heart ache that is going through these communities and affecting these families. we want to make sure we are there to help. i will make sure that these cameras are gone and the attention is somewhere else that fema will continue to work with your local officials to make sure we are doing the right thing. thank you very much, everybody. thank you guys. thank you guys.

>> well, you know, steve, to be honest with you, there's been so much said on television, it's kind of hard to add anything that's particularly new or interesting. but let me say that this idea that many of our u.s.-based companies have an awful lot of cash that is trapped outside the united states, they do not want to bring the cash back because the rate of taxation is so high that many of them are choosing to instead invest in other countries. i think that we should have a tax holiday or at least a low

tax rate to get some of this capital that's basically trapped overseas and they won't bring back here, back into the united states, which i think would give companies even more confidence because they already have a lot of cash. they're sitting on it. i think if they have more resources, they're more likely to invest in plants and equipment and american workers. so i think this is a program that ought to be considereded. i don't know if it would be ultimately defined as ideological because i think part of the problem is that we have an ideological battle and people are sticking to their ideology. this may be one where the president could do this and it wouldn't inflame anybody. i think that's part of what they worry about down there. of course, in addition to that i can tell you that the regulations, the blizzard of regulations that have already happened and those that 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's a claim on future earnings. so what the president could do and i do thing he needs to think about, they've tried everything, maybe they need to look at some of the things -- he talks about reagan a lot. maybe he should think about thing that is reagan did. put some sort of a moratorium on all these regulations, provide some certainty. see what he can do to work out some kind of an agreement on this deficit that can be real. and he's got to send a signal that in no way -- maybe he doesn't want to cut taxes but when you start talking about raising taxes and taxing people at higher marginal rates you freeze the economy. the proof is in the pudding. so they need to think about all

of this. and i think we're getting to the point where they're running out of time in terms of this current administration. i really wish that they would give it some thought. and on the republican side i do believe that tax reform is important. i think the ability to close loopholes and get rid of provisions in thed to that were put in by special interests are something that we should embrace and a lower, flatter tax rate is good for america and it's good for economic growth. and it's going to take both sides. but with the administration i think the president has got to be -- it can't be more and more of the same because more and more of the same isn't going to work. >> let me follow up on that one point. where will the lines of agreement be between this president, your fellow colleague and speaker of the house john boehner? what can they agree on? >> i actually think they were close to an agreement all things being said. this is my opinion. i think they were very close to

a $4 trillion deal and i think what broke it down was the notion -- well first of all, we don't know how serious the reforms of the government were. you know, everything doesn't have to be a cut. it can be reforms. we save billions of dollars in medicaid out here and the aarp has complimented us because we reformed medicaid to allow mom and dad to stay in their own homes. there are a lot of reforms that can be undertaken if you want to figure out how to design a better product. and the president has got to go along with that. what's holding us back is the spending. you look at europe, they're out of control on spending. on the other side, i think that the notion that if you have torm but you get more revenues, i don't think people ought to be thinking about that as a tax increase. i don't. you know, get a flatter tax that will spur more economic growth and get rid of some of these unnecessary loop holes. but you can't take more

revenues and dump it into more spending because that exass baits the problem of spending. so i don't preach all this for ideology. it just makes good sense. if you have too much debt and 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. and if you take a 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 cut taxes. rereformed our entire plam and we got an improvement in our credit rating. we went from negative watch to stable. so my favorite rating agency is s and p. >> kate. >> i'm wondering as former budget committee chairman where you would be looking for cuts if you were on the committee. i mean, does $1.5 trillion over ten years would you be up for a grand bargain? big cuts or entitlements you would support? >> kate, i'm not budget

chairman any more. ok? i'm now governor of ohio and i've dealt with my problems. and to speculate what i would do if i were there, you know, is just not something i'm very interested in because it's not fair for me to try 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. ok? there's going to be some cuts. i mean, government is so bloated and inefficient and out of control particularly in washington it's kind of ridiculous and every american knows it. including by the way inside the pentagon. you know, i was a pentagon reformer. you might not know that but i was. but let me tell you again, it is back to designing a better program. designing something that can work to serve the customer that work to serve the customer that saves you money in order to do it, you have to cast aside all the politics and 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 problems and you have to think it through clearly. let me tell you, we talk a lot now about steven jobs. ok? how did jobs become so successful? well, part of it is he knew there was a problem and he tried to figure out how to solve it. he didn't call a bunch of people and try to figure out will this make you happy or that 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 with physical health which saves money. we have gotten to the point where like i say we've improved the balance between home care and nursing home care. we do a lot of things here. we just some of -- we

