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Kasich offers support
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
Gov. John Kasich passed on a chance to take a few potshots at President Barack Obama before the latter’s visit to Columbus today.
Instead, the governor offered support for at least one portion of the plans outlined by the president in his jobs speech to lawmakers last week — that is, a reduction in payroll taxes — and continued to urge Obama to back a federal loan for a proposed uranium-enrichment facility that would create several thousand jobs in Piketon.
“The country’s really struggling economically,” Kasich told reporters Monday in response to a question about Obama’s job plan. “There’s no doubt about it. This time, it would be easy to just make some statement and, you know, kind of walk away and ... blast the president. It’s just not my mood now. It’s not what I like to do. ... This is not a time for partisanship; this is a time to figure out a way in which we can get things moving in the country.”
Obama plans to visit a Columbus-area school and highlight his proposed American Jobs Act, which would pump about $25 billion into 35,000 school facilities nationwide.
Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman David Betras will be among a small group meeting with the president after the speech. Betras plans to thank the president for federal assistance provided to the V&M Star expansion project in Youngstown and for a bailout of the automotive industry that kept the Lordstown General Motors complex operating.
Kasich said he hasn’t seen details of that initiative, but he said spurring job creation would ultimately help schools and the economy.
“The biggest thing that we can do for our schools and for our local communities [is] create permanent jobs,” he said. “That’s what I hope the president will be able to sit with the congressional leaders [and do]. [There seems] to be some kind of easing of tensions there, sit down and figure out how we get confidence so that the business community can hire people and we can have the kind of prosperity that we’re all hoping for.”
Kasich declined to offer criticism of the president’s overall jobs plan. But he said he hoped Obama and lawmakers would increase states’ flexibility in using Medicaid funds and pump additional federal dollars into job training programs.
“I call a lot of CEOs, and things in many areas are beginning to stall,” Kasich said. “We’ve got to see if there’s a way for the Congress and the president to find some things to spark this economy.”
He added later, “This economy has got to be spurred. And, frankly, that gets down to less regulation ... it’s anticipation on taxes and it’s some certainty. And without it, people sit on the sidelines, and it’s frustrating to everyone, and families and children pay the price.”