· September 30, 2011

John “Mostly False” Kasich

Earlier this week the fact-checkers at Politifact declared Governor Kasich’s recent claims that union leaders “don’t want to pay anything [toward their pension]” to be “mostly false.” This isn’t the first time the Governor has been found to tell less than the whole truth. We checked the archives, and since January, the Governor’s statements have been evaluated as to their truthfulness eighteen times, with only 9 rated as “true”, “mostly true” or “half true.” In other words, our Governor bats .500 when it comes to truth-telling. While hitting .500 is quite an achievement in baseball telling the truth only 50% of the time is a significant failure for the Governor. The Governor’s statements about the benefits of public workers is similarly suspect. Including the last statement about union members’ pension contributions, when checked on his comments about the effects of SB5 or current pay and perks of public workers, the Governor was found to be false (or mostly false) 50% of the time. Perhaps as he begins a tour of Ohio campaigning for SB5, he may want to ask for a briefing on what the bill actually does and the problems it sets out to fix before he risks lowering his accuracy rating even further. The credibility deficit doesn’t end at the Governor’s office. Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor has her own truth-telling problem. According to Politifact, Lt. Gov Taylor (also the state’s chief insurange regulator) recently made comments about health insurance that were “mostly false.”