Posted on 01/14/2014 7:24:40 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Ohio taxpayers are being treated to an unwelcome taste of DC, as Governor John Kasich brings President Obama’s favorite policies and tactics to the Buckeye State.
Narrowly elected as a small-government conservative in 2010, Kasich has veered sharply to the left despite Republican supermajorities in both houses of the Ohio General Assembly.
Candidate Kasich warned that the Obamacare Medicaid expansion would “stick states with large and unsustainable costs.” But after failing to trim public unions’ power in 2011, Kasich decided last winter that he’d show what a caring moderate he is by hanging the millstone of Medicaid expansion around Ohio’s neck.
Kasich used laughably false talking points to undercut conservative critics, saying the Obamacare expansion would be paid for with “Ohio’s tax dollars” and warning that Ohio’s slice of some imagined funding pie would be served to other states if Ohio rejected it.
Although political wrangling over Medicaid expansion was big news for most of 2013, Ohio’s dino-media let Kasich lie about billions in taxpayer money without batting an eye.
Sound familiar?
Coordinating messaging with the entitlement lobby the same way Obama frequently does, Kasich developed a “compassionate conservative” stump speech that would make a Clinton blush.
Kasich even improved on Obama’s routine of torching straw-men opposed to big government: just add brimstone. Frustrated by opposition to the Obamacare expansion, Kasich warned his foes that they may be securing themselves a place in Hell.
Nonetheless, Ohio’s legislature – lobbied by grassroots groups the press acknowledges only to sneer at – stripped Medicaid expansion from the state budget and even passed language explicitly forbidding it.
Kasich responded by line-item vetoing the Medicaid expansion ban, and then unilaterally expanding Medicaid when several more months of emotional blackmail didn’t work.
The legislature wouldn’t grow government the way Kasich wanted, so Kasich took a page from Obama’s playbook and pretended the huge policy decision was an executive matter.
Ohio’s newspapers cheered along, but the leftist press is only part of the state’s problem.
Like Obama, Kasich is the shark in a bristling ecosystem of political suckerfish eager to help grow the welfare state.
“I guess for some people in Ohio, unless you are a card-carrying Nazi you can’t be a Republican,” a GOP lobbyist and Kasich advisor told The Daily Beast in an autumn story about intra-party strife.
“Conservatives all oppose Obamacare and Ohio’s Republican leaders have helped lead that opposition,” Ohio GOP Chairman Matt Borges said in a hilarious announcement the day Kasich made official his move to expand Medicaid over legislative opposition.
“On the separate matter of Medicaid, good conservatives have worked to make the program better and engage in a healthy debate on its future,” Borges added.
The Ohio Republican Party’s idea of “healthy debate” involves branding critics as secret Democrats and instructing party faithful to blacklist them.
Probably the first obvious red flag of Kasich’s tenure was when the governor created JobsOhio, a secretive, publicly-funded nonprofit later described in Fortune as an “Obama-like jobs plan.”
Before spending most of 2013 pushing Medicaid expansion, Gov. Kasich was using Obama-worthy class warfare rhetoric to hawk a tax hike on fracking.
In 2012, Kasich toured Ohio promising his fracking tax proposal would redistribute money from rich, out-of-state Big Oil companies in the name of fairness and job creation.
Sure, Kasich’s plan – which the legislature and industry now tepidly support, after watching him ram through Medicaid expansion – would also hit Appalachian landowners, but Gov. Kasich cares about personal property rights about as much as President Obama does.
On school choice, the Second Amendment, and the rights of the unborn, Kasich has signed some good policies sent to his desk by a legislature pushed in the right direction by Ohio taxpayers… but even excluding Medicaid expansion, both of Kasich’s budgets have increased the reach and cost of the State.
Lately, it seems the main difference between John Kasich and Barack Obama is that Obama doesn’t claim to be a limited-government conservative.
I left OH for PA years ago, and have my own set of issues with Tom “Skyrocketing Gas Tax” Corbett.
and let us not forget our industrious obama boot licker aka speaker of the US House.
Narrowly elected as a small-government conservative in 2010, Kasich has veered sharply to the left despite Republican supermajorities in both houses of the Ohio General Assembly.
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I donated to Kasich. Big mistake that I won’t ever repeat.
