caller: i was disappointed she had no response to that. and then as to a sec caller, related to the o'connell -- host: still with us? charles? charles, radical yi -- ralleigh, north carolina? we lost your call. one final note we want to share with you, the department of homeland security as we prepare for the anniversary of the homeland security to warning about the potential threat of small airplanes. local authorities saying there is no specific or credible

terrorist threat to the 10-year anniversary, but they have stepped up security nationwide as a precaution. we'll have all of this nationwide. "washington journal" tomorrow at 7:00 local time. thank you for being with us. enjoy the rest of your weekend, and have a great week ahead. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> next, "newsmakers" with john kaich. then key figures who have run

for the presidency and lost but changed presidential -- changed history. after that, a discussion on security in afghanistan. >> our news makers from this sunday is the governor, john kasich. thank you for being here on c-span. >> it is good to be here. governor, last friday we got the governor, last friday we got the latest jobless numbers essentially saying the same. with that backdrop, the president is going to outline his agenda on thursday before a joint session of congress. what can this president or any president do to stimulate the economy?

>> to be honest with you, there has been so much said on television, it is hard to add. let me say, a will the of our u.s. based companies have cash trapped outside the united states. they do not want to bring the cash back because the rate is so high that many of them are choosing to invest in other countries. i think we should vi tax holiday to get this capitol trapped oferedse that they won't bring back to the -- trapped overseas that they won't bring back to the united states. they already have a lot of cash. they are sitting on it. if they have more capital, they are more likely to invest. i don't know if it will be

ultimately defined ad ideological, because we have an ideological battle and people are sticking to their ideology. this would be something the president could do and it wouldn't enflame anybody. i think that's part of what they worry about down there. of course, anything in addition to that, i can tell you that the blizzard of regulations that have already happened and are anticipated have frozen companies as well. and the notion that we have this huge debt and that companies know and individuals basically know it is a claim on future earnings, so what the president can do, maybe he should think about some of the things reagan did. bring the cash back. that's not a reagan program, but it makes sense. two, put a moritorium on

regulations, provide certainty certainty. see what he can do to work out a solution to this deficit that can be real. if you start raising capitals and dividends and tacking people at higher marginal rates, you freeze the economy. the proof is in the pudding. they need to think about all of this. i think they are getting to the point where they are running out of time in terms of this current administration. i wish they would give it thought. on the republican side, i believe tax reform is important. i think the ability to close loopholes and get rid of provisions in the tax code that were put in by special interests is something we should embrace. and a lower, flatter tax rate is good for america and it is good for economic growth.

it is going to take both sides. with the ad m., the president -- it can't be more and more of the same, because more and more of the same isn't going to work. >> where will the lines of agreement be between this president, your former colleague ? >> i think they are close to a $4 trillion deal. i think what broke it down was the notion -- first of all, we the notion -- first of all, we don't know how serious the reforms of the government were. we saved billions of dollars here, and the aarp complimented us because we reformed medicare.

if you look at it, what's holding us back is spending. i don't think people ought to think about that as a tax increase. i don't. you know, get a flatter tax. it will spur more economic it will spur more economic growth and get rid of some of these uneconomic loopholes. you can't take more revenue and dump it into more spending, because that exacerbates the problem of spending. i don't preach all this for idology, it just makes good sense. if you have too much debt, you get in trouble. if the cost of doing something is too high, you don't do it. that's why high taxes are bad. if you look at ohio, you see what we did. we had an $8 billion deficit. we didn't raise taxes. we would have become less competitive.

we got an improvement in our credit rating. so my favorite rating agency is s&p. >> kate. >> i'm wondering where you would look for cuts. >> kate, i'm not budget chairman anymore. i'm governor of ohio. to speculate what i would do if i were there is something i'm not interested in, because it is not fair for me to put myself in the middle of this movie when i didn't help to make it. what i would say to you, kate, is everybody likes to use the word "cut." there are going to be some cuts. i mean government is so bloated and inefficient and out of control, particularly in washington, and every american

washington, and every american knows it, including, by the way, inside the pentagon. i was a pentagon reformer. you might not know that, but i was. it is back to designing something that works to work for the customer that saves you money. you have to cast aside who these special interest people are who are always complaining and whining and screaming. not all of them, and not all the time, but too much of the time, you have to face your problem. you have to think it through clearly. we talk about stephen jobs. how did jobs become so successful? well, he knew there was a problem and he tried to solve it. he didn't call a bunch of people and said, will this make you happy or you happy?

he just attacked it straight on, and he solved it, and he's changed the world. the same is true with government. we have done it here in ohio. like i say, we have been praised for what we've done with medicaid. we have integrated mental health and physical health, which saves money. we have gotten to the point, where like they say, we have improved the balance between home care and nursing home care. we do a lot of things here. we just sold -- we privatized one of our prisons. we believe at the end of the day, our prisons will be safer, more efficiently run. why do people do it before? politics. politics. if you look problems in the eye and you begin to deal with them honestly, you not only confront the problems, you get support. >> what about deadlines?

