Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) defended Common Core and his state’s Medicaid expansion while touting other parts of his record as governor on Tuesday’s “Sean Hannity Show.”
Kasich mostly discussed his broader record as a governor and member of Congress, saying “we have school choice, we are not only having school choice, but we have a third grade reading guarantee so kids are not socially promoted. We’re in a position of where we’re driving more information to guidance counselors, both college and universities so that we’ve guide kids towards jobs that exist. I’m for welfare reform so that you help people get on their feet, but then you get — you demand personal responsibility, you train them, and you get them independent. — I believe in less taxes on people, we have the largest tax cuts in America, our budget is structurally balanced, we’re 2 billion dollars in the black. When I was in Washington, I spent ten years of my life to balance the budget, I left, we were 5 trillion dollars in the surplus. We cut the capital gains tax…we have the CSI, the CSI program looks at all government regulations and when they’re extreme, we change them or we get rid of them.”
When questioned on whether he supported Common Core, Kasich responded, “I support high standards for our kids, with the curriculum developed by local school boards with [the] advice of parents, that’s what we’re doing in Ohio. I don’t know what they’re doing in other states, but in our state, we have — we now have higher standards. We’re going to — the curriculum to meet higher standards is developed by local school boards. We don’t have –Barack Obama’s not doing it, John Kasich’s not doing it. We want local control of schools.”
Hannity then asked Kasich if he was saying he opposed Common Core, Kasich said “no, I’m saying to you that — I think it’s been mislabeled Sean, what Common Core is, is this, the governors got together, and the governors said they want high standards advised local and state education officials. They have set the standards. We said ‘ok, we want the higher standards too’ and that we are going to make sure that our local school boards develop the curriculum to meet the higher standards. That’s what it is in my state.” Kasich added that he has supported school choice and his state has “some of the most — aggressive school choice programs.”
Towards the end of the interview, he was asked about Medicaid expansion Kasich declared “I’m not for Obamacare, I never have been. I have been in favor of bringing Ohioans’ back to Ohio, which is Medicaid expansion. And what we’re doing with the money is we’re treating the mentally ill, the drug addicted, and the working poor, and we are changing the welfare system so that once people get treated, they now have to go and get trained.” And “the last who expanded Medicaid itself was Ronald Reagan.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett