Aurora Advocate
Transcript of Gov. Kasich's State of State Speech
February 20, 2013 

A transcript of the State of the State speech delivered by Ohio Gov. John Kasich in Lima on Tuesday night: 

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, members and colleagues from the General Assembly, members of my cabinet, the great people of Lima. We love the way you welcomed all of us here today. Am I right, members of the General Assembly? 

And, of course, my wife, Karen Kasich. Sweetie, would you stand and say hi? 

I believe that jobs are our greatest moral purpose. And when I say it, I have a couple of thoughts in my head, a couple of videos that run through my mind. Think of a dad who goes home one day. Mom's at the dinner table. Maybe she just got home from work. Kids are gathered around. Dad says to the family, "I've got some news for you. I lost my job today." 

Maybe the kids don't all understand it. Maybe one of them begins to cry. Think about the mom. Single mom, dad ran out on her, two or three kids, struggling every day, she hears word of layoffs. She says, "How am I going to make it?" She doesn't tell the kids. 

Let's switch that picture just for a moment. 

Put that same family at that table, and dad comes home, and he sits with his family. Says, "Honey, kids, I got a job today." And the kids start to squeal and clap. 

Or the single mom who gets the oldest daughter and takes her up to her bedroom and said, "You know, Honey, I thought it looked pretty bad for us, but I got a promotion. We're going to make more money. Things are going to be better for our family." 

That's what I think about every day when I get up, and my mission has been to create a growing economy that allows people to realize their hopes and their dreams and their purposes. Because it's through our work that some of our life has meaning. 

It's about our mission. It's about the purposes that the Lord set out for us. 

And my mission is not just to give some people work. My mission is to make sure that everybody in our state has the chance to realize their hopes and dreams and that their families can do much better. Because it's not good enough for some to do well while we leave others behind. And so we must work every day to make sure that everyone has a chance in Ohio. 

When I came into office, I came in and built a team of really great people, including members of the Assembly that would put Ohio to work and reclaim our rightful place in the United States of America as one of the great states. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I can tell you with great confidence we are succeeding here in Ohio in turning our state around, and it is fantastic. 

Today we are up 120,400 jobs -- 120,400 families that have a better life. We're No. 1 -- No. 1 -- in job creation in the Midwest and No. 6 in job creation in the United States of America. 

Our budget is balanced. In two and a half years at the end of this fiscal year -- this is pretty breathtaking -- we have gone from $0.89 in our rainy day fund to a $1.9 billion surplus. 

And our credit outlook has improved. When they downgraded countries all over the world -- in fact, even downgraded the United States of America -- Ohio's credit outlook has improved. 

And as you know, Lima and Allen County, right where we are tonight, of course, are shining examples of a community that is coming back strong. Thanks to the hard work of the people here, thanks to their creativity, and you've learned about it today from manufacturing to advance manufacturing to the ability to move things through this area because of their strategic location. We're doing better here in Allen County. The unemployment rate has fallen from 10.8 percent to 7 percent in the past two years, and right here in Lima, 2,200 new private-sector jobs have been created. 

Lima is winning, and Ohio is winning. 

This took a lot of effort; it took a special partnership with you, the General Assembly. The first thing we had to do was restore confidence and respect in our state. I mean, we had to balance the budget. No more smoke and mirrors. No more moving things around. We needed to have a structural balance, and it had to be done for no other reason than common sense. 

Hey, folks, I know many people have lost their way in Washington, D.C., but you can never spend more than what you take in. Overtime, it makes no sense. If a state can't manage its money -- if it can't balance its budget -- what can it manage? How can people have confidence in it if we can't get the common sense things right? 

Well, in the process of balancing this budget, I hope you all note, we didn't just cut, we reengineered many of our programs. Thanks to the great work of Greg Moody and John McCarthy, we reformed Medicaid. 

For 25 years, this state wanted Mom and Dad to have the resources to stay in their own homes if they were able and not be forced into a nursing home, where they could stay in their own homes, where they could be more independent, more healthy, more independent at a much lower cost. For 25 years, this was, this effort was made to fix this. We did it, didn't we? We got it done. And now Mom and Dad can stay in their own homes, and they can be healthier and more independent. We won that battle. 

We moved to coordinate care. You know, 4 percent of Medicaid recipients drive over 50 percent of the cost. Their care was not coordinated. It didn't make much sense to them. And you know how complicated it is for all of us to be in a position to be able to understand health care and the ins and outs. We're now coordinating the health care of that 4 percent so their care is not just coordinated but logical and where they are healthier. And the whole country now is looking at our program. 

We have slowed the growth of Medicaid to 3.2 percent -- unthinkable in many places in this country -- and we're now one of the great leaders in the country for Medicaid reform. Other states are looking at what we have done in Ohio to not cut people off, not to reduce their benefits, but to make the system work better. And that's the way you move to balance a budget. 

We've also reengineered state government. We've used the private-sector techniques of Six Sigma, Kaizen and many other reforms. 

Joe Testa, over at the tax department, Joe figured out folks here in Allen County and across the state who are watching, that many businesses have been over paying their tax bill. And you know what the government did? Never told them. Kept their money in a drawer somewhere. Kept the secret from them because after four years, that money became the property of the state of Ohio… 

Read the rest of the speech at the Aurora Advocate