John Kasich Quotations

You know where entrepreneurship in my opinion has to go? Into the inner city.

We've got to unite our country again, because we're stronger when we are united and we are weaker when we are divided.

This is not about Republican or Democrat. It is about our children, it's about our families, it is about our country, and frankly, ladies and gentlemen, it is about the world. We've got to leave here and march, and make sure Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are president and vice president of the United States.

If we intend to provide a better life, and a better world, for future generations, we can't ignore the quality of the environment we leave them.

My elections are really not about campaigns. I tell my people that these are about a movement. And a movement to do what? To restore common sense. A movement to do things like provide economic growth. And a movement not to let anybody be behind.

When Governor Romney was out here, I told him, I said, 'we are following the formula of streamlining regulations, being job creating friendly, balancing budgets, cutting taxes, and, you know, using common sense. And if you get to be president, we are going to do more of that.'

The reason we have such a reform budget is because we've been thinking about these things for a long time.

We've unveiled the most comprehensive reform budget people have seen in a generation.

Affirmative action has a negative effect on our society when it means counting us like so many beans and dividing us into separate piles.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, Ohio 's coming back because we set a clear path, we cut taxes, we balanced our budget, we got credit upgrades when the whole rest of the world, including America, was being downgraded.

I want to tell you ladies and gentlemen, the actions that we took were not always easy. The actions that we took were not always popular. But when you get yourself in public office, you must lead, you must do what's necessary.

Every time I go to Washington, I break out in a cold sweat. So I try not to spend too much time there.

When I left Washington, we actually had a balanced budget and we paid down the most amount of the national debt in modern history and cut taxes and created jobs. And I was the chief architect of that plan in '97.

But, at the end of the day, we need to represent the taxpayers who have made enormous sacrifices. Many have lost their jobs. Many of them have seen their companies - they don't have a pension - they have seen their companies cut the match for their 401(k). They have seen their health care benefits be shredded.

Economic growth is the key. Economic growth is the key to everything. But once you have economic growth, it is important that we reach out to people who live in the shadows, the people who don't seem to ever think that they get a fair deal.

I was the chairman of the House Budget Committee and one of the chief architects the last time we balanced a budget, and it was the first time we had done it since man walked on the moon.

And, frankly, what happens out of Washington is, it creates a wind in my face, uncertainty over Obamacare, uncertainty over their tax policy, uncertainty over the regulatory policy.

I think we can have some tax reform, but that doesn't mean tax increases. We ought to make the, the rates flatter. We ought to get rid of a bunch of those loopholes.

Ohio's doing what it can do, but I wish they'd get their act together in Washington.

Everybody has a right to their God-given purpose.

It's not trickle down economics. The problem that the president has is that he's rudderless on the economy. I mean, he doesn't quite know what to do. It's a wake-up on Monday and try to figure it out. It takes time to turn a supertanker, so you need to know where you need to go.

I just went to a wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay. Because somebody doesn't think the way I do, doesn't mean that I can't care about them or can't love them.

I was a member of the Armed Services Committee for 18 years. I spent a big chunk of my life studying national security issues and our role in the world.

Let's start off with my father being a mailman. So I understand the concerns of all the folks across this country, some of whom having trouble, you know, making ends meet.

If we don't cut taxes, we'll invent emergencies to spend the money on,

If we'll all just change the culture of this city a little bit and if we'll all look to be a little bit creative and a little bit imaginative, we can make government much more effective, much more efficient, ... We can save a penny on a dollar and we can empower the American family one more time.

He's got strong convictions, maybe he's thinking that is what he's got to do.

Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered and frankly this bill really is a hog, it is way over the top. We believe there really is too much spending, we believe this bill is in fact an abomination,

Republicans have gotten the sense that they're going to get elected by passing out money to people.

I think he should let me run Ohio. He should let us, the legislature, the members there, we should be running Ohio. The states are the laboratories out here, and I think the president needs to mind to the problems that he has in Washington.

We aren't going to do this alone, ... We're going to go out there and tell the president 'look, the ball's in the president's hands.'

We are going to make every effort to try to lock up the surplus in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, ... Our tax cut doesn't come from Medicare.

We believe America should be run from the bottom line, not from the top down, ... Every time we cut taxes, we make government less important and people across the country more important.

We want to ... begin to solve the Social Security problem for three generations and also help American families today to get some of their money back, and that's precisely what our plan will do, and I think the American people will embrace it.

What I fear most about a commission is compromise, ... Because compromise means we lose.

