Gov. John Kasich to Obama: Do your own job before you offer any opinion on Ohio's solutions?

As part of his struggle to regain control of the Washington debate agenda over balancing the federal budget his way, President Obama has taken to granting targeted TV interviews from the White House to select political markets around the country.

This week one of them was with Cleveland's WKYC during which he opined that he strongly disapproved of states like Ohio and Wisconsin balancing their seriously troubled budgets by limiting the bargaining abilities of powerful public unions.

Wisconsin has received much of the national attention on this issue for its limits on 175,000 public union members, although the law is currently enjoined by a  court.

But Ohio has also taken firm action under the leadership of Republican ex-congressman and new Gov. John Kasich. As part of an immense, multifaceted reform and cutting process to address the state's $8 billion structural deficit, Kasich has signed a controversial measure called SB 5.

It has no effect on the wage and work-condition bargaining rights of the state's 350,000 public union members, twice the size of Wisconsin's membership. SB 5 does, however, remove sick time, pension benefits and healthcare from negotiations between unions and the government.

Obama suggested this was blaming public workers for the public problems.

Kasich was asked about the president's strong opinion. And Kasich offered his own strong response. The full answer is on the video below, but Kasich said in the 1990s he had been House Budget Committee chairman and chief architect of the last federal budget to be balanced.

He noted that Ohioans' elected representatives had reached this legislative agreement and, as required by law, balanced the state budget while preserving tax cuts. Then, he added:

"The president of the United States has I think a $13 trillion debt. Why doesn't he do his job? When he does his job and gets our budget balanced and starts to prepare a future for our children, then maybe he can have an opinion on what's going on in Ohio."

Strong letter to follow.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Chris Carlson / Associated Press

Up again on Obama's list of things to call for others to do: Education reform

Looks like someone in the White House has done some polling and re-discovered the evergreen PR value of calling for education reform.  

Real honest-to-NEA education reform so that our precious children, those innocent darlings frolicking on some playground somewhere right now, can once again be the best-educated, the best-qualified youngsters in the entire world. That's a big job; it might require a second term to talk about more.

Because, never forget,  those little people are our future. And if they don't get smart enough to get a high-paying job, who's going to pay off all this national debt we've just created by throwing billions of dollars out the window to keep the national unemployment rate under 8%, which didn't work. Not to mention have them pay their FICA taxes to prop up the government-run Ponzi-scheme called Social Security.

President Obama's been way too busy to get his hands dirty in the broken down budget-cutting talks that Joe Biden was too busy overseas to lead. So the next federal spending deadline is Friday. And two weeks after that. And....

Obama's been busy not deciding to do much on the Libyan mess, which was what....

Sunday shows: Mitch Daniels, Mitch McConnell, Mary Landrieu, Jon Kyl

ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour": She reports from Japan.

Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt": Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala).

CBS' "Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer": Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS": Rashid Khalidi, Ashraf Khalil, Rami Khouri, Ahmed Rashid, Abderrahim Foukara and Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed of Somalia.

CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley": Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield).

"Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace": Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), with Bill Kristol, Dana Perino and Kirsten Powers.

NBC's "Meet the Press with David Gregory": Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-Ind.) and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), with Ed Gillespie, Anita Dunn, Dan Balz and Michele Norris.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Why wait until Sunday for politics? Click here now to follow The Ticket via Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. Our Facebook Like page is over here. We're also available on Kindle now. Use the ReTweet buttons above to share this item with friends.

Photo: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Credit: Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press

Ohio Gov. John Kasich: 'We will not be raising taxes in this state'

After but 58 days in office, Ohio's new Republican Gov. John Kasich has already driven through the legislature several major reforms and, now, presented his first State of the State Address.

Ohio is crucial politically to both parties next year but especially Republicans, who haven't won the presidency without Ohio for more than a century. The state will lose two House districts as a result of the 2010 Census, but worse, it has lost thousands of citizens and companies in recent years.

Like Obama, Kasich is an ex-state senator. But In his hourlong speech Tuesday afternoon the veteran Kasich gave it the way he likes it -- from notes, not a text or Teleprompter, a method not for the faint-hearted or those whose mind is not chock-full of readily-available details.

The address reads that way (full transcript below), allowing for Kasich to throw in spontaneous thoughts and the names of audience members he happens to be looking at. The less....

Sunday shows: Christie, Daniels, Walker, Scott

ABC's "This Week" with Jake Tapper: Govs. Nikki Haley (R-SC), Jan Brewer (R-AZ), Deval Patrick (D-MA) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Christiane Amanpour reports from Libya.

Bloomberg's "Political Capital" with Al Hunt: Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fl.).

CBS' "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer: Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.).

CNN's "GPS" with Fareed Zakaria: Paul Wolfowitz and Michael Lewis.

CNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley: Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), and Govs. Scott and Dannel Malloy (D-Conn.), with Mark Zandi and Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

"Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace: Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-Ind.), with Bill Kristol, Dana Perino, Juan Williams and Mara Liasson.

NBC's "Meet the Press" with David Gregory: Gov. Scott Walker (R-WIis.) and McCain with Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.), Kim Strassel, Richard Trumka, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) and Lawrence O'Donnell.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Why wait until Sunday for politics? Click here now to follow The Ticket via Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. Our Facebook Like page is over here. We're also available on Kindle now. Use the ReTweet buttons above to share this item with friends.

Photo: Office of the Governor (Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels en route to meet with voters).

Joe Biden update: He meets with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to talk about secret stuff

News report on LATimes.com 'Battle with unions widens in the Midwest':

The battle against unions in the Midwest escalated Wednesday as a second state, Indiana, effectively found itself trapped in a legislative stalemate.

All but three of the 40 Democratic members of the Indiana House of Representatives have temporarily moved to Illinois to avoid voting on legislation they consider to be anti-union.

Illinois is also where all 14 of the Democratic senators from Wisconsin sought sanctuary when they fled from Madison last week to block legislation that would have ended collective bargaining rights for public employee unions.

Public schedule of Vice President Joe Biden for Thursday, Feb. 24:

At 10:45 AM, the Vice President and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis will meet with President of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka and with presidents of AFL-CIO labor organizations.

Whatever do you suppose they're plotting inside this transparent Obama administration White House?

Well, we'll never know. Because this meeting of an elected federal official with top labor union officers is closed to press.

Then there are the meetings with lobbyists held just off the executive office grounds to avoid reporting them in White House logs.

You are dismissed.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Michael P. King / via Associated Press (Trumka incites protesters outside the state Capitol in Madison, Wis., Feb. 18, 2011).

Obama's got his midterm mantra down, so why isn't anybody listening?

As usual, the Washington-wise Howard Kurtz has produced another cogent analysis of communications in the nation's capital -- "White House goes into bunker mode."

According to Kurtz over at his new Daily Beast online domicile, as the S.S. Obama cruises toward its midnight rendezvous with a gigantic electoral iceberg on Nov. 2, the president's communications aides are running around on deck, frustrated that their alternative storyline isn't gaining traction in the cacophonous world of modern political babble.

It's like "spitting in the ocean," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer complains to Kurtz.

There can't be more than two or three breathing Americans who haven't heard ...

Social media wrap: Obama, McConnell, Palin speak out on healthcare bill 6 months on

Barack Obama: "I refuse to go back to the days when insurance companies could deny a child healthcare due to a preexisting condition or impose a lifetime limit on care for a cancer patient. Those days are over."

Senate_GOPs: Mitch McConnell: "Americans never wanted this massive government-driven intrusion into their health care" http://bit.ly/bvBZLc

RepDianaDeGette of Colorado: New reforms take effect today, putting patients and drs back in control of health care. Learn more here: http://nyti.ms/cGrKde

MaryBonoMack (California): 6 Month Anniversary of ObamaCare...It is "even worse than critics thought" http://ow.ly/2ISNw ^RM

Senate_GOPs  Happy 6 month #hcr anniversary! "Rarely have so many political strategists been so wrong about something so big." http://bit.ly/ajdVOZ

WaysMeansCmte  WHAT A DIFFERENCE 6 MONTHS MAKE #1: Starting today your health insurance ...

So, if Obama was like a dog, what kind would he be?

The peripatetic President Obama, who's off again today to Ohio of all places to talk more personally about spending even more billions to help the economy, may have made an unintentionally revealing personal comment during his last speech on the subject. (Listen for him to cite the same grandparents he brought up in last year's healthcare townhalls.)

On Labor Day in Milwaukee, having doffed his coat and tie just like a real working guy, the Democrat tried to launch the fall election campaign by listing his many accomplishments and his fights for real Americans. (See full Milwaukee text here.)

And as is the Democratic party line between now and Judgment Day Nov. 2, the chief executive who promised before the last election to take us all beyond the old-style partisan politics, warned....

Obama's new stimulus plan: Spending $700+ billion hasn't worked, so maybe another $50 billion will

Because the administration's $787-billion economic stimulus package hasn't stimulated much except enthusiasm among voters terrified of deficits and federal spending, President Obama has proposed spending $50 billion more the same way.

The Chicagoan's latest plan, coming just eight weeks before the first midterm election verdict on his Democratic Party's complete control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives the last 20 months, would involve pouring the money into roads, railroads and airport runways.

But this president doesn't deal with mere potholes. Describing his grand new plan, he said:

"Over the next six years, we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads – enough to circle the world six times. We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways -– enough to stretch coast to coast. We’re going to restore 150 miles of runways and advance a next generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers."

The lawyer made the proposal (full text below, as usual) in a 39-minute speech at a....