government because they do not like him. this was floating in the air. today, it turns out on the flight back to rome, the pope had a news conference. someone asked him about trump's comments. that is when he made the statement that someone once -- who wants to build a wall is not christian. i did not run anything about it except for trump was running late for any event. i was curious as to what was happening. the new york times put up a story about the pope criticizing trump. then we were off to the races. appeared on stage and blasted the pope for the comments. host: david jackson, did you ever think you would be writing a story a few days for the south caro clamor -- carolina primary that included the pope and donald trump? caller: the leading presidential

candidate getting into a dispute with the pope is one for the books. bush marco rubio and jeb did not want to weigh in on the issue. what is the reasoning? guys are beating each other up, you may not want tuesday in the middle of it. there are not a lot of catholics in south carolina. involved, they do not know how the politics would play out. ted cruz have the same thing. -- said the same thing. host: what did ben carson tell reporters? caller: these that it would be ridiculous if it were not so sad. host: we are talking with david jackson. as a native of south carolina,

what do you expect to happen? donald trump with a double-digit lead, what other candidates say they have a strong ground organization. caller: most people expect trump to win, but the question is how big the margin will be. there are not exactly precise as some of the polls we have seen in some of the other states. trumpestion is whether will finish in the high 20's and who will be in second place. , who what about jeb bush needs to be a top finisher in the state. what does he need to do? caller: he needs to finish second. there is more dispute over bush's position than any other candidate. gamees have a strong down

-- ground game in south carolina. the family name still carries some weight in south carolina. host: let me ask you about endorsements. the state newspaper supporting john kasich. nikki haley yesterday endorsing marco rubio. do these endorsements matter? caller: we will find out. rubio probably has the best lineup of endorsements. he has nikki haley and tim scott. lindsey graham is backing jeb bush. rubio has the all-star political team behind him to push him in the second place. ted cruz, it is a lot of religious leaders and social conservatives. we will see if it is a grassroots victory. host: what about newspaper endorsements? caller: i do not think it will mean that much. kasich is not much of a factor.

he campaigned in michigan earlier this week. he got a late start in south carolina and is not well-known. host: david jackson joining us from south carolina. his work is available online at usa today.com. thank you for being with us. caller: thank you, steve. >> saturday's south carolina republican primary will have coverage of ted cruz speaking to supporters at a rally at 5:30 eastern time. then, donald trump at a rally in charleston, with coverage starting at 7:00 eastern on c-span2. >> c-span's coverage of the presidential candidates continues this week with events in south carolina and nevada, leading up to the primary and democratic caucuses on february

20th. live coverage starts saturday at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span radio, and www.c-span.org . next on c-span, more road to the white house coverage with john kasich campaigning at a cleansing university in south carolina. then a debate on drone warfare and jeb bush speaking to supporters ahead of saturday's primary. >> washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. tomorrow morning, peter bergen to talk about his new book, united states of jihad , investigating america's homegrown terror. watch washington journal beginning at 7:00 eastern tomorrow.

join c-span tomorrow at 9:15 eastern for a ceremony in the great hall of the supreme court in honor of antonin scalia a. ,resident obama, michelle obama supreme court justices, and members of congress are expected among those attending. ceremony, the body of justice scalia will lie in repose. watch on c-span and www.c-span.org. republican presidential candidate john kasich held a town hall meeting with supporters at clemson's strom thurmond institute. his remarks are 50 minutes.

mr. clary: good afternoon. i am so happy to see you all here today. i am gary clary. i represent clemson in the state legislature. i am excited to have governor john kasich here. i met governor kasich about six months ago when he filed his papers to run here in south carolina, and for you to turn out means so much to me personally, and i know it does for the governor. i have a great honor and distinction of introducing the person who is going to introduce john kasich. [laughter] mr. clary: that is better, because tajh boyd is someone everybody knows. all-american quarterback at clemson university. very haunting a

to johnt -- presence kasich because he beat the buckeyes in the orange bowl, 40-35. now without further ado, let me bring tajh boyd to the stand. [applause] mr. boyd: very good turnout. i appreciate you for showing it up. people want to know why i endorse john kasich, and it is because i believe in what he is and what he is going to do. a long time ago, coach sweeney and jeff davis told me something. never associate your name with something you do not believe in.