privatized one of our prisons and we believe at the end of our day our prisons will be safer, more efficiently run. why didn't people do it before? politics but if you look problems in the eye around begin to deal with them honestly you not only can solve the problems, you can get public support. >> if you look at the makeup of this committee, six republicans who have signed a tax pledge, how likely do you think agreement will be by the november deadline? >> well, that's like asking me to predict the weather. i have no idea, kate, to be honest with you. i am just not even enamored with the idea of some super committee. i don't get the whole thing to tell you the truth. but you know, i don't think we should have tax increases. that doesn't mean we shouldn't have tax reform. tax reform is fine. so the fact that somebody -- we should be raising taxes. look, i was there in 97. we went through the government shutdown, all this other

business. and then we finally sat down with the clinton administration and we worked it out. in fact, we cut taxes not as much as what we wanted to because that was something they didn't go for but we ended up with a blunlt. we ended up paying down the most amount of debt in our modern history and we had huge surplus that is could have been used to fix social security and medicare. it was blown. so many of the blame goes to republicans. i don't think tax increases should be where we go. and if you're concerned -- i'm going to leave it there. i'm not going to say more than that because say the wrong things and, look, you have to have a partnership with people on the other side. and all of us have to be a little bit careful not to inflame one another. you know? that's important that we respect one another's views without getting so emotional that we start attacking people personally or getting into their wheel house if that makes sense to you. >> jack writes for the daily news. >> well governor, let's talk

about something that's directly affecting you. there will be a ballot issue on the ballot statewide in the fall that would repeal the collective bargaining laws that you signed that you favored. that law does curtail some of the bargaining rights of public employees. supposedly as much as $20 million will be thrown into this campaign on both sides which means it will be watched by people across the country. do you see this as a referendum on your own administration? and what happens to you if you lose this? does this ruin your agenda for the next three years? >> well, first of all of course it doesn't ruin my agenda. what it does do if we're not able to -- and first, i reject this notion that we're 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 nobody in the private sector that i'm aware of anything shates for their pension or for their health care. what we're asking public employees to do in ohio is to

share some of the sacrifice that is the taxpayers, the private workers have shared. and let at the 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 who would like to sign up for that deal. we're not asking public employees to pay the 25% that u a lot of these private sectors pay. they also have a guaranteed pension. and a guaranteed pension means even if the market goes down you still get your money. if you're in a 401(k) the market goes down you get clobbered. thirdly, if you're a single mom with a couple kids and you work for a company, they may not provide you health care or maybe it isn't that great and you pay a lot for it. this is a woman who is struggling to make ends meet and of course she has no pension. now, how fair is it to ask her to not only buy her own but

also to buy somebody else's? so what we do -- what we're doing in our bill is to say, look, this is a reasonable proposal. step up to the plate share in the sacrifice so that ohio can move forward and that we're open for business. and what we know is that the more we're out there telling people what the facts of the bill are, the better we do. it's interesting. a lot of times politicians run away from what they did. in this case we just want people to know what we did. the opposition to this bill, by the way, has a website with nothing on it about the bill because once we start talking about this bill, the public buys in. and frankly we tried to sit down with the unions but they would have no part of it. so this is important not to my state budget because most state workers pay this already. who it's important to are the local communities, the city councils, the school districts because they have high personnel costs. and if they can't control their costs, then they have to raise

taxes. and as they raise taxes they drive businesses out. it happened to american greetings up in the city of brooklyn near cleveland. they raised their taxes and american greetings, the great company, moved out of there to west lake. so this is an opportunity for us to control costs, provide some balance, and give tools to local governments to be able to deal with the 21st century changes. >> one of the things you've talked about is trying to follow the examples set by governor dan yells in indiana and that is to sell or lease the turn bike. that's the super highways that that's the super highways that runs from the border to border. you also want to privatize the five state prisons. so far you've only got a bid i think on one of the state prisons and i don't know if you've had any real great offers on the turnpike. do you see those as real long-term solutions? >> well, first of all we could have sold more prisons but we're not going to sell for a bad price. secondly, we sold one and we did very well with that and in

addition to that we privatized more of the operations of these prisons. and believe me, our director of corrections here in ohio is thrilled with where we are because i think you know that the cost of correction facilities is skyrocketting and we've been able to get ourselves in a position to be 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, to bend the -- i forget the term they use but we've been able to slow the growth sort of like in some ways medicaid where you want to slow your cost growth. and so we're very happy with where we are. where we are. and what we didn't want to do is to sell something that in the long run wasn't the best deal for the people of this state. in terms of the turnpike we have a number of options that we are looking at, not just leasing but other thing that is 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 would 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'll give us our money back. but what we can do is to take an asset, the turnpike here in ohio is really kind of like its own country, and we can do creative things with it to generate a lot, billions of dollars that we can be using in ohio to fix our infrastructure. and infrastructure is important in ohio because we're within 600 miles of 60% of the country. it's important that we have good roads and good bridges. so the notion is if we can get -- if we come up with a good program we'll do it. if we don't think we're going to get what these assets are worth we won't do it. but you don't want to take the concept of privatization off the table. and our prison system as a whole is going to be much, much

