BOB EDWARDS, Host: With the Congress ready to begin the final phase of its push
toward balancing the budget and cutting taxes, the chairman of the House Budget
Committee predicts success. Ohio Republican John Kasich has been one of Capitol
Hill's most forceful advocates of a balanced budget. Despite some setbacks this
year on everything from farm subsidies to the B-2 bomber, Kasich does not sound
discouraged. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.
BRIAN NAYLOR, Reporter: By the end of next week House leaders hope the massive
reconciliation bill, including cuts in projected Medicare and Medicaid
spending, cuts in taxes and welfare reform, will be approved by lawmakers. The
measure will contain the nuts and bolts of how Congress proposes to balance the
budget in the next seven years, reducing spending by some $900 billion. The
blueprint for that plan is a budget resolution, approved last spring by
Congress.
House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich guided that blueprint through the
House and is happy with the steps Congress has taken down the path he helped
lay out.
REP. JOHN R. KASICH (R-OH), Chairman, Budget Committee: I believe we're doing
fine. You don't win everything but I'm not going to work about crossed T's and
dotted I's when I've actually been able to- to spell most of the words right.
BRIAN NAYLOR: Those T's that haven't been crossed and I's not dotted are not
unlike Sherlock Holmes' dog that didn't bark. They are significant because of
their absence. There is, for instance, the B- 2 bomber. It has been a prime
target of deficit hawks, led by Kasich, almost since its development. Yet, even
though Republicans scoured the budget for cuts, and even though the military
justification for the B- 2 has diminished with the dissolution of the Soviet
Union, the House has approved a half a billion dollars more to continue the
bomber's production.
REP. JOHN R. KASICH: In terms of the B-2, obviously, I'm- I'm bitterly
disappointed in the loss of the B-2, but I have a commitment from- from Speaker
Gingrich that he is going to work with me over the course of the next year to
make reforming the Pentagon a very high priority. In fact, he called it the top
priority of the Republicans.
BRIAN NAYLOR: Another setback in which Kasich prefers to see the bright side is
rejection of the farm bill by the House Agriculture Committee. Chairman Pat
Roberts attempted to cut some $13 billion in farm subsidies that have endured
since the Great Depression, but four Republican members of the panel
representing farm districts in the South, voted against the reform plan. Kasich
understands why they did.
REP. JOHN R. KASICH: In politics, when you come from a district where people
feel strongly about certain pieces of what they get, it's the public that
ultimately demands that their representative be responsive. The representative
can shrug his shoulders and walk away but, frankly, it's the ying and yang

 [sic] of how do you represent your constituents and yet still move the ball
forward.
BRIAN NAYLOR: Kasich plans to move this particular ball forward by passing the
farm bill himself. In an extraordinary move, Speaker Gingrich gave the Budget
Committee jurisdiction over the farm bill after the Agriculture Committee
failed to get the job done.
REP. JOHN R. KASICH: Frankly, the ag subsidy issue is the greatest change that
we have seen in agriculture programs since Roosevelt. I mean, the fact that the
chairman of the House Agriculture Committee is essentially trying to move
towards a totally free market and making dramatic changes in the program is a
wonderful thing. If, in fact, he could have passed that easily through his
committee it wouldn't be historic. The historic nature of it is what makes it
so difficult but, frankly, when you are- when you're moving the ball about 80,
90 yards down the field with one pass, it's something to be excited about.
BRIAN NAYLOR: Kasich is also excited that the Ways and Means Committee
grudgingly approved closing some corporate tax loopholes, cutting back
corporate welfare as Kasich has long championed as an issue of fairness. Again,
Kasich says he didn't get everything but that progress was made.
REP. JOHN R. KASICH: Well, I asked for a lot of loopholes to be closed, and I
asked for about $25 billion and we were up to about $32 billion, $34 billion,
and the fact that we may ultimately lose some of that money doesn't mean we're
losing- we've lost it all. I can just tell you that I think we've- we have a- a
momentum now on loophole closings that cannot be stopped. It's not surprising
that when you try to move a comprehensive package like this pieces are going to
fall apart.
BRIAN NAYLOR: One of the corporate welfare cutbacks Kasich lost would have
reduced the tax break received by the ethanol industry. It too was saved by
farm state Republicans with the support of Speaker Gingrich and Senate Majority
Leader Bob Dole. Kasich says ethanol's day hasn't yet come but that it will.
In the next several weeks Republican congressional leaders will attempt to tie
up the loose ends of the plan put in motion with their election last November,
radically overhauling the programs of the federal government. What the final
deal will look like, whether the House and Senate Republicans will agree among
themselves, on Medicare savings and tax cuts remains to be seen but Kasich, for
one, is optimistic as Congress heads into the home stretch. `I firmly believe,'
he says, `it will get done.' This is Brian Naylor at the Capitol.
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