when john kasich called, it was an easy decision. i love his morals. i love his integrity. an $8 billion deficit in ohio and turned it into a $2 billion surplus. that is not an easy task. given the chance to see the debate and listen and watch, there was a lot of chaos going on out there, and it was crazy. you know who i'm talking about. he just weathered the storm. he was calm, collected. he looks like a president of the united states. this is someone who i truly believe can do a wonderful job. look, you know who to vote for. you need to make it happen. again, a great unifier. he is who he is, john kasich. [applause]

governor, how are you, sir? mr. kasich: i thought i was welcome until i heard that trashing of ohio state, and we got the speaker of the ohio house here. cliff, what are we going to do with this? there we go. you got to be gracious in winning, and you have to be gracious in losing, i guess. that is what they say. how about tajh? isn't he just the best? tajh, it is not about the numbers, is it? it is not about the numbers. it is about the feeling. it is about bringing people together.

it is about everybody having a chance to rise. it is everybody. to risey has a chance america. that is why tajh boyd has been supporting me. that is what it is about. that is what it is about. they did not say to him, that guy is going to run down 20 yards, cut 40 yards to the right. tajh told his receivers, feel it. am i right? you did not know i was a major quarterback. no, i am not. they will report that. it is really great to be with all of you, and we will take some questions, and i really want to come off of this, but they told me they spent a lot of money lighting this and there's tv, and i'm not allowed to move. once you get your pictures, i'm coming back. we have a lot of students here. how many students? let's see. great, great.

so i want to tell you a little story. i grew up in a little town outside of pittsburgh called mckees rocks. blue-collar town. my father carried mail on his back. his father was a coal miner. he died of black lung. as he was older, he was losing his eyesight because of the time he spent in the mines. my mother's mother could not speak english. she was an immigrant from yugoslavia, and it was a town if the wind blew the wrong way, people would find themselves out of work. it was blue-collar, mostly democrat. i do not remember a republican who lived in my hometown. they said my uncle harry was a republican, but we did not pay a lot of attention to uncle harry. the people that were there -- i do not know why this is sticking in my head -- but there was a guy who lived catty-corner to us, he was a big fellow.

he drove a truck. as i think back, it was a van, really, and i can remember him getting up in the morning and driving in that van, and he would load stuff in it, and he would come home at night, come home later than most dads would come home. maybe come home at 6:30 or something like that, and i can remember his clothes. he always started with clean clothes and he always finished with clothes that had oil and grease. i think he was a handyman. i know he worked for a while in beaver falls. he had two kids and a wife and they were wonderful people. when i think back about his life, what a great man, part of the glue who kept our block and families together, but he never

had a lot. but he had everything in the world because he had a great family and he had great neighbors, and he scratched out a living. he made his family proud of him. by the way, last night i was in new york. and i was up there doing "colbert." many of you know who is. i was at a fundraiser. i was coming down out of this apartment, and there was a man. he was the doorman. for some reason i stopped, i said, hi, what is your name? and he said, well, you know -- i said, how long have you been a doorman? he said for a few years. i said, what did you do before that? he said i had a business. he said the lease on my business went up and i could afford to keep that business. and now i'm a doorman. i said, do you have children?

he said, i have four. i said, i want to make sure we get the e-mails of your kids, because i want to send them an e-mail, and i want to tell them that your daddy is a man of character, and he lost his business and it must've been so extremely tough, and he told me how much you kids mean to him. and you need to let your daddy know how much you love him for the fact that he has kept his head up in adversity. when i think about those stories, i think about the people in our country who do struggle. we did not struggle as kids, really. we did not think about struggle. we thought about, you know, we would play baseball in the streets or sometimes the schoolyard, and we fished the balls out of the sewer, and if we hit them on the roof of the schoolhouse, those were the greatest days, the janitor would go up on the roof and throw the balls off.

it was like it was christmas. we never thought it was that big a deal. right, cliff? you grew up like that, not having a lot. my goal is to always remember those people, to always remember the people who do not have a voice, as somebody who will speak for them. there is this election going on -- i do not know if you have noticed -- a presidential election, and they tried to say there is two lanes, the establishment lane and the antiestablishment lane. one of these astute national reporters interviewed me a month ago, and they said, i do not think they understand there is an establishment lane, an antiestablishment lane, and a kasich lane. what is the kasich lane? has neverbody who been in favor of the establishment. you know who else was never in

the establishment lane? ronald reagan. my goodness, the trashing he took because he could not be controlled by a handful of people on k street or in some fancy suite in south carolina. you know who else was in that lane where the establishment fears them? newt gingrich, because i remember when we were running to get the majority, and it was like what is going to happen now that those crazy republicans have won the house? we balanced the budget, changed welfare, and started to grow the economy. and then i think about another guy who was never in the establishment lane. they kept trying to throw this guy, moving him up, trying to knock him out of every position by making him go higher, and then they forced him to go to washington and be vice

president, and when our beloved mckinley died, teddy roosevelt became president, and the whole country, they had to buckle up their seat belt for teddy. what that is about is about change. it is about an attitude that we can make things better, and there is nothing that is off limits. when you are young, i got to tell you, never let anything be on limits, within confines of a straitjacket. shoot for the moon. i got off track a little bit, but i wanted to tell you the story. so i left that little town, and i went to ohio state, and it is a big school. they have 48,000 there. and it was something that happened early on in my time, and i got concerned, and so my uncle told me if you want to make change, start at the top, so i asked for a meeting with the president of the university. it was not easy to get in, but i

badgered them until they would let me in, and there is a lesson for students here -- do not take no for an answer. sometimes it is easier for people to let you do what you want you to do than it is for them to keep bugging them. they finally relent. they let me in this meeting with the president, and i went into his office, and it was impressive, beautiful carpeting, beautiful furniture, beautiful leather chairs, and he said, what is on your mind? and i told him, i have been in school about a month at ohio state, and i am undecided. but looking around at the lady that kept me out, the beautiful carpeting and furniture, lights, paintings, it is beautiful, maybe this is the job for me. what exactly do you do? he told me about his fundraising responsibilities and his academic responsibilities, and he said the next day he was

going to fly to washington and have a meeting with president nixon. i said, sir, there is a number of things i would like to talk to him about also. could i go with you? he said, no. and i said, if i go back to my dorm room and write a letter, would you give it to the president? he had never seen me before, another lesson for students. the lesson is keep walking until somebody tells you to stop, ok? remember that. he said, i guess i could do that. i went back to my dorm room and i wrote a letter to the president, knew he was going to get it, inviting myself to the white house for a meeting, signed it, sincerely, john kasich. if you want to discuss it further, i have time. i will come see you. a few weeks later, i go to my mailbox. there is a little glass window, and i see "the white house," a little letter, "office of the president," and i read it, go upstairs, and i call home.

my mother answers the phone. i said, i'm going to need an airline ticket. the president would like to have a meeting with me in the oval office. my mother said, honey, pick up the phone. there something really wrong with johnny. this is a true story. the kasich family. mydad is delivering mail, mother is a very smart lady, but undereducated. they think this is not going to work out. they get me tickets. they drive me to the airport. my mother says, they will not let you in, johnny, but everything will be ok, we will bring you home. i get through the security and walk in to the white house, and i'm sitting right outside the oval office in a little chair. a man walks up to me and says young man, you get five minutes alone with the president of the united states. what do you think? what you think? i tell you what i think. new shirt, tie, jacket, pants, i did not come this way for five lousy minutes.

they are out of luck. so i went in and there is the president, and i greet him, he greets me, and we sit down at his desk, and as an 18-year-old first-quarter freshman, i spent 20 minutes alone with the office with the president of the united states. and if you add up all the time i spent in the oval office, i peaked out at the age of 18 and transferred to clemson, how is that? [applause] mr. kasich: but there's a couple lessons in there, and mostly when i am on a college campus, and i taught for over 10 years on a number of college campuses, i want you to know those that are here today, shoot for the stars. do you all know that you are made special? do you know that? no, i'm serious.

do you know you are made special? what do you think i mean by that? >> that we are created in god's image, we are meant to be unique, and we can do anything that we put our minds to. mr. kasich: if you are secularist, that is ok. i am cool with you, ok? but what he said is right, in my opinion. we are all made special to do something special. and a lot of times through our lives, we wonder, do i really matter? do i really count? what am i worth? why am i all alone? you remember that you are made special for a purpose, and i want to tell you we are all here at basically the same time.

you see, if somebody were to fly over the world and take a picture of all of us at one time, it could be viewed as a beautiful mosaic, with all of us doing what we are supposed to do on this earth. and i believe that life is short. and i believe that when we fail to do what we are supposed to do, the mosaic becomes unfilled. and what does that mean? how about this guy, tajh? he knows his purpose. he is a guy who is active in his community. i tell you what he is -- he is a role model. he is a role model for people both in his direct community and for those who want to look towards a hero that spent his time striving for excellence. some people that are here, they

want to be an entrepreneur, they want to create jobs. that is a man or a woman who can provide work to a family. that is a gift. or the nurse -- i do not know if you have been in the hospital lately, we do not spend much time with doctors when you are in the hospital. you got to know who the next nurse is because the nurses are the ones who are there. and what would you do if you were in the hospital with a loved one, to have the best nurse possible? what is that nurse? smiles, compassion, caring. am i right, ma'am? or if you are a teacher. we do not pay teachers. let's face it, we just do not pay them enough. ok? but i do know that they don't do it for the money. i think they do it to change lives, and they do it so that we go back to them 30 years later

and say, you really meant something to me. so i want to tell whatever it is, being a doctor and making a phone call at 11:30 at night when you would rather be sleeping, or whether you work at a bank and you got some small businesswoman teetering on the edge and you are trying to take a chance on, there is so much that we can do. politics today, we tend to think that somebody is going to come riding into where we live on a white stallion, fix all our problems. not going to happen. the people at the top, they can do some things to fix things. big-time things. i mean, look, we can have commonsense regulations and not choke small business. we can reduce taxes, which sends a very important signal to the individual and business that it

is ok to believe the economy will be ok. and we can finally get ourselves in a position to balance a budget and start getting people to do their job. those three things -- those three things will create jobs. we need to make sure we fixed social security. we need to make sure that we can protect the border. you got a guy here in a red shirt -- we got to fix it. there are so many things we have to do. those are things the folks in washington should do. people, i am going to send a plan in the first 100 days to change the regulatory environment, reduce taxes, have a capital gains tax, to give companies a reasonable way to bring their profits home from europe so they invest it, a plan to balance the budget by restraining the growth of government and by transforming the way in which we do entitlements, and getting the plan to fix social security and

rebuild the pentagon so we have strength in the military, and re-assuming our leadership role in the world, and job training and education, and programs for the poor and health care back to the states, so we can design programs and learn from one another -- in the first 100 days. and getting the phone numbers of all the moms and dads who have kids in congress so that on mom's birthday i can wish her happy birthday as president. she calls her kids, and says, do not mess with that president, i like him. but i will do that. but what we got to do is going back to that little town in mckees rocks where we were safe, did not have a lot, where we were secure, optimistic, hopeful about our lives in the future and what could be accomplished.

it is all with us, right here at this very sweet and beautiful university called clemson, all over this state of south carolina, and we have to fix education, we have to make sure that those schools are producing the skills for our kids so they can have jobs that exist today and tomorrow, not jobs that existed 50 years ago. we have to do it. you got a problem with drugs? do not wait for somebody else to show up. you show up. and students who are here today, you want to obscure your purpose in life? you mess with drugs. you stay off those drugs. and when you go to those parties, and you have had your three drinks, and one of your friends says, we can just try that pill in that bowl over

there, just one time, you get out of that place. i have seen too many young people and their families who either their addiction or the loss of their life. please do not mess with that stuff, ok? have a great time. going to college is not just about learning, but having a great time, but stay off the pills. when it comes to the poor, ok -- [applause] mr. kasich: am i right, tajh? when it comes to the poor, we are the business community. we have to be in the welfare office. we got to make sure people get trained for a job that exist so they do not become dependent on the government. and nothing wrong with going down, for some of you to spend a little time in that food bank thanking the good lord for what you have. in other words, the glue that holds america together starts where we live, in our homes and