We should start together. The president has started this race from Chicago which is why this budget isn't balanced,

When we give a subsidy, the benefits to the public ought to exceed the benefits to the company. When it doesn't, that's our definition of corporate welfare.

The president has to work with us, we're willing to work with him, and this is an opportunity for him to show real leadership. I hope they don't blow this chance.

And what we're doing in Ohio is we're moving from a basic manufacturing economy to one that's diversified, including energy and health care and agriculture and IT.

And you know what? At the end of the day, it gets down to Obama and Romney. And what it's going to get down to is this. Obama is going to say, 'I inherited a mess and I'm making it better.' And Romney is going to say, 'you haven't made it good enough. And I can do far better than you have done.'

We are going to cut taxes by the greatest amount taxes have been cut in modern American history,

First and foremost, we believe in tax cuts,

So when they don't have certainty, they go the other way. In Ohio, we have given them certainty and things have been improved. But if we can get a Romney presidency, they are going to get much better.

If the president forces us to choose between his raising taxes or raiding Social Security to fund his expansion of government, his budget is dead on arrival, ... A lame duck president should not be able to derail us on the way toward retiring the national debt, tax relief and saving Social Security.

If you can't, frankly, you're living in the past,

I'm going to love my daughters; I'm going to love them no matter what they do. Because, you know what, God gives me unconditional love. I'm going to give it to my family and my friends and the people around me.

Everybody knows the system is not accurate, and we need to make it accurate, not for purposes of balancing the budget, not for purposes of our priorities or their priorities,

The new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office shows that our efforts to balance the budget and return power, money and influence to people in neighborhoods and communities are working. This is great news for the American people,

The issues of Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security -- what are we doing to convince the American people that we're prepared to deal with those tough issues?

The U.S. can and should remain strongly engaged internationally, because regional instability will not solve itself. But we must choose our tools very carefully, for the stakes do not allow failure. Power is a finite quantity; if we expend it all over the world, we diminish ourselves.

But I really don't have any comments about the whole thing. This is up to Governor Bush to decide, and it's just that simple.

I didn't read anything in there that didn't say that he didn't do a good job, that he was praised by a lot of people he worked with,

This is a good budget that will allow us to have the money we need to fix social Security for over three generations,

I took the state of Ohio from an $8 billion hole and a 350,000 job loss to a $2 billion surplus and a gain of 350,000 jobs.

To add more people to a system that is running out of money doesn't make any sense, ... Meet the Press.

We just really do not have the kind of bold document that we would like to see that would be a message to people that there really is change in Washington, that the era of big government is over,

We need to give everybody a chance, treat everybody with respect, and let them share in this great American dream that we have.

I’m concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor - that if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy.

Frankly, we are republicans and they're democrats but before all of that, we're Americans. And I believe we need to unify in so many ways to rebuild our country, to strengthen our country, to rebuild our defense, and for America to secure it's place it world; for us, for our children, and for the next generation.

I don't read polls to decide what I'm going to do.

If you go into a room of 100-plus people, and you want to be the prince of darkness, you can be it. But I don't operate in the dark, I operate in the light.

A leader has a sound program, has a good policy, and then brings people together to solve problems.

I worry about America. For the first time in my lifetime, I'm worried about us, i'm worried about how our values to some degree have been eroded, of personal responsibility and compassion and teamwork. I worry about it, I worry about the fact that we're so divided.

If you look even at Pittsburgh, where I grew up, you've now replaced steel jobs with technology jobs, and they pay better.

Guess what? I just went to a wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay.

You cannot build a little guy up by tearing a big guy down -- Abraham Lincoln said it.

I don't accept that. I really don't care - I'm going to be like one of these deniers - I don't care what the polls say.

Everybody should have a chance to rise. That's our philosophy in Ohio and that's my philosophy for America.

Sometimes people just don't understand the way that I work in politics.

Economic growth is the key to everything. But once you have economic growth, it is important that we reach out to people who live in the shadows, the people who don't seem to ever think that they get a fair deal. And that includes people in our minority community; that includes people who feel as though they don't have a chance to move up.

It's an individual morality in values that matters in these companies [like Wells Fargo]. I mean, they ought to clean house. And they ought to figure out how to claw back all this money. That is a given. In terms of additional laws, there are reasonable approaches to this, but I'd have to see what they are. I'm not a federal lawmaker.

I'm not sure I want to sound like a candidate. I just want to sound like an American who's trying to make this country a heck of a lot stronger, not a (typical) politician ... but somebody that's going to go in, do the job, not pay attention to all the special interest groups, change the status quo, shift power out of Washington and get America on the track again with strength in our military as well.