better as a result of what we've done here. >> governor back on the issue of collective bargaining, how concerned are you about fight and what that might do to ohio's economic recovery and is there anything you would have dobe differently with your discussions with labor leaders discussions with labor leaders going into this? >> well, first of all, they wouldn't participate in the legislative process. it was like we don't want to offer any amendments. we want the whole thing killed. we think the status quo is great. all across the country people are reforming programs for public employees and everywhere across the country they're fighting. that's just way it is. it's ok. do i think that a public employee shouldn't pay at least 15% of their health care costs? no. i think you would probably pay more than that yourself, kate. and i'll bet you don't have a guaranteed pension either. so it's not as though we're taking away somebody's first born here. what we're saying is just pitch in and be part of the solution. in terms of the nastieness of the fight, you know, i don't

intend to be nasty with anybody. i respect public employees. and frankly this notion that somehow i was trying to union bust which so many so of them say, my dad was in the union most of my family was in the union. i grew up in a blue collar town. this is about balancing and asking everybody in our state to help out. because as ohio gets healthier, which it's doing by the way, our credit has improved, we wiped out an $8 billion structural deficit. we've cut taxes we've got ourselves in a position to help small business. we kept an income tax cut we had so that we can be more competitive. and we're beginning to see success. we have retained many jobs. we have new jobs coming into this state. ohio is on the move. and it's interesting, around the country people are talking about ohio and the fact that we solve our problems, we met them and did the right thing. and a lot of people say they

ought to learn about this in d.c. >> with the presidential election well under way, do you think that president obama think that president obama could win ohio ? and assuming your answer will be no, which republican candidate do you think could win ohio and who will be be endorsing? >> well, right now i'm not endorsing anybody because i have too many things i have to do. and i have a big issue on the ballot this fall. and i have a lot of things i'm trying to do in ohio, workforce, development, changing our school funding program, figuring out a way to not waste resources by having too many siloed programs out here. running ohio more as a family would or a business would manage their budget. so i have a lot to do there. and right now, my focus is not on the presidential race. in terms of can the president win or lose? i don't know yet. right now things don't look good for him. it just doesn't. and if the job picture doesn't

improve, you know, he's in deeper and deeper trouble. but i'm not mohammedali, i'm not going to predict the knockout in what round. i just don't do that. but he clearly has a long way to go. >> you spent some time with the president playing a round of golf with speaker john boehner. what did you talk about? >> golf. >> that's your answer? >> talked about golf. well, yeah, that's what we talked about. talked about. you know, i complained sometimes about whether the president got a shot or not. and did joe biden throw my cart? what i will say is i don't think boehner and biden should be wearing shorts. i mean, we did discuss that briefly. you know, in all seriousness about this, what we've seen in washington is so different than what it was like than when i was there. we would go down at 4:00 in the afternoon and bang each other around and on the basket ball court and democrats and republicans would hang out

together. we didn't look at each other as enemies. i think the golf game was good. there should be more of it so that people can get to know one another. because when you actually know the other person, you're less likely to slug them, to call them names. you have to -- look, i just had a great meeting with the democrat where i've got some ideas about something i'm going to do with this person that's going to put them somewhat in the limelight. out here in ohio the same kind of partisanship is here as well. well. now, i have some relationships with some of the folks on the other slile. but i'm going to work like crazy to improve it. because people who are of the other party and different philosophy. they're not the enemy. look for areas to agree upon because you might find something that can change the world. you know, i have to tell you i remember working with bono on debt forgiveness and one minute i had a meeting with teddy kennedy, the next minute i had

a meeting with jesse helms and boats show up with the same press conference to help people in africa. you might remember ron and i they called us the odd couple we limited production of the b-2 bomber. i did corporate welfare reform with ralph nader. i don't agree with ralph nader on probably 99 of 100 things. but he's not the enemy and there are things we can agree on. and we're not going to solve the major problems -- look at obama shoving obama care down people's throat. it's never settled down. touf do things together and find common ground. that's what you have to do to move big things over time. and we just don't have it in d.c. and i'm glad we played golf and biden told me he would do better the next time. i'm looking forward to the second match. >> governor, you talked briefly about the presidential race. there are a number of

