Kasich: Work together on innovation, jobs, progress

I want to thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to all the members of the General Assembly for bringing this joint legislative session to Sandusky and the shores of, of course, our great lake.

For the people of the city that’s about to celebrate 200 years of history with their bicentennial in 2018, I hope this session and all the events surrounding our visit here will go down as one more historic event for Sandusky to be remembered for years to come. We love being here.

I have to tell you, I’ve been in love with Ohio’s north coast and this part of the state for a long, long time. You see, when I was a kid, my mom and dad used to pack up the car and we would drive up to Vermilion, not far from here. We’d leave Pittsburgh and we’d drive. We would cross into Ohio. And my uncle Harry who was always with us, he’d turn to me and look at me and he’d say, “Johnny, we’ve reached the promised land.” That’s how I thought about Ohio.

I have so many good memories of summers here on the lake. Of course, this region continues to generate good memories for hundreds of thousands who come here for the recreation, the resources, and the hospitality Lake Erie coast is known for.

And we’re investing a lot in our lake and our coastal resources to make the water cleaner and keep it that way. About $2.5 billion have been invested in Lake Erie since the start of the Administration. Yes, we want to make it cleaner, and we aim to keep it clean. And I hope those that come after me will realize this is the great, great jewel of the state of Ohio, and that’s the great Lake Erie.

We also gave a $1 million grant that we announced here yesterday to the city so they could work to restore wetlands in the Sandusky Bay that filter pollutants, and they make Lake Erie cleaner. I hope you like that.

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These are investments in water and natural resources, the quality of life, but of course they’re also an investment in economic growth because we know that when we take care of the world around us it becomes another reason for job creators to want to put down roots here and want to grow.

As I've said many times before throughout my career, our greatest moral purpose as governmental leaders is to create an environment of job creation in which people can have work, in which people can support their families. And I can think back just a short six and a half years ago, we'd lost 350,000 jobs. That's like filling Ohio Stadium, you know, three, four — three times, plus. We had an $8 billion deficit, and I went to New York to the rating agencies and they said, "We're going to tear up your credit cards." I said, "Give us a chance."

It was tough. It was trying, and we came out stronger. Now we are up 460,000 new jobs in our state.

And we’re working to create a more diversified economy. Why? So that when one sector goes down in a tough economic time, another sector can lift us up. It’s called diversification, and we really do believe in it. Now, manufacturing and agriculture, of course, they matter. They’re two cornerstones of our state, but they’re changing as well. Look at the auto industry. Engines and transmissions are more powerful, durable, and efficient — more efficient than ever. In aviation, breakthroughs are making jet engines quieter and cost less to operate, and think about GE down in Cincinnati making those engines. It’s pretty awesome.

And in agriculture, you all know up here farmers are using the latest research so food scientists can meet the demands of a growing population around the world. The world’s job creators know that we in Ohio make things. That’s why they’re turning to us for their future success and they’re using new technologies and innovations that dramatically change the way that products are made.

Just down the road in Norwalk, the German auto parts maker Borgers has spent $60 million on a new state-of-the-art plant that will create jobs for more than 230 workers, earning $8 million in payroll. And near Dayton, the giant Chinese auto glassmaker Fuyao transformed an abandoned car factory. The auto company left. It was an old factory. And now Fuyao has gone in and transformed that operation and they now employ more than 2,000 Ohioans, who supply all the major automakers with advanced glass. This is great news for us.

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And you know Amazon: Amazon Prime, Amazon Now, Amazon cloud computing. It’s just amazing. They’re an amazing innovator, combining highly trained workers and best-in-class processes, and they’re turning retailing inside-out. They have three cloud computing operations in the United States, three operations in the whole country. They’ve got one on the West Coast out in Seattle, one on the East Coast in Virginia, and the third one is located right here in the good old state of Ohio. A major cloud-computing operation.

And our universities are now beginning to train people; our community colleges are training people for those cloud-computing jobs.

These job creation stories and more like them demonstrate the way our state, with JobsOhio’s support, is attracting businesses of the 21st century from a range of different industries.

Now, think about it. Not just agriculture, not just making things, but it's across the board. That's what's given strength and resilience to our state.

How did we do it? Folks, some of it can be viewed as boring. We had to stabilize our budget within existing resources. You see, we reassured job creators that Ohio knows how to fix problems itself. We don’t need to go and impose anything on them. We can deal with our problems. We cut income taxes. We eliminated income taxes for almost every small business in the state. They’re the engines of job growth.

Eliminating the taxes on small business helps them all, just like the place where I had some great fish right here in Sandusky earlier today. We want them to have a power to expand. We streamlined regulations, committed ourselves to constantly improving job training, which is a big, big deal. So job creators can have the workforce they need and Ohioans can take advantage of all the new opportunities coming our way.

Now, look, people think: the State of the State, you just get up and say things — falsehoods and you just puff yourself up. That’s not my purpose here tonight. I’m really here tonight to talk about where we were, where we’ve gained, and where we’re going. Last fall, a survey of CEOs named Ohio one of the 10 best places to do business. Last fall. That’s 34 places higher than we ranked in 2010. So when they start looking around the country about where we’re going to create a business, we went from 34th to one of the top ten businesses.

Forbes ranked us the 11th best state for business. That's up from 38th. So we went from 11th with Forbes, from 38th just five years ago. And there have been other good ratings, like the one from middle market executives – that's sort of middle-sized companies — that placed us first in growth in the country. And this is all great, of course, but we can't stop now.