>> that is like asking me to predict the weather. i have no idea, kate. i don't get the whole thing, to tell you the truth. i don't think we should be raising taxes. we went through a government shutdown. then we sat down with the clinton administration and we worked it out. we cut taxes. not as much as we wanted to, but we ended up with a balanced we ended up with a balanced budget and ended up paying down the most debt in our history, and we used surpluses that could have been used to fix social security and medicare. i'm going to leave it there. i'm be -- not going to say

anymore than that. say the wrong things -- look, you have to have a partnership on the other side and all of us have to be a little careful not to enflame one another. it is important that we respect one another's views without getting so emotional that we start attacking people personal or getting into their wheelhouse . does that make sense to you? is it >> jack torry, columbus dispatch, washington bureau chief, let's go to you. >> there is a deal on the table >> there is a deal on the table that affects the bargaining rights of employees. trillions trillions of dollars have been put on the table with this. do you do you see this as a referendum on your administration? what happens if you lose this? does this ruin your agenda for

the next three years? >> first of all, it doesn't ruin my agenda. i reject this notion that we are somehow disrupting people's bargaining rights. you in ohio will be able to continue to negotiate for your wages and for your working conditions. nobody in the private sector that i'm aware of negotiates for their pensions or for their health care. what we're asking public employees to do in ohio is share some of the sacrifices national taxpayers, the private workers have shared. let me tell you what we're asking public employees to do. we're asking them to pay 15% of the cost of their health care. 15%. i know a lot of people in the private sector that would like to sign up for that deal. we're not asking employees to pay the 25% that a lot of these private sector employees pay. they also have a guaranteed

pension. "guaranteed pension" means even if the market goes down, you still get your money. if you have a 401-k, the market goes down, you get hit. they may not provide the health care, or maybe it isn't that great, and you pay a lot for it. this is a woman that is struggling to make ends meet. of course she has no pension. how fair is it to ask her to not only buy her own, but also somebody else's. we're asking people to step up to the plate, share in the sacrifice so ohio can move forward and that we're open for business. what we know, the more we are out there telling people the facts, the better we do. a lot of times politicians run away from what we did. in this case, we just want people to know what we did.

the opposition has a web site about their bill with nothing about their bill. so this is important. who it is important to are the city councils, the school districts, because they a high personnel cost. if they can't control their costs, they have to raise taxes. it happened to american greetings in the city of cleveland. they raised their taxes, and american depreetings -- greetings. they need to give tools to local government to deal with 21st century changes. >> one of the changes you talked about was to sell or lease the about was to sell or lease the turnpike.

that's the super-highway that runs from the pennsylvania border to the indiana border. you also want to privatize the state prison. i don't know of any great authors of the turnpike. do you see those as long-term solutions? >> first of all, jack, we could have sold more prisons, but we're not going to sell for a bad price. secly, we sold one, and we did very well with that. in addition to that, we privatized more of the operations of these prisons. believe me, our director of corrections here in ohio was thrilled with where we are, because i think you know that the cost of correction facilities is sky rocketing. we have been able to get ourselves in the position to be able to change that. able to change that. to be able to first of all not only have the kind of reforms in the prisons like unit management, but also, what do they say, bend -- i forget the

term they use. but we have been able to slow the growth. in some cases, like medicaid, we have been able to slow the cost growth. what we didn't want to do was sell something that in the long run wasn't the best deal for the people of the state. in terms of the turnpike, we have a number of options that we are looking at. not just leasing but other things that could produce revenue. now, the fine people in washington are telling me that we could get a 20% or 30% cut in the dollars that come to us out here in ohio. frankly, i'd like the federal government to turn our money back to us and let us run our own highway program. they won't do that because they want to get their fingers in the pie and distribute money and play pork games and all that. i doubt they will give us our money back. but what we can do is take an asset, the turnpike in ohio, and they can do creative things with it to generate billions of dollars that we can use in ohio to fix our infrastructure.

and infrastructure is important in ohio to -- because we are within 600 miles of 60% of the country. it is important we have good roads and good bridges. the notion is, if we come up with a good program, we'll do it. if we don't think we'll get what these assets are worth, we won't do it. we certainly don't want to take the concept of privatizat ion off the -- privatization off the table. >> governor, back on the issue of collective bargaining, how concerned are you about that fight and -- >> we think people are reforming

programs all across the cup tri -- country, and everywhere they are fighting. it is ok. do i think a public employee shouldn't pay 15% of their health care costs? no, i think you would probably pay that yourself, kate. and i bet you don't have a guaranteed pension, either. so it is not as though we're taking away somebody's first born here. what we are saying is, just pitch in and be part of the solution. i was trying to union bust. most of the people are union. this is about balancing and asking everybody in our state to help out. because as ohio gets healthier,