in our neighborhoods. that is where it is. for those that live in a faraway place called washington, demand that they do their job, demand that they forget about their reelection and realize that first of all they are not republicans and democrats, first, they are americans first and they need to work together to give every american a chance to grow and do well and realize their dreams. and for those people who tell you everything is so bad in america, what, are you kidding me? we have our challenges. the country is awesome, incredible. can we meet the challenges? are you kidding me? it is not that hard. it is just people who let their egos get in the way. all of us, and when we lower them, and when we think about

living a life bigger than ourselves, particularly in public life -- am i right, ron? we change the world. we changed it in ohio. i have led the team that changed it in washington. i'm ready to go back one time and change it one more time so we can get this country moving again, but you are my teammates. you are my teammates, and we will do it together, ok? ok. questions. i never go with the person who raises their hand first. you are out of luck, sir. sorry. right here, right here. ok, there we go. >> i appreciate your comments, and i would expand that part of the glue that holds us together as americans is a commitment to service. there are 5 million young americans ready to step and serve their country for a year

with programs like the peace corps and americorps, if given the opportunity, but unfortunately, those opportunities do not exist. we are turning away 80% of young americans who are ready to step forward to face our greatest challenges. i am wondering, as president, in the spirit of your comments earlier, will you commit to expanding national service opportunities so that a year of service becomes a common opportunity for young americans? mr. kasich: that was so beautifully put. i mean, that was great. i used to be against obamacare -- i am against it -- i used to be against americorps before i was for it, ok? i love that old line they use against kerry. i became convinced that americorps could make a difference after spending time

with not volunteers, because they get paid, but they are americorps workers. i think the idea of national service is fantastic, and what i like about what you said, is, it is a voluntary program, because i have thought, should we make it a requirement? i have such mixed reaction from young people about it, but idea that there would be some more resources for these programs to engage people in their communities i think is a really good idea. now, we have to keep in mind -- the reason why we do not balance budgets, it is hard to understand, because not that many people are affected. the only people who are affected, farmers, doctors, hospitals, students, senior citizens, military, soldiers, their dependents, everybody, right? everybody. what happens is it is innate to us for a politician to say yes

to everything. when we say yes to everything, we put ourselves $19 trillion in debt, we're spending $225 billion in interest on the debt, and if interest rates go up, bar the door. think if you could take $100 billion of the $225 billion and spend it on alzheimer's research and on dementia and pancreatic cancer or to fight these diseases that we do not always focus on. but they are in the context of balancing the budget. you have to have your priorities. a few more resources for a program like that will probably pay off. we have a lot of students here who have rung up college debt. let me head you off before you ask me. first of all, if you are not in college, then you need to take

those college credit courses, and something for the moms and dads and the grandparents that are here, you know how many students we have who graduate from high school thinking they did well and then when they get to college they have to pay tuition to take 11th-grade courses in math and english? do you know that? very expensive. we need to remediate it online so they are prepared to get the ground running in college. you had the opportunity if you want to control your cost, you go to a community college for a couple years and transfer those credits to the four-year schools. i am fixing to let that be expanded to three years. we will get hassles from the four-year schools, if you want students to control their debt while getting a good education, we need to permit students go three years to a community college and transfer credits.

you have cut your cost by three quarters. for those that are already here, what are we going to do? first of all, it is really important that the people who lead higher education start to focus on controlling their costs, because the costs are out of control. and i do not think that means you got to go beat up the professors. most of the costs, and i do not know what the costs are clemson, but most of the costs we know from national studies are the administrative costs that could be more easily controlled, but frankly some of the leaders do not want to control it. why? if you are a college president, what do you think you want to be tomorrow? think about it. >> still a college president? mr. kasich: give him an a. give him his degree. a college president wants to be a president tomorrow. it is hard to bring about change on a campus.