I don't make promises, by and large, that I can't keep.

A friend asked one of my daughters, "Do you like politics?" And my daughter said, "No, I don't. And the reason I don't like it is because there's too much fighting, too much yelling. It's so loud, I don't like it." You know, I turned to my friend and I said, "You know, she's really on to something."

I think it's too late. I think that there's been too much. This all started with the red line, walking away from it. The inability to arm the legitimate [Bashar] Assad opposition.

Let's start off with my father being a mailman.

I don't want my marriage or my guns registered in Washington. And if people have an opinion, it's a religious opinion that is heartly felt, obviously they should be allowed to practice that and no government should interfere with them.

I've always been underestimated. It's happened throughout my entire career.

I would only go to Syria to destroy ISIS. I would not use U.S. troops to depose Assad. But I would support the rebels there. It's okay to support those people who share your view. But for the United States to be embroiled in a civil war in Syria against [Bashr] Assad I think is a big mistake.

People have accused me at times of having too big of a heart.But I have to also to say I must keep the people of my state safe. So we take a pause [in taking refugees].

The foreign policy, you have to know how to pick and choose. There's no way, if Saddam [Hussein] had not had weapons of mass destruction, I would have gone, because I don't believe that the U.S. should be involved directly in civil wars.

And, look, think about it, there were 16 people in the race, including a number of governors, and there's only one left. And I think that at the end we have to make sure that we have somebody that can go to that town, change that system, grow employment, change the whole way in which it works and ship power money and influence back to the states. So I'm optimistic about it.

You know, it's trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. Not only are there a lot of outsiders intervening but this also involves a vicious internal war. There are many who believe the Alawites will fight to the death because they believe that, should they lose power, the majority would take, would show no compassion for them. They ruled that country for a long time, ruthlessly. It is a vicious civil war that makes one want to cry every day.

I'm not a big guy that believes that you gain energy from demonizing other people. I think you gain energy from giving people hope.

We've got to listen to other people's voices, respect them, but keep in mind, and I believe in terms of the things that I've read in my lifetime, the Lord is not picking us. But because of how we respect human rights, because that we are a good force in the world, he wants America to be strong.

We [americans] need to control our border just like people have to control who goes in and out of their house.

We've just let too many things happen. And now, try to turn around and fix it. Getting involved in a [Syria] civil war directly was never something I thought made sense.

Well, it's not all Americans. But I understand those polls. But as a result of that, that's not going to change my position. I mean I don't think it is even practical and I don't think it's right. I mean just because somebody happens to be of the Muslim faith, doesn't make them a terrorist or make them a threat to America. And we've had relations with people all over the world of the Muslim faith.

And no one ever expect me to get in the race. They didn't think I would get on the debate stage. I did. They didn't think I'd do well in New Hampshire. I finished second. And so we went to South Carolina. In a short period of time later, two weeks ago people in South Carolina had no clue who I was.

For the Russians, frankly, it's time that we punched the Russians in the nose. They've gotten away with too much in this world and we need to stand up against them, not just there, but also in Eastern Europe where they threaten some of our most precious allies.

Everybody who was involved in that culture [Wells Fargo] should be held accountable.

My father was a mailman. His father was a coal miner. My mother's mother could barely speak English. And their son today stands on this podium in the great state of Ohio not only as the governor, but a candidate for president of the United States.I do believe in miracles.I've had a lot of elections. But my elections are really not about campaigns. I tell my people that these are about a movement.A movement to do things like provide economic growth. And a movement not to let anybody be behind.

Politics can not only be drudgery and Captain Queeg with the balls in his hands.

God created astrologers to make pollsters look accurate.

How do you prevent people from doing inappropriate things? We can write laws. But at the end of the day, I actually wonder what the board was doing.

I've heard a lot of nasty rhetoric about the president. We're going to kick your rear end out of the White House and stuff. That's just not the way I behave.

We don't have to fight all the time. It can be done, and we will be great when we join together.

Let me tell you what is interesting about the administration. We had Central American miners that were placed in Ohio, and we never knew a thing about it. We didn't know where they were. And, in fact, we know now that some of them, there is a case going on where some of them may have been human-trafficked.

Look, we have a very lousy system for retraining workers that get disrupted. And, you know, I just don't see anybody that's particularly interested in fixing that. They think it's fixed, but it's not fixed. So, we need a dramatic improvement in the way we train people who get displaced.

I do not support a civil war. I don't want to be policeman of the world. But we can't back off of this.