Don’t forget Herr Brown,our contribution to more Marxist
Ohio Ping
Kasich - Ohio’s own Obama
Excerpt:
Ohio taxpayers are being treated to an unwelcome taste of DC, as Governor John Kasich brings President Obama’s favorite policies and tactics to the Buckeye State.
snip
Candidate Kasich warned that the Obamacare Medicaid expansion would “stick states with large and unsustainable costs.” But after failing to trim public unions’ power in 2011, Kasich decided last winter that he’d show what a caring moderate he is by hanging the millstone of Medicaid expansion around Ohio’s neck.
RE: and let us not forget our industrious obama boot licker aka speaker of the US House.
Isn’t Rob “Pro-gay marriage” Portman from Ohio too?
government in the Senate.
Kasich on Medicaid? The weak argument he gave is that the hospitials, Cleveland Clinic in particular, liked increased Medicaid becuae they could profit from it. So Kasich caved to his paymasters.
He's done other weird things like negotiate with Frank Jackson to throw even more money at the Cleveland school system. The four casinos, one in each city, were bad enough. Now there's a racino or rockcino or whatever it seems like on every street corner. (exaggeration, but you get the point).
Summary....Kasich has no moral compass whatsoever. Portman was always a globalist corporate guy passing himself off as a conservative as long as he could. Boehner seems to take it as his mission to undermine the conservative agenda and help Obama's. And Cantor is really big on compromises that are sellouts.
One could argue that Ohio's "Republicans" are one of the biggest problems constitutional conservatives face. I'm disgusted. The voters tried to elect conservatives, and we got backstabbers.
grrr....end of rant.
If I ever move back to Ohio, it will likely be just so I can register in Boehner’s district and vote against whomever is running against him in the primary.
I hope you meant to vote for whomever is running against that POS.
Kasich has been itching to get back to DC where he can be part of the Big Show. Maybe if he moves far enough to the Left, the RNC will support him for Senate!
yes, what you said
Here is a new article about another possible primary challenger to Kasich.
http://www.vindy.com/news/2014/jan/14/tea-party-has-potential-new-ticket/?newswatch
I implore everyone to get behind someone to unseat this creep. At this point I will vote for a Democrat before I vote for Kasich. I hope I don't have to.
I live in District 8, and voted for both of these clowns. I plan on voting strictly tea-party and not for these guys who ran on the coattails of the tea-party last time around. We can do better, and we own the country better.
Look at Cristie. The only ones who don't care about honesty are Democrat voters.
I have relatives who would vote for dog droppings if they ran as Democrats.
Voting for democrats is EXACTLY what is going to have to happen to send a strong, serious message... Not en mas, but strategically...
Imagine Boehner, Cantor et al being replaced with Dems...
Would that send SOME message to the GOPe? Because I might as well vote for a Dem if that’s what I’m ultimately getting anyway... sheesh...
I don't quite agree with the characterization of Kasich in this article...from what I understand, the Medicaid expansion (admittedly not supported by the State Legislature) is contingent on the Federal Government keeping up their part of the bargain, which is to fund it 100% for 3 years, and then 90% thereafter.
If the Feds renege (sic) on the funds, then the "expansion" ends. (Good luck with that, but nevertheless...!)
When you consider that ALL Ohioans send far too much tax money to Washington, and the Feds disburse it as they wish, then I don't see a problem with having some of this Federal fund disbursal come back to US, in Ohio, instead of going into the "general fund" to be sent to the other 49 states (or 57, if you're 0bama)...
I do agree that this is not how I would wish my tax dollars to be spent, BUT, seeing as how that's what the Feds are going to do, we might as well get some of our own money back here instead of in Connecticut, Delaware or wherever, right??!
Kasich expanded medicaid in an underhanded way, even though the Ohio Supreme court upheld his move, it smells of the kind of thing Obama is doing - taking executive power to the limit.
If anyone takes federal money, it seems that there is something expected in return. Even if that is not the case and nothing is expected, do you really think the feds will hold up their end of the bargain? They can’t be trusted.
NOT expanding Medicaid was the one thing Kasich could have done to hold Obamacare at bay. Other states with Republican governors have refused to expand medicaid. And Democrats never miss a chance to harp on those red states that are not cooperating with Obama by expanding Medicaid.
Obama gave Kasich several “shout-out”s for expanding medicaid in recent speeches. What does that tell you?
And it is possible that Kasich has violated Ohio Constitution - although the article below is related to something else, there’s a link to the Ohio Health Care Freedom Amendment which 66% of Ohioans voted FOR.
Ohio Constitution Prohibits Legislators from Enacting State Insurance Mandates
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