our president at ohio state proposed that we lease the parking garages and the surface lots because he is saying, why are we running these things? our job is to educate students, not run a parking garage. not the entire faculty -- but a lot of the faculty went crazy. i do not understand your opposition. he leased these and put the money into scholarships. why are universities running dining facilities? that is not their jobs. we have to get these costs under control. back to the national service question. for those that have these high costs, i have not put the program together yet, but the idea that you can do national service to work off some of that big college debt is important and is something that has my attention. i want to tell all the people here, you are not going to get free college education, ok?

you might -- i want bernie to tell those guys , his friends in vermont, to give us free ben and jerrys for a year. see how that works out. we have a real problem here with our millennials starting with huge debt. how did it happen? we promised them, you go to school, you will get a good job, and do not worry about the debt. and then they went to college, we have no job growth, and they cannot find a job and the debt is lingering and growing, so we will have to think about ways to deal with it. i like the idea of having incentives to help a student pay down debt as a tool for attracting people, but this issue back to national service is something that might make some sense. i am going to figure it out because it is a problem in our country, and i want our young people to get off to a really good start.

so right here, sir. >> is there hope in the israel-palestinian conflict, and if there is, what will you and your secretary of state do to realize that hope? mr. kasich: you think about the goal. the goal for israel is to maintain stability. we are not going to have some kumbaya peace over there. we have to know what to pursue and how we pursue it. what i would say to you is that number one, they are one of our greatest allies and we are not going to turn our backs on them. i just thought, i was amazed that the president would not meet with netanyahu when he came to washington. if a foreign leader like that comes to washington, when i am there, we will at least have a cup of coffee. i might not have a bunch of cameras, but you got to show

respect, and they are our allies. that is what we have to do. if you have concerns with israel, then you can tell them what your concerns are. but you do not do it out in front of cameras. we do not need to solve the problem of encryption in united states, the controversy that is raging between apple and the fbi. you guys have a soundproof room where we can get five adults in it and figure it out? the same is true with our friends. you got something to tell them, tell them, but do not undermine your friends and treat your enemies with more regard than you are treating your friends. in life, we tend to be tougher on our families and friends than we are with people we do not know. that is not a good thing to do in foreign policy. we all hope there will be a two-state solution, but it is easy to sit here and talk about ate solution when people

are being stabbed inside of israel. go take care of it. we got to make sure that the security of israel is protected, and we cannot walk away from them or undermine them or make them feel insecure while at the same time we want to search for stability, because that is what the goal has to be. every day over there that things can be quiet is a victory, and i think that is the way we have to pursue that. yes, sir, way in the back -- right here. you jumped up first. we will go to you. >> i am a lot like you. i'm from pennsylvania. mr. kasich: cannot hear. if you are from pennsylvania, we know you are loud enough. >> i went to ohio state. my grandfather died from black lung as well. i fished in a sulfur black creek. if i caught a little chub, i was happy. i got a master's degree from

clemson university in environmental toxicology. i have given 21 years to this university. my wife has worked for the same company for 21 years. if either one of us lost our job, we would be at the poverty level. i have worked hard. i have taken extra jobs on the weekend to give my family extra money to do those extra things. i want to talk to you about social dependence. i have two questions for you, sir. if you are president, what are you going to do to stop this growing population of citizens who choose this way of life, not to stay in school, not get the job, who rather would just rely on the government? please tell me what you would do to this growing culture of social dependence.

, why should i vote for this saturday and not met saturday? more importantly, why should i vote for you? mr. kasich: what is next saturday? oh, okay. i do not know. i do not think about that. start first? forou have listened to me 15 minutes and you have not made up your mind, i do not think there is anything else i can tell you. you have heard me long enough. what are you thinking? are you with me or against me? i want to hear what you have to say about this issue. mr. kasich: and then you will commit. here is the thing. where did you grow up in pennsylvania? ok. my mother had a philosophy. i agree with it.