republicans who fear that governor perry of texas is a little too conservative to win in the state of ohio in general election and they point to things such as the idea where he had described social security as a ponzi scheme and that he accused the federal reserve board chairman of perhaps behaving in a treesness fashion if he continues to pump money into the economy. do you agree with that? do you think that the governor of texas might be too conservative to win ohio? >> i don't think so. jack, when you take a look at his record in texas and they can try to obscure it any way they want to, you know, when you're the leader things go poorly you get blamed and when things go well you get the credit and somehow they're trying to take the credit from him. look, i've heard rick perry speak. what they did is they have no income tax. that's why a lot of our companies look at going down there. they have young people going in by the plane load. they minimize regulations. they have tort reform all the time and it's a fertile ground

for small businesses and that's why they've done well. and i think that's a very powerful message. i think mitt romney has a powerful message with the fact that he -- look, i always liked the fact that he was involved in those olympics and turned it around but most important he was a successful businessman and a good governor. and people criticize him for health care. he was my goodness running massachusetts probably wouldn't anybody agree with him. his health care plan would have been different than the democrats. but here's a guy who says i see a problem, i'm going to do something about it instead of sitting on the edge of the poom pool saying whose going to be mad at me if i jump in. i think we have a good field. not all the excitement that anybody would like at this point but it's early. so you know, look, there are other candidates in there getting people charged up. my old pal rick san torme. i always like to see him do well because he's a fine man. i don't think perry is too conservative. and with a record like that on

jobs, people want work. >> how many conversations have you had with republican candidates? i know mitt romney had reached out to you. who else? they're obviously eeker. >> just about everybody. >> how many -- >> i haven't talked to ron paul yet. they call me and i tell them what i'm working on. i don't have a lot of communication with them. but i've talked to romney, i talked to perry before he decided to jump in. i've talked to rick a couple times. >> is there one that -- >> i talked to chris christy. i say chris you ought to run for president. i'm not leaning anyway. i'm not focused on that right now. i was originally for hailey. i wanted hailey bar bor to run. i think he would have been a great president and a great candidate. we're all disappointed that mitch daniel didn't run. but that's where we are. >> do you think you'll convince chris christy to get in?

do you think he'll be a vp candidate? >> i would kind of doubt that. i think chris is focused on new jersey. and he believes, he just wants to get new jersey in a good position. but i don't know. i don't know if you know chris christy. he's not a guy that -- you know what i mean? he's not a guy you can bully but i like him a lot and he's exciting and people like him. and we'll just have to -- not too late until it's as yogi says it's not over until it's over. >> final question. >> i'm going to ask the nastiest question from them all. you're a steelers fan. who are you rooting for when the browns play the bengles? and will you root for the stealers against the browns and the bengles when they play? >> well, jack, i'm going to tell you, let me avoid that. i'm an indian'sn. i' hillary clinton. turf tell you, i've been disappointed with some of the thing that is the steelers did

last year. i don't want to get into this exactly what causes my disappointment but i kind of lost interest. here's kind of the way i look at it. i want ohio to rise. that's important to us. and what would be better than to have the browns and the bengels have tremendous seasons and get them both in the playoffs and i would love to have the indians. i think it's a little late for the reds but i would love to have the indians knock off detroit. being from pittsburgh, cleveland and pittsburgh are like twins if i have to tell you one funny story. i was up there and i was with a bunch of cleveland folks and i was announcing something on workers comp and i said i'm from pittsburgh and some guy booed and i said when you win a super bowl give me a call. so the next day they put it up on some posting casic trashes fan. >> i quickly wanted to ask you

mentioned partisanship in washington. looking at speaker boehner did this week insisting on the scheduling change and the president's speech next week do you think that feeds into this sentiment among voters that washington is broken and the circumstance -- circus atmosphere here? >> well, look, i think -- 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 leader. he is not a vindictive guy in fact. john boehner is like cool hand luke. he doesn't get worked up and doesn't play those games. i think it was probably just a misunderstanding. they were just coming back in that day and you notice the comments from the white house a lot of people -- i didn't read this a lot but i saw a story on it. they said it was probably something that boehner wasn't really directly involved in. i just don't know. but i think it is important that they show one another

respect. and we're not -- it isn't like we've got some box of chocolates out here. we've got a lot of partisanship out here and you have to work at it. and what gets hard is when you try to work at it and people keep saying go away or drop dead. well you know what? don't take no for an answer. and i think the country will be better off. i know ohio will be better off if i can figure out a way to include more people. we're going to get there. i believe that over time we will get there in this state and i hope it becomes contages. >> governor, thanks very much for being with us here on c-span's "newsmakers" program. >> thanks. it's good to do something other than a sound byte. thank you very much. >> we'll continue with jack and kate. he seemed to get animated over the issue of compromise and bipartisanship. has the atmosphere here been poisonous? >> well, it certainly seems as though this week only contributed to that thought,