Kasich’s job as Governor of Ohio is to provide for the safety and welfare of Americans residing in his state, not welcome illegal Mexicans et al to drive down wages to benefit the wealthy. It’s amazing he can talk so callously when a record number of Americans — 93.8 million — are not in the workforce. Governors should be working to get those dropped out citizens working again rather than speaking cheerfully of cheap-working foreigners who are a big part of the problem.
Kasich is adding to the difficulty by piling on the myth that America needs foreign workers, despite decades of open borders allowing millions of aliens and now automation coming on strong to take even more jobs. He is a sappy advertising magnet for millions more illegals from the third world.
Listen to the 14 minute audio clip here.
Kasich: Illegals are Law-Abiding, Provide Valuable Services, Laura Ingraham Show, August 13, 2015
Today on The Laura Ingraham Show, Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) addressed his controversial views on immigration policy. Yesterday in New Hampshire, Kasich raised addressed the significant contributions of illegals to the economy and his support for a pathway to legalization. Today, Kasich emphatically endorsed building a wall to secure the border, but showed little empathy for the American workers displaced by those who are already in the country illegally. Kasich then addressed illegal immigrants as American citizens saying, “we don’t need to be picking one person over the other…let’s not be pitting one American against another,” referencing competition between illegal immigrants and Americans.
Partial Transcript:
Ingraham: Yesterday when you were in New Hampshire you made an appearance in which you said immigrants contribute significantly to the economy and when you spoke about a path to, I guess, legal status for illegal immigrants, it was described in the AP report as you got a “smattering of applause.” Do you think that right now in the country with all these people out of work and 45 million on food stamps that the American Republican voter is really desperate to hear candidates talk about how we need to help all these people who came into the country illegally? [4:30]
Kasich: Well, we’re certainly not going to ship them out of the country. What I’m saying is a lot of these folks who are here, they’re law abiding, they’re God-fearing, they’re family-oriented. And, what do you want to do with them?
Ingraham: That’s what Bush says though. Bush says the same thing.
Kasich: Ronald Reagan himself provided amnesty. I’m not for that, I’m for making sure the people who came here illegally are going to have to pay a penalty for the fact that they jumped the fence. But, let’s face facts, part of the reason why that fence has not been built is because there have been interests who want that fence not to be built because they take advantage of the labor. So, what I’m suggesting is build the wall, if anybody, anybody, tries to come in once that wall is built, there’s no argument, you go back. No more fooling around. If you’re an employer and you hire someone who’s illegal, you’re going to pay a fine and be punished.
Ingraham: What about employers who are hiring illegals now, Gov. Kasich? What about the Americans who can’t get jobs? What about those employers who are now violating U.S. law by hiring illegal immigrants?
Kasich: Well, if they are violating the law, they should be held accountable for that. But, look, we’ve got to move beyond this thing. This is a very difficult problem. What are you want to say? Put them out? A lot of these people who are working, these people who came here illegally who are now here and are law abiding are providing valuable services. I see them in the hotels, I see them…
Ingraham: So you don’t think Americans would do those jobs? Because my mother was a waitress until she was 74, I mean, when I hear Americans don’t do these jobs it drives me crazy.
Kasich: Our problem is that we don’t have a pro-growth economy. We don’t need to be picking one person over the other, we need to expand the pie. We’re only growing at 2%, this is the most anemic growth that we have seen post World War II and if we would grow the pie by balancing budgets and cutting taxes, look, I’m the guy that’s done it. We’re up 350,000 jobs in the state of Ohio since I’ve come in. When I was Chairman of the Budget Committee we balanced our budget and our economy was booming. So, let’s not pitting one American against another, let’s grow the pie…
Ingraham: But, they’re not American. Governor, but that is the problem, they’re not Americans. They violated our laws. And, you say that businesses should be penalized, but where are they being penalized for hiring illegal immigrants? I’m here in Minnesota doing my show, and I was out getting coffee this morning on the way to the studio and I went into a Starbucks and these two women, they looked like native born Americans, I was chatting with them. I say, how’s it going? She’s like, well, a lot of people are making a lot of money in Minnesota…And, it’s like…
Kasich: Well, I have to think about some of the questions you ask. So, we have these people here and some of them are working for employers and some employers don’t even know they’re not here legally. Okay? I know most people who want to hire people don’t want to hire people who came here illegally. But, let’s get beyond this. Let’s get this issue settled and let’s expand the pie so more people can work so we can reduce the frustration. In regards to my appearance at the town halls, Laura, I’m not really there to generate applause. I know how to generate applause with the best of them. But, I’m there to tell people what I think, and guess what, I’ve gone from about 0 to basically tied for second place in New Hampshire in three weeks. So, something must be working, right? And, I’m not using an applause meter, I’m just suggesting that as the governor I need to come up with practical solutions to real problems. And, as the president we need to fix this immigration problem.
Ingraham: I don’t want to harp on this, we have a lot of other issues. But, I will tell you and, I talk to people every day, you talk to people every day, and you are a media figure, you were in Congress. But, the regular guy-let’s say someone is 49 years old, never finished college, today in this country, never finished college, but had a decent paying job, middle class job, and maybe that job’s not here anymore, maybe it’s overseas or innovation, I don’t know. What do you say to that man? When you say immigrants contribute significantly to the country, and I’m not saying some of them don’t, but he sees his opportunities shrinking over the Bush term, median wages haven’t gone up for now 17 years, 16 years, something like that. So, pre-dating Obama, during the Bush years, and you’re not criticizing the Bush’s I understand, but we saw no growth for this country in those Bush years. We saw no middle income growth, we’ve done all these trade deals, China was in the WTO, we promised that was going to bring up wages, none of it happened. We had a ton of people coming across the border illegally and these middle class people are basically told, well, go learn to write code and maybe you’ll get a job. What do you tell those people?
Kasich: Let me say a couple things. First of all, when I left Washington we had a 5 trillion dollar surplus and I have not failed to point out in all of my meetings that the 5 trillion dollar surplus was blown by Republicans. And, when I left the economy was roaring because we had a balanced budget, we’d cut taxes, and things were on the move. It was the Republicans in the White House, in the House and the Senate who blew the 5 trillion dollar surplus, number one. Number two, because of it, our economy slowed down. Number three, wages in Ohio are growing faster than the national average. And, fourthly, on trade, you and I are pretty close because while I say that I favor free trade, when countries are dumping their products in this country and destroying American’s jobs, and I’ve said this on television and in my talks, we should not play footsie with them, we need to slam the door on those products coming into the country illegally. And, the fact is, it takes as long as two years for the system to decide if someone is cheating and then process that, people lose their jobs and it’s an outrage and it needs to be changed.
Ingraham observed a couple minutes later in a back and forth about what to do with the 12 million illegals: “If people can’t get food stamps, they can’t get all these benefits, they’re not getting emergency room treatment, they’re not getting all this stuff. If they don’t get those benefits and can’t work here, most of those people aren’t going to come here.”
Kasich responded, “We have 12 million people here are most of them are law-abiding hard-working people.”
Hopeless.
The illegal aliens need to self-deport, i.e. return to their true homes the same way they got here. Another amnesty — aka work permits — would send the message to the world that America is still a soft touch for cheap alien labor.