which it is doing, by the way, our credit is improved. we wipe out an $8 billion structural deficit. we have cut taxes. we eliminate the death tax. we have ourselves in a position of eliminating personnel. of eliminating personnel. we have kept ourselves competitive, and we are beginning to see success. we have retained many jobs, we have new jobs coming into the state. ohio is on the move. it is interesting around the country, people are talking about ohio and the fact that we solve our problems, we met them, we did the right thing, and a lot of people said they ought to learn about this in d.c., study it a little bit. >> with the presidential election well underway, do you think president obama could win ohio. assuming your answer will be no, which republican candidate do you think could win ohio and who will you be endorsing? >> right now i am not endorsing anybody because i have too many things i have to do, and as you

know i have a big ballot on the fall. i have a lot of things i'm trying to do in ohio. workforce, changing our school funding program. figuring out a way to not waste resources by having too many resources by having too many siloed programs out here. running ohio more. right now my job is on the presidential race. i don't know yet. i'm not commissioner lee: -- i'm not mohammed ali. i'm not predicting the knockout. >> in all seriousness, about

this, what we've seen in washington is so different than what it was like when i was there. we were banging around on the basketball court. we didn't look at each other as emnizz. -- enmies. when you actually know the other when you actually know the other person, you are less likely to call them names. i just had a great meeting with the democrats, where i have something i want to do with this person that's going to put them in the limelight.

i'm going to work to improve it. people of the other party of a different philosophy, they are not the enemy. not the enemy. look for areas to agree upon. you might find something that can change the world. i have to tell you, i remember working with bono on debt forgiveness. you know, one mini had a meeting with teddy kennedy and the next with teddy kennedy and the next mini had a meeting with jesse helms so we could help people in africa. we developed the b-2 bomber. i did corporate welfare with ralph nader. i agree with -- i don't agree with ralph nader on 99-100 things. he is not the enemy. look at obama shoving obama-care

down the -- we just don't have it in d.c. i'm glad we played golf and biden told me we do better next time. i'm looking forward to a second match. >> governor, you did talk briefly about the presidential race. there are a number of republicans at high levels in ohio that fear that governor perry of texas is too conservative to win in the state of ohio in a general election. they point to things such as the ideas where he has described social security as a ponsy scheme and that he accused the federal reserve board chairman of perhaps behaving in a fashion if he pumps money in the economy. do you believe the governor of texas might be too conservative? >> i don't think so. when you look at his record in

texas, and they can try to object secure it anyway they want to, when you are the leader, things go poorly, and when things get blamed, and when things go well, you get the credit. they had young people going in by the planeload. by the planeload. they minimize regulations. they have torte reform all the time. it is a first i will ground for small businesses. that's why they have done well. i think that's a powerful message. i think mit romney has a powerful message. that's the fact -- i like the fact he was involved in those olympics and turned it around. more importantly, he was a successful businessman, and a good governor. people criticized him for health care. he was -- my goodness, he was running massachusetts. there was probably wasn't anybody that agreed with him. his health care plan would have been different than the democrats. here's a guy that says i see

something, i'm going to do something about it instead of sitting on the edge of the plane saying who is going to be mad at me if i jump in. i think we have a good field. it is not all the excitement that anybody would like at this point, but it is early. there are other candidates and they are getting people charged up. my old pal, rick santorum, i would like to see him do well. with a record like that on jobs, people want work. >> how many conversations have you had with that. i know mitt romney has reached out to you. >> just about everybody. i talked to romney. i talked to perry before he decided to jump in. i talked to chris christie.

i said you ought to run for president. i'm not leaning anyway. i'm not focused on that right now. i was originally for haley. i was originally for haley. i wanted barber to run. we're all disappointed mitch daniels didn't run. >> do you think you will convince chris christy to get in? do you think he might be a v.p. candidate? >> do i think he will be a v.p. >> do i think he will be a v.p. candidate? i doubt that. i think chris is focused on new jersey. he just wants to get new jersey in a good position. i don't know. i don't know if you know chris christy, you can't really bully chris. he's not a guy you can bully. but i like him a lot. people like him, and it is not too late until, as yogi says, it is not over until it is over.

is not over until it is over. >> final questions. first of all, who are you rooting for? will you root for the steelers if they play? >> jack, i'm going to tell you. let me avoid that. i'm an indians fan. i like the reds. i'm like hillary clinton. i have been disappointed about some of the things the steelers did last year. i don't want to get into this what caused my disappointment but i kind of lost interest. here's how i look at it. i want ohio to rise. that's important to us. what would be better than to have the browns and the bengals have tremendous seasons and get them both in the playoffs. i would love to have the indians. i think it is late for the reds, but i would love to have the indians knock off detroit. look, being from bitsburg,

cleveland and pittsburgh are like twins. i have to tell you a funny storey. i was up there with a bunch of cleveland folks and i said, you know i'm from pittsburgh and some guy booed, and i looked at him and i said, hey, when you win a super bowl, give me a call, so the next day they put call, so the next day they put on a web site, kaich trashes browns fans. i thought this is politics. i avoided answering. >> you were commenting on the scheduling change. do you think that feeds into this sentiment among voters that washington is broken and that it is a circus atmosphere here? >> well, look. i don't know what happened there. it appears to me as though it was a misunderstanding. that's the way i look at it. i know john. john is a great lde