“So you’d shut the government down and then over time you’d have to open it back again and you wouldn’t have achieved much,” said Kasich, the governor of Ohio. “But when you shut the government down, people don’t like it. And you shouldn’t shut it down unless you have a great chance of success.”
Kasich’s remarks put him at odds with the most conservatives Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate and presidential candidates such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. A small number want to only take away Planned Parenthood’s federal money, but are willing to close the government for the second time in two years to gain their way.
The budget for the current federal spending years ends on September 30. If Republicans attach a Planned Parenthood measure to a temporary spending bill aimed at keeping the government, President Barack Obama would veto the measure.
Planned Parenthood has provoked intense criticism from abortion opponents after a series of secretly recorded videos were released suggesting the organization may be profiting from selling fetal issues to research organizations. Planned Parenthood denies the charges an claims the videos were heavily edited.
Although the federal government provided most of the $528 million Planned Parenthood received last year from federal, state and local government sources, the organization said it uses that money to pay for reproductive services for low and middle-income women. Planned Parenthood said it relies on private donors to pay for abortions.
“Now look, I’m willing to fight all day long but you’ve got to have a good prospect of being able to be successful,” Kasich said. “Because if you’re not successful you shut the government down, you open it up and you haven’t achieved anything, you’re just going to have people shake their head and wonder what your thinking was.”
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace then re-played a video from 1995 when Kasich, then chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee, was involved in closing down the government over a fierce debate with President Bill Clinton over reducing the federal deficit.
“This is one of the best times in our nation’s history because we are fighting over deeply held principles,” Kasich said in the 1995 video.
But Kasich insisted Sunday “we kind of knew there were a number of people in the Clinton administration” who wanted to balance the budget, saying “we had a pretty good sense that if we stood our ground back then that we could actually move a balanced budget forward.”
“I think in this case the president’s made it pretty clear he’s not going to sign it,” Kasich said.
Voters were furious over the 1995 shutdown, which helped pave the way for Clinton’s re-election in 1996. But by 1997, Kasich and other Republicans helped forge an agreement with Clinton that ended three decades of annual deficits and produced annual surpluses from 1998 through 2001.
During a visit to New Hampshire Saturday, Kasich said there “are other ways to deal” with Planned Parenthood instead of closing the government.
(Jessica Wehrman of the Washington Bureau contributed to this story.)