John Kasich’s Interview with The Washington Post Editorial Board

This is pretty funny:

A transcript of John Kasich’s interview with The Washington Post editorial board:

... CATHERINE RAMPELL, COLUMNIST: On the balanced budget question, you have positioned yourself as the sole candidate of fiscal responsibility based on your record in Ohio and previously in Congress, but arguably of all of the candidates still standing you have released the least details about budgeting, about taxes. You’re the only candidate that the Tax Foundation, Tax Policy Center, Committee for a Responsible [Federal] Budget have said they can’t score your tax plan because it’s too thin on details.

KASICH:  Yes. Well,... look, I mean, we’re working through it. I’ve cut taxes in Ohio. It’s not confusing. I’m going to have a 28, 25 and 10 percent rate. We’re going to have an increase in the earned income tax credit.

RAMPELL:  Yes, but that doesn’t lead to surpluses. That doesn’t lead to – ...

KASICH: Well, you get the surpluses three ways:  ...Common sense regulations so you’re not crushing small business. ...

Two, lower taxes. ...

And the third thing is a fiscal plan. Now, I will tell you how we’ll run the fiscal plan. And I can lay out all – you’re going to send welfare and Medicaid and, you know, this job training and all that back to the states. ...

So it’s not that hard to budget. Entitlements?  I’ve already talked about Social Security. You’re going to have to means test it and say if you’ve had, you know, significant income over your lifetime; and we’re trying to put the details to what that number is, you’ll get Social Security. You’ll get less and people that depend on it will get what they need.

RAMPELL:  So to clarify, you’re saying you would balance through spending cuts?

KASICH:  No, no, no. You get it through economic growth. That’s the way you get it. Economic growth. Our tax plan, all that projects 3.9 percent economic growth. It’s not some flimsy put-together – you know... I don’t put together smoke and mirrors ... it’s one of the reasons why I got in trouble with conservatives – I have never operated from a – one of these dynamic models. Okay?  But there’s a legitimate amount of dynamic activity. And I just don’t get beyond what I think is a legitimate pale.

MARCUS:  Well, but you have a tax cut that – as far as I can see though it’s been unscoreable for the reasons that Catherine says – that most closely approximates Jeb Bush’s. Jeb Bush’s tax cut was scored on a non-dynamic basis by the Tax Policy Center as costing about $6.8 trillion. ...

KASICH: Well, look, I would tell you that look at the plan and see how they project it. I believe that we have not overused dynamic scoring...– I think that what we’ve done is a set of reasonable assumptions. Now, who’s working on it?  People like Kerry Knott, worked for [former congressman] Dick Armey. I mean, we got a lot of people looking at it. ...

MARCUS:  So, but your path to balance, which doesn’t include Social Security ... rests on sustained economic growth rate approaching four percent, which ... has not really been seen in ... recent American history. So –

KASICH:  You know why?  Because they over-regulate, over-tax and blow up the budget. ... Tax cuts matter because I believe they provide economic growth. I don’t think you should make numbers up. ...

This part was amusing too:

TOM TOLES, EDITORIAL CARTOONIST:  Do you support a market tax on carbon..., doesn’t it get to the problem in a significant way?

KASICH:  No.

STROMBERG:  So the economists are wrong on this, then?

KASICH:  Well, which economists?

STROMBERG:  Essentially all of them.

KASICH:  Well no, I can get you an economist out of Ohio University, and he wouldn’t agree with these economists. ...

A bit later:

KASICH:  ...Somebody comes to me and says, you know, some bunch of economists or scientists that say, “Look, this is a problem” — of course I’d listen to them. ...