, entrepreneurs, and students in the world, and called on both parties to come together and act on a series of steps we can take right away to get our nation back to work.

 

While Obama talked of tough times, readily acknowledging that "a lot of people are getting by with smaller paychecks or less money in the cash register," he said to Boehner and Kasich what he didn't tell them on the golf course, that partisan politics is at large. "The only thing holding them back [policies to help the nation] is politics. The only thing preventing us from passing these bills is the refusal by some in Congress to put country ahead of party. That's the problem right now. That's what's holding this country back. That's what we have to change."