John Kasich
Historical Details
Position on Issues
For| Read My Position
As Governor, Kasich approved a budget that increased funding for addiction treatment in prisons and encouraged judges to consider community treatment programs over imprisonment.
For| Read My Position
Project Vote Smart Survey, 1998
Supports school vouchers
Other| Read My Position
"I'm for legalization, Sean. I'm not for giving anybody a path to citizenship here... But I do believe if they've been law abiding in this country, they can get to legalization. They have to pay a fine and everything else."
Other| Read My Position
Supported a federal assault weapons ban in the 1990s, but also signed several Ohio bills to loosen gun control
For| Read My Position
Supports a Balanced Budget Amendment
Undecided| Read My Position
Is open to the science of climate changes and says we ought to care about the environment" but is wary of regulations aimed at climate change that would hurt the economy
"Against| Read My Position
Candidate's Website, 2015
"I'm not going to propose a flat tax because if we have a flat tax it's going to blow up the deficit somewhere in the vicinity of $11 Trillion."
Against| Read My Position
"I agree that we should defund Planned Parenthood. I don't know many people in America who don't think that we should, and in my state, we're trying to figure out how to get it done, because we are threatened with the federal government taking all of our Medicaid money away."
Undecided| Read My Position
"'I would try to discourage the states from doing it,' Kasich said when asked how he would respond if elected president. 'Hopefully we'll defeat it in Michigan and Ohio, but if states want to do it ... I haven't made a final decision, but I would be tempted to say I don't think we can go and start disrupting what they've decided.'
"Other| Read My Position
"Wiping ISIS off the map requires a complex, collaborative strategy involving mutual defense action by NATO in the wake of the attack on France, intensifying international intelligence cooperation, increasing support to the highly-effective Kurdish military, creating safe havens and no-fly zones, combating human trafficking in refugees, a NATO & regional coalition with ground troops, and more aggressively fighting the war of ideas to discredit ISIS."
For| Read My Position
Supports the Keystone XL pipeline and said, "To me, the AFL-CIO, the blue collar workers who are Democrats, [these workers] are people that I believe in. The environmentalists got what they wanted, and they got the shaft."
For| Read My Position
In an interview with Jake Tapper Kasich said, "I first of all think we need to expand the voucher program so a veteran can get the healthcare they need as soon as they can possibly get it and should not be just limited to the VA hospital. Secondly, my sense is you're going to have to decentralize the VA."
For| Read My Position
"Lower taxes and incentives to invest will restore global competitiveness to America's business tax system to help create new jobs."
Other| Read My Position
"We can't balance a budget without entitlement reform... What if I told you your initial benefit was going to be lower in order to save the program... you'd get over it."
For| Read My Position
Oversaw the expanion of Medicaid eligibility in Ohio
For| Read My Position
Signed a bill that requires women to have an ultrasound before abortion
For| Read My Position
Project Vote Smart Survey, 1998
Supports limiting the benefits given to single women if they have additional children while receiving welfare benefits
For| Read My Position
Supports the death penalty and said, "It isn't about revenge, it's about justice."
Other| Read My Position
"I think there's a balance between good intelligence and the need to protect Americans from what can become an aggressive government somewhere down the road."
For| Read My Position
"From Day One, and up until today and into tomorrow, I do not support Obamacare. I never have, and I believe it should be repealed. ... I have favored expanding Medicaid, but I don't really see expanding Medicaid as really connected to Obamacare"
For| Read My Position
"Look, Sean, there's too much regulation. Just take Dodd- Frank, this bill on bank regulation, 5,000 new regulations coming out, talking about raising taxes, busting the budget. What businesses do, remember I was in business for 10 years. What businesses do, they say we don't understand the regulations that are coming. We don't understand where the taxes are going to be. We are going to sit on the sidelines."
Other| Read My Position
Kasich supports Ohio's voter ID law, which is less strict than other states' voter ID laws. According to the National Journal, "Kasich sup-ports the voter-iden-ti-fic-a-tion law now in place in Ohio, which ac-cepts some pho-to-less doc-u-ment-a-tion at the bal-lot box, such as a util-ity bill, bank state-ment, or copy of a paycheck.
"'We haven't had any prob-lem with voter fraud,' Kasich ad-min-is-tra-tion spokes-man Joe An-drews told Na-tion-al Journ-al. 'And we think that the sys-tem we have is work-ing.'"
Other| Read My Position
"Well, first of all, in Ohio we're changing the whole system. Universities will not get paid one dime unless the student graduates or -- graduates or completes a course.
"Secondly, you can be in high school and complete almost an entire first year before you go to college and get credit to do that. And, of course, in addition to that, we are working now to go after the cost drivers in our universities. And let me give you an example. Universities today have so many non-academic assets. At Ohio State they sold the parking garage and the parking lot, and they got $500 million because they shouldn't be in the parking lot business. They shouldn't be in the ding business, they shouldn't be in the dorm business.
"And, of course, we need to take advantage of on-line education to reduce these costs and begin to dis-intermediate the cost of four years.
"Now, for those who that have these big high costs, I think we can seriously look at an idea of where you can do public service. I mean legitimate, public service and begin to pay off some of that debt through the public service that you do."
For| Read My Position
When asked if he supported TPP, Kasich said, "I think so ... I mean, I haven't seen all the details. The Senate is going to look at it. But look, we want to have a strengthened group of people in Asia to interface against the Chinese. And trade can help do that."
Other| Read My Position
Opposes Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran, and supports continued sanctions
