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The Ron Verb Show - 4pm Hour - Friday, 08/07/26 · Ron Verb

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now ron verb on news radio 570 wkbn 406 in
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the afternoon.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Great guest i mean i can honestly sit here and
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: tell you i admire him tremendously i admire his education
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: i admire his uh philosophies i admire his passion and
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: so he's a commissioner in lake county and you folks
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: in lake county are very lucky to have him and
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: uh You folks, if he's your professor, you're lucky to
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: have him as well. John Plushnick is our guest the
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: first hour of the program. Let me take some calls
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: for you. Are you willing to do that?
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: All right. So I got a bunch of calls here.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Let's see what awaits me. You're on the air. You
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: want to talk with John?
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, Ron.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: How are you doing? Good.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 0:44
  Speaker 5: I would have a question because I think the biggest,
• 0:47
  Speaker 5: I mean, the first hour was amazing, outstanding. But we
• 0:50
  Speaker 5: don't get these things done without applying pressure to our legislatures.
• 0:55
  Speaker 5: And that's what I'd like to know what else he
• 0:57
  Speaker 5: can do, what can be done at his level of
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: government to apply pressure at the state level. I think
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: we're all on the same route, but we could say
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: that there's one party that has a faction in it
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: that wants these things done, another party that completely opposes
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: all these things. So how do we put the chokehold
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: on our current elected officials to get this job done?
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: And if not, then I think we need to put
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: our focus on removing those folks from office and putting
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: candidates in their places that will do these things. How
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: do we apply that pressure?
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: So number one, sign the petition to abolish property taxes.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: It is the only reason we've seen any reforms come
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: out of Columbus. We've had several state reps admit that.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Dave Thomas is one. If it hadn't been for the petition,
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: nothing would have happened. And while we have a long,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: long way to go, I am not happy with what's
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: done in We need to understand that our singular best
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: tool to apply pressure to Columbus is to take all
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: the money back. That's number one. Number two, we do
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: need to start telling our state reps and senators what
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: we expect of them. If you're not going to be
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: more like Governor DeSantis, if you're not going to be
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: cutting my taxes, if that's not why you're there, why
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: am I paying you? What's the point? And we're going
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: to have to start primarying people. It's too late this round.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: The primaries are over. But If your Republican state rep
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: or senator says, no, I'm not willing to cut property taxes,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: you say, no, I'm not willing to vote for you again.
• 2:30
  Speaker 6: Exactly.
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: On my end, too often all I hear are people
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: complaining about the situation but not doing anything about it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: And the complaining is just beating up the Republican Party
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: opposed to taking a step back and look at the
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: big picture.
• 2:44
  Speaker 7: We've got to be careful.
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: We don't want to beat ourselves into a corner where
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: we start losing people.
• 2:47
  Speaker 7: That vote for us.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: But I would be critical in the following sense, and John,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: would you agree? I think that there are many Republicans
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: who don't support eliminating property taxes, and to a certain
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: extent have become career politicians who are opposed to making
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: major changes with property taxes, too.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: It's because they've become part of the system, Ron. It's
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: because they've become part of the system. And those folks
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: are the most dangerous. We need to call them out,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: and we need to say, you've been in government so long,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: you've become government, and you need to go.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: Their power becomes like a drug, and they can't get
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: enough of it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: But sometimes, Ted, a lot of this stuff is easier
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: said than done. The power of incumbency, the name recognition,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: the amount of money you have, the connections you have.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it can be difficult.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: It can be done, but it.
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  Speaker 5: Has to be done at a grassroots level. Do you
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: remember many years ago when the Democrat Party was taken
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: over by Mike Morley?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: I forget what their theme was or what they called themselves.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Democrats for Change.
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: Democrats, that's what we need. We need Republicans for Change.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: And it starts at your local level. You know, we're
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: trying to knock the king off the mountain to get
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: things fixed.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: That's not how it works.
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: We've got to start at the grassroots level. That means
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: city council, townships.
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  Speaker 3: I would go a level even more basic than that.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: I've often said the most powerful job in politics that
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: no one has ever heard of is central committee person.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Both the Republicans and the Democrat parties are governed by
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: your precinct committee people, and you need to run for
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: your precinct. You need your friend, your brother, your neighbor
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: to run for their precinct. I became a commissioner because
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: 79 precinct committee people voted for me. There's no other
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: way someone like me would be appointed a commissioner in
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Lake County or anywhere else. That's because we had good
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: conservatives on our Republican Central Committee. You need to recruit them.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: You need to be one of them. Forget city council.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: You got to start a level below. You need to
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: organize at the precinct level.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: And I will agree with you 100% because I've got
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: a friendship with someone who's running for office, and we
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: were discussing some plans last week, and I haven't told
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: them this yet, so maybe if they listen, they're going
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: to hear me now. I thought they were skipping a level.
