Bill Clinton in Stand For Something, by John Kasich
On Budget & Economy:
OpEd: 1995 shutdown led to first balanced budget in 40 years
In 1995, Pres. Clinton wanted to phony up the numbers on this first go-round, so we shut down the government. Today, with perspective, pundits look back and suggest that shutting down the government under those circumstances was dumb but I look back and
think it was one of the greatest moments of my career. Why? Well, typically, politicians make their decisions based on votes. And yet in at least this one instance politicians set aside these concerns and stood up for what was right. For our children.
For our shared future. For America. For this one battle, for the time being, we forgot about politics and focused on good government, and if we had to take a beating for it then so be it. And as a direct result of that government shutdown in
1995, we wrote a bill that provided for the first balanced budget in nearly forty years and allowed us to pay down the largest chunk of our staggering national debt in the history of this country.
Source: Stand For Something, by John Kasich, p. 86-87
May 10, 2006
On Foreign Policy:
1990s: Worked with religious leaders for African debt relief
I'll tell you a strange-bedfellows-type story. Arnold Schwarzenegger called me up, on debt relief for Africa. We put together a meeting with religious leaders over at the White House. I invited Pat Robertson to attend. Pat told me he had not visited the
White House since Clinton became president, and I soon learned that Clinton's staff wanted to keep it that way. At one point, they actually asked me to disinvite Robertson, who had been highly critical of Clinton. The staffer cautiously advised the
President that Pat Robertson was scheduled to attend the meeting, and the President looked at him hopefully and said, "Do you think he might come?"The meeting took place, and at the end I could see Pat Robertson and Bill
Clinton yukking it up at the front end of the room, and I turned to that anxious staffer and said, "Now do you believe in miracles?"
Good politics shouldn't be "us" or "them". It shouldn't be about winning or losing. Good politics should be about doing.
Source: Stand For Something, by John Kasich, p. 20-21
May 10, 2006
On Tax Reform:
OpEd: Broke campaign promise by tax rise & no spending cuts
Tim Penny was a Democrat from Minnesota whose frustration with Washington politics reached a tipping point when Pres. Clinton proposed a big tax increase with few spending cuts, going against his own campaign promise. Tim had enough with empty Washingto
Tim's response to Bill Clinton's about-face actually cost the good people back home, but very quickly Tim took on a kind of folk-hero status--in Congress, in Minnesota, and across this great land. His stature grew enormously, simply because he
took a stand. He was disillusioned with Clinton's plan, and with a political system that seemed bound to support it; more to the point, he didn't like how Clinton promised one thing and then went out and did another, so he stood against it.
Source: Stand For Something, by John Kasich, p. 78-79
May 10, 2006
Page last updated: Feb 24, 2019