Everyone’s favorite government employee who hates other government employees Pt. 6

The sixth installment of everyone’s favorite government employee who hates other government employees is Ohio governor and TV personality John Kasich. Kasich is another Republican who ran as an outsider, ready to bring new ideas to Ohio. He did so after serving nine terms in Congress (Washington), seven years as an investment banker for Lehman Brothers (Wall Street, New York) and seven years as a paid talking head for Fox News (Atlanta’s Propaganda Ministry).

It takes a special person to destroy the institutions that created them. Kasich is a person trained by public employees and who has worked as a public employee for over 20 years, with a couple of short breaks where private companies have paid him to get the public to influence other public employees. Kasich went to Sto-Rox high school, a Pennsylvania public school. He went on to the public university, Ohio State. He worked for the Ohio government in the Senate from 1979-1983, and then again for the federal governments as a US representative 1983-2001. Kasich ran for president in 2000. Kasich retired from the congress in 2001 leaving him eligible for a public pension and public “government” healthcare, all on the public’s dime.

Stereotypical lazy government worker which Kasich appears to be one of:

After leaving Washington, Kasich went to work on Wall Street in his first private sector job in twenty years Lehman Brothers, until the firm collapsed in 2008.  One can wonder if the connections the public school kid made in Washington helped Kasich land his job. He worked for the firm until Lehman’s filed for bankruptcy in 2008. According to Mother Jones, “While Ohio was suffering through the Bush years and into the "Great Recession," Kasich was on Wall Street, raking in the dough from a firm that participated (as almost all of them did) in the enormously risky bets that drove the economy to ruin. It's not that Kasich profited from Lehman's collapse. He wasn't short-selling his own bank's stock (as far as we know.) It's that he made his fortune and got out while everyone else paid the price for his firm's bad behavior… Kasich claims he was not a top decision-maker at Lehman. So was he the classic ex-politico at the investment bank, a la Harold Ford, basically a lobbyist in disguise?” (Mother Jones 4/5/10)

During these years, when Kasich wasn’t on Wall Street, he was worked for Fox News trying to influence public opinion. He hosted his own show on Fox “Heartland with John Kasich” from 2001-2007. He also was a guest host on the O’Reilly Factor. When Kasich decided to spin his television gig into another stint on the public dole, he was able to use his parent company’s free publicity to run for governor. By February 2008, Kasich had already appeared on Fox News at least 25 times. O’Reilly had even introduced Kasich as “John Kasich, our man in Ohio” and Sean Hannity, whose show he was a constant guest on, called Kasich the “future governor of the great state of Ohio.” Even Newt Gingrich was able to scoop the local Ohio papers the night before, from his perch on Fox, when he announced that Kasich was filing papers to raise money. Kasich’s opponent then- governor Ted Strickland did not have access to Fox. He had not appeared on network since 2008. A Strickland representative once described Kasich’s campaign as being “vague sound bites on friendly national cable new shows and in heavily edited Web videos.” (Politico 3/2/10)

Kasich letting you know what Fox News would like you to know:

Swing voters supported the Republicans in 2010. In it they surrendered total power to a closer Republican majority, in Columbus, in order to keep a distant Democrat controlled federal government, in Washington, in check. Kasich promised to turn around Ohio, which had the second highest debt in the country according to the three major credit rating agencies and had lost 610,000 jobs during the past decade. Only Michigan and California lost more jobs. Kasich eked out an election night victory 49-47%. The Ohio Chamber of Commerce broke its 117 year tradition of not backing candidates in local elections in order to endorse Kasich. Kasich, in term, rewarded the chamber with laws which curbed collective bargaining and reduced regulation on business.  He even talked about privatizing jails and leasing out the state’s toll roads. Kasich has talked about cutting taxes while taking aim at the usual suspects: education, poor kids, and the elderly. Some of his ham-handed tactics even have angered some in his own party. Ohio has continued to lose 18,000 more jobs under Kasich even though every action he’s made is allegedly to create jobs.

Kasich like many Republican governors claims to love his state’s working class. He does so even  when berating them and trying to destroy their lifestyle. Kasich has on occasion said he is “not anti-union” but “it’s a matter of restoring balance” between public and private workers. Kasich who appears to have gotten through the recession without much sacrifice said, “The taxpayers have sacrificed enough. 401ks have been shredded, rising healthcare costs, 9% unemployment…We’re not raising taxes.”  (Fox News 2/27/11)

Another way to look at Kasich’s statement is Kasich, a career politician who has helped oversee the destruction of half the economy, feels it is only equitable to oversee the destruction of the other half. Kasich said of the people who protest “they’re nice people, they’re our neighbors. God bless them, they’re worried.” (Ibid)

If you can’t screw over the people you’re blessing, who can you? In a Youtube video Kasich described a 2008 traffic stop with one of those “nice people” a policemen on a state highway, who was only doing his job. Kasich went on to describe the cop as “an idiot. You just can’t act that way.” At the same time he’s cutting back on all the pay of these state employees he’s demanding they should provide better services for significantly less money.

Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfem said in a state, “I never thought I’d see the day when a governor of this great state would call a police officer an ‘idiot’ simply for doing his job. Even worse, he wants to eliminate the right of law enforcement workers to collective bargaining to provide a better life for his families.” (Fox News 2/17/11)

Ohio Governor Kasich’s approval rate seemed to bottom out at 30%.  Since that time he has bounced back to 38%, with 49% disapproving. He has had an even more difficult time with the women in his state who have rejected his message. Ohio citizens have been collecting signatures to change to law so they can recall Kasich, as there was no recall law on the Ohio books. They have also blocked Kasich’s union stripping measure by getting enough signatures to put a question on the ballot. By law the bill can’t go into effect until the ballot question is resolved.