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: They're asking people to come to them in trying to
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: organize a grassroots effort. You've got to go inside every community,
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: you've got to reach out to every precinct person, and
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: you've got to build your base from the precinct committee
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: people up. And you've got to get those people organized
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: to come out and vote and work and do a
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: lot of that legwork. They ran for that position. That's
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: what that position is about. And then you build from there.
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: So I agree with you completely, 100%. That's what we
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: have to focus on.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Isn't this guy terrific, Ted? I mean, seriously.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: Just amazing. It's unfortunate that we can't have him here.
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: But if we put him on the radio enough and
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: we stick to the issue and repeat everything that he
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: has said, that's how you start building a ground movement.
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: You know, the Democrats for change. We can become the
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: Republicans for change. But it's not going to happen by
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: complaining on the radio and doing nothing else. Like he said,
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: we've got to start with precinct committee people. We've got
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: to start there and build the base there. But it
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: can be done. And Mike Moore has proven it can
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: be done in Mahoning County.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: All right. Thanks, Ted. You're on the air.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Hi, John.
• 6:19
  Speaker 8: I don't want anyone to take for granted that we're
• 6:22
  Speaker 8: going to get this to the ballot. I want people
• 6:24
  Speaker 8: to get involved more. and just get us a few signatures,
• 6:28
  Speaker 8: even if it's 10, 20, or 30, because we have 300,000,
• 6:31
  Speaker 8: and if every one of those people would have gotten
• 6:33
  Speaker 8: one signature, we would be at 600,000. So we just
• 6:36
  Speaker 8: need people to do a little rather than a few
• 6:39
  Speaker 8: of us doing a lot to make sure we get
• 6:41
  Speaker 8: it to the ballot. So if everyone would just go
• 6:44
  Speaker 8: to axohtax.com and download a petition and, you know, just
• 6:49
  Speaker 8: circulate among your sphere of influence, I think that's going
• 6:51
  Speaker 8: to really bring it home.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: All right, make sure you follow the directions and get
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: the signatures properly. Very important.
• 6:58
  Speaker 8: Yeah, and then just call your zone captain if you
• 7:00
  Speaker 8: have a question. The maps are out there. You could
• 7:03
  Speaker 8: just call us directly.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: You got it.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: The only thing I can add to that is to
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: repeat AxeOHTax.com. That is the website to download the petitions
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: so you can become a volunteer circulator as well. I
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: completely agree. The most powerful way to pressure Columbus, the
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: most powerful way to abolish property taxes, the most powerful
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: way for change is to become part of that change.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: And you start by going to AXTAX. O-H dot com.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Axe O-H tax dot com.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 7:36
  Speaker 8: Because if we were not to get these signatures, just
• 7:39
  Speaker 8: think of what the state legislature would think of us then.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:42
  Speaker 8: Then they'd really raise our taxes. So you better think
• 7:45
  Speaker 8: about that.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Denise. Appreciate it. You're on the air with John.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 7:51
  Speaker 7: I would just like to thank him for everything he
• 7:53
  Speaker 7: does because it's a breath of fresh air. You see
• 7:55
  Speaker 7: so many public officials that are in positions like Mr.
• 7:58
  Speaker 7: Chacon who shouldn't be there and this guy. I would
• 8:01
  Speaker 7: elevate you to governor if I could. I'd much rather
• 8:04
  Speaker 7: see you than Vivek, but that's a whole other issue.
• 8:08
  Speaker 7: I went today and paid my mother-in-law's property taxes. She
• 8:11
  Speaker 7: had a stroke, so we do her financial stuff for her.
• 8:14
  Speaker 7: And I went up to Trumbull County because they have
• 8:16
  Speaker 7: the tax bills ready. The difference, the first half we paid,
• 8:20
  Speaker 7: it was $ 1, 145. The second half, with all the cuts,
• 8:24
  Speaker 7: the rollbacks, everything everybody's done... It was $ 1, 088. It was
• 8:29
  Speaker 7: a $ 57 reduction. For all that effort that Dave Thomas
• 8:31
  Speaker 7: did for the commissioners voting to repeal all that, saved
• 8:36
  Speaker 7: her $ 57, 5% of the cost from the first half.
• 8:39
  Speaker 7: It's disgusting. I mean, I'm not going to complain. $ 57
• 8:42
  Speaker 7: is better than nothing. But we need to repeal. They
• 8:46
  Speaker 7: need to go. We just need to get rid of them.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Go ahead, John.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: First of all, thank you. And I appreciate it. Your
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: kind words are energizing because this is a battle. We're
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: all in it. We've all heard the nonsense and the naysayers.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: So your thanks and your encouragement mean a lot. Secondly,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: it is telling that all this fighting, all this work
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: has cut 57 bucks. That is the exclamation point on
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: the sentence that we have not done enough, that the
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: state legislature has not taken this seriously. And while I'll
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: take any reform, I'll take a nickel, I'll take a dime,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: I want to move in the right direction, this is
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: not enough. And for the folks who want to pat
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: themselves on the back and say, look at all these
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: reforms we've done, This is quantity over quality. You've passed
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: and proposed hundreds of different bills, but it nets to $