February 17, 1997 P. 34

February 17, 1997 P. 34

The New Yorker, February 17, 1997 P. 34

LETTER FROM WASHINGTON about Rep. John Kasich (R-OH)... Describes a Washington press conference with five U.S. Senators and Kasich, the chairman of the Republican Budget Committee. Kasich was easily distinguishable from the senators by his dress--a blue blazer and corduroy slacks--and by his demeanor, which was highly caffeinated... He reinvented a famous Clinton line: "It's time to end welfare as we know it...for corporations." He didn't speak from notes, and soon he was gesticulating emphatically--both hands chopping vertically, fingers splayed. It was a complicated body language, at once desperate and humorous.... Kasich had just come from his own, much rowdier "Stop Corporate Welfare!" conference on the other side of the Capitol. He had offered something less grand but perhaps more threatening than the Senate's commission--a modest but specific list of programs to be cut and a coalition to fight for their elimination. Tells about his coalition, which avoided the center altogether, in favor of groups distanced from the center in various directions... He has been a politician since he graduated from Ohio State University, in 1974. He was elected to Congress is 1982... In 1989 he was named to the House Budget Committee and he proposed his own budget. Leon Panetta, who chaired the Budget Committee graciously allowed it to be defeated in a recorded vote. Gradually, though, colleagues began to appreciate the line-by-line integrity of Kasich's numbers. He created unlikely coalitions, and won a few small victories... Many of Kasich's colleagues, even those who still consider him unripe, think he deserves much of the credit for an expected historic accord between Congress and the President on the budget... Writer interviews him at his home in Westerville, Ohio... The notorious 1994 House Republican freshmen voted him the only honorary member of their class... Tells how he, with Newt Gingrich, took a disastrously hard line in negotiations with the President on the budget, allowing the government to shut down twice in the fall of 1995... Mentions the seeming paradox of his enthusiasm for pop culture and his overt religiosity... Writer follows him to a meeting with workers at Rimrock Corporation, a company that makes industrial robots in Columbus. They were angry about the Gingrich ethics case.... The next few months of budget negotiations are likely to prove frustrating for Kasich. He knows that "balance" is ephemeral and can be easily fudged, and that even nominal balance will be difficult to sustain in future years if real reforms aren't made in costly entitlement programs--particularly Medicare. Kasich doesn't expect to abolish many of the twelve subsidies he has targeted this year, but he's thrilled by the coalition he created... "I was driving home from the airport, and I said, 'Thank you, God, for Karen, and for my good health, and for the talents you've given me, and for the opportunity to put together that amazing coalition--and, by the way, I sure as hell hope that you exist."

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