it is a sin not to help someone who needs help someone who needs to learn how to help themselves. that's my basic philosophy. [applause] mr. kasich: i have believed that with rising economic strength that we cannot leave anybody behind. we cannot let the mentally ill sleep under a bridge or live in prison. you wouldn't believe that. you don't think we should turn our backs on the drug addicted. all they are in is a revolving door. and the working poor. sometimes it's harder for them to take a pay increase then turn it down because they lose more than they gain. they're not dumb. what we have done, i was one of the main people to push the welfare reform through congress, which eliminated the entitlement on welfare. that was a significant

accomplishment for us. that and balancing the budget. secondly, in our state, we were really in bad shape. billion in the hole. 20% of our operating budget in the hole. we had lost 350,000 jobs. now, we are 400,000 jobs up, our credit is strong, pension is strong. we cut taxes for small businesses. and we are doing well. and when we do well, we want to pull everyone along and give them a chance. if you are on these programs in we are helping you, that's not good enough. you have to make the commitment to be personally responsible for the help you are getting. i was at a grocery store in downtown on sunday and these two ladies -- they are working there all the time and not making a lot of money.

they tell me about people who came in to buy products with food stamps and then go sell them for money. they are pleading with me to fix this. if you are on cash welfare and able-bodied, you have to work 30 hours a week. we take the benefits away from people if they violate that. if you are on food stamps and able-bodied, you have to work 20 hours a week. what i want to do and what we're trying to do is to say to the welfare departments because they have become bureaucracy. in many ways, they don't want a reform. you go into the welfare department and you have 10 people trying to take you around.

i want one caseworker with one person and i want them to be trained we're trying to bring the businesses into the welfare offices. get the businesses in the welfare office so when someone gets something, they look at the business and they say i will train you for a job that exists. i'm telling the welfare departments in ohio "get your act together." iu are not responsive, want people to get help. i want them to get training. i want to hold them accountable for taking a job we can train them for. i told the welfare departments if you don't drive that, i will privatize your department or combine it with another county that will do this because we cannot continue to help people who need to learn how to help themselves and that's my philosophy and we are going to do that. [applause]

mr. kasich: and i want to send welfare back here. you write your own welfare laws. figure out what you want to do. let me say one other thing. what you have done, what do you do? >> i run the aquatic research lab. mr. kasich: so you run that lab. you are basically all wet, then. mr. kasich: so you run that lab. 21 years. doesn't he deserve a round of applause? [applause] mr. kasich: look, the key to everything here is growth. if you don't have growth, you don't have anything. families, communities, universities are stronger with growth. another thing we have to do about these people who we find being dependent a lot of the

times. i want you to think about this for a second. a kid grows up in the neighborhood very poor. sometimes, they wake up and hear gunshots, don't they? they hear gunshots. they are afraid to go to school. or you have a kid who gets a ride to school with his mother and she is smoking dope in the car. i am not categorizing. i'm saying it happens to kids. and then we say to them pulled a yourself up by your bootstraps.

they don't know what a bootstrap is. we are pushing in our state, and i'm so proud of this, we're spending money and telling businesses that if you adopt a faith-based institution and you adopt a school and go in there, we will match you three dollars for every dollar you spend in we will teach you how to mentor children. in the cincinnati public schools, the graduation rate is 63% but in the one high school in the cincinnati district where they mentor, the graduation rate is 97%. [applause] mr. kasich: none of these kids lives should be tossed away that we can all help to get them up. you like that? you know what you tell them? you tell them "kids, you want to see my car, you want to look at

my clothes, you can be something you -- something?" if we have a kid that could drop them a completely different path. we don't want to leave anybody left behind. it isn't fair to those ladies working and it isn't fair to you. we will keep at it. it will never be perfect. vote this saturday, all right? [applause] mr. kasich: i told them when i was in new hampshire, i was going to south carolina to wear flip-flops and you are doing it. [laughter] mr. kasich: you will get the last word. i don't know where i'm going but i'm going somewhere and i have to be on time. >> i drove up from the

university of georgia. sorry. [laughter] >> i wanted to let you know why i'm supporting you and why that support is unwavering. over a year ago, a man who is like my second father killed himself and a few months later, my parents got a divorce, and a few months later, my dad lost his job. i was in a really dark place for a long time. but i found hope and i found it in the lord and my friends and now in my presidential candidate i support and i would really appreciate one of those hugs you have been talking about. [applause]

mr. kasich: there's nothing more to say then i will tell you this -- as i have been out here. this is not unusual. that story is so painful. i've heard about pain all across this country. and i've learned we are going to fast. we need to slow down. there are not enough people who are helping those with no one