Gov. John Kasich encouraged a room full of Ohio bankers to protest in Washington and "get the regulators who are over-regulating off of your back."

Kasich, a former Lehman Brothers executive who spoke to the Ohio Bankers League's Economic Summit at the Renaissance Hotel, said it was up "to our community bankers and our lenders in this state to do what you can to be able to move in terms of critical seed capital that all companies talk about."

"I'm also aware of the fact that the minute you try to make a loan, federal regulators, if it gets to be iffy, come in and put their foot on your neck," Kasich said. 

Kasich said "we need you to start raising hell with people who say they want the economy to grow at the same time they're choking off the capital that is vital to the growth of businesses, particularly small businesses."

The Republican governor encouraged the room to descend upon Washington with signs, the march around the Capitol and up to the White House.

"I'm not asking you to go sleep in some park somewhere," Kasich said, an obvious reference to the Occupy Wall Street movement - a worldwide protest of, in part, larger banks. The "sleep" remark drew laughter.

"But we laugh," Kasich said. "People sleeping in a park have gotten more attention from more elements in America than you ever would've imagined."

(Note: The OBL reminds us that its members are largely community banks or local branches of larger banks, whereas Lehman Brothers is a global financial services firm).