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The Midwest is ripe for investment. It’s ripe for development. It’s ripe for growth. And Ohio is at the center of it. The only thing that can hold us back is if we sit on our hands or stop and rest. I heard somebody talking: “Oh, you know, so much has been done. Can’t we take a break? Can’t we slow down?” Yeah, if you want to lose. We cannot slow down. This is the 21st century. We’ve got to put our foot on the gas. And I can guarantee you because I know other states see our success, and they want it. So staying on the right track means keeping up the same energy that got us here and building on the ideas that we know work. Conservative budgeting, even in these tight times. More tax reform. More work to streamline regs, more progress on connecting education and our workforce training with job creators. Get them trained for what’s coming. These are all critical to our future success. And, of course, our budget really reflects things on every one of these fronts.

Now, folks, we have to protect our hard-fought fiscal stability again. It’s priority No. 1 in the budget. I used to be a legislator. I know there are a lot of demands and a lot of needs. But, you know, if we do not hold the line on spending, I will tell you that we’ll get crushed economically.

The way that we respond to these challenges, of course, it shows the world that we can take it, that we can navigate rough waters. And it's a beacon. It's a beacon. When we can do our job and keep it together and do the right thing, people around the country — and believe me, I was just in Europe — around the world, they say: "you folks have it." We like what you're doing.

A lot of you ask, “OK, Kasich, you know, we never get thanked when we reduce the income tax. Now you want to reform the tax code and you want to have some go up and the income tax go down. Why?” Well, I’ll tell you why. You look at the states across this country that have the fastest economic growth. They either have no income tax or very low income taxes. It matters. It matters to what people are going to pay.

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So we’re never going to be as competitive as we need to be if we don’t keep paying attention to this, but we can. But we also need to reform our convoluted municipal tax system. Our tax department estimates that job creators could save $800 million if, in fact, we can reform this municipal tax system. That’s $800 million that can be put back into those companies to grow and to hire.

The barrier to these reforms and many of the others we achieved together in the past seven years at the age-old fear of change. In a rapidly changing economic environment, in the digital age, in the age of worldwide markets, we can’t do what we used to do. We have to anticipate and meet change head on because if we hesitate, the future will pass us by. And we must leverage change to our advantage, and that means takings risks.

When we think about Ohio and our success in the previous century, wasn't it because we were risk takers. Think about it. It's why we are, who we are today. We were at the center of the Industrial Revolution, because so many dove headfirst into new ideas.

The new Edisons and Wright brothers, they’re out there. Some of them might be right here tonight. And we need to find them and encourage them. That’s why I’ve proposed creating a chief innovative officer for Ohio to help keep us ahead of the curve in a world where technology is changing faster and more profoundly than ever. This person will lead a new Ohio Institute of Technology. We’re not expanding the government, we can rearrange it and make things work better. That person will mine our strengths, coordinate our resources, and always looking ahead to what’s coming next. Whether it’s advanced materials, the latest in biotechnology, aerospace, robotics, sensors, and others areas that we haven’t even thought about. We have a lot of research in Ohio. It’s not coordinated, it’s not put together, it’s not focused. We have such a great opportunity to create new things here in the 21st century. If we come up with these ideas, they can change our world in the very new future. …

The bottom line for almost everybody in almost every profession is this. Mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, please, brothers and sisters, legislators, if we aren’t prepared for change, people are going to find themselves out of work. Change is coming, whether we like it or not, so let’s accept the change, but reject the fear and the hesitancy and the unwillingness to prepare. We must get ahead of this coming tsunami. We have to act and not react. We don’t want to fall behind the curve.

See, Ohio and the Midwest have a perfect opportunity to lead with the innovations of the future. Here's what the fact is. The West Coast, you sit in traffic for half of your life. It costs you a fortune to live there. Your bathroom is in your living room. And then if you live on the East Coast, go over there to New York and drive around sometime. See how it is. Send your kids there. Look at what they're paying for their apartments. You see, they're beginning to realize it's too expensive. …

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I had a guy call me the other day from Los Angeles. He said I hired some engineers out here. He said, I’ve got to hire them in Ohio. This is driving me crazy. We have some natural things that really work for us. If we think about all of this, all the things I’m talking about, the challenges, the excitement and the hope – because that’s what this all is – it’s so cool and it allows us to ratchet it up to the next level. We’re not high enough. Up, up, up. …

Let me ask you a question. How can we ever learn new ideas or understand how to come together with Americans from different backgrounds unless we talk to one another and hear how others think? We’ve gotten to the point where so much of the time we think we know everything and whoever else doesn’t think the way we think — they’re just dead wrong. That’s not America. We’ve seen an extreme division in our political system. I will tell you that I think work has been done in our state to minimize that. I believe it. These are fine people. The leadership — fine people. Of course, the Democrats get upset. When I hear from them, I go to Republicans and say, treat them right. We’re trying as best we can to pull together. But, you know, across this country, there’s rising polarization and inability for the political parties to work together. This is not acceptable, nor is it sustainable for the good of our country and the good of our children. …

Somebody said, what do you do about it? Well, we're not going to throw away newspapers or turn off the television. I know we're not going to do that. I tell you what I think we can think about. I believe one of the ways in which we can begin to address it — the polarization — is for people to find commonality in challenges that come before us.

I think that if we can begin to address these problems, if we begin to deal with them where we live, solving these problems will bring us together, and it’s up to us. If we begin to work together, we’ll be surprised at how much progress we can make.

I believe we work best when we believe in ourselves. It works best when we live a life a little bit bigger than ourselves. Etched in that wall of the Holocaust memorial, save one life, it’s as if you’ve saved the world. I mean no problem is too big if we believe in ourselves. Love God and love your neighbor. Those are the two great commandments.

Let’s keep going … higher, faster, together. God bless America, and God bless Ohio. Thank you.

Gov. John Kasich gave his seventh State of the State address before Ohio legislators last week in Sandusky. Some of his text is presented here today, edited and condensed for space.

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