Republican John Kasich leads charge for balanced budget vote
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Republican John Kasich is not giving up on his goal of a federal balanced budget amendment, a tool the Ohio governor says is ever more important as the U.S. national debt ticks toward $20 trillion.
“The issue is not a partisan issue,” Kasich told The Associated Press in an interview. “It’s about economic growth and our children’s and our grandchildren’s future.”
As a presidential contender last year, Kasich pledged he would balance the federal budget within eight years while cutting taxes and spending more on the military. To make it work, the budget-balancing former congressman had proposed limiting the federal role in education, transportation, job training and Medicaid — areas he would have turned over in large part to the states.
Kasich, 64, has not let his failed White House ambitions interfere with his passion on the issue. He played a key role last month in Wyoming becoming the 29th state to request an Article V constitutional convention aimed at amending a balanced budget amendment into the U.S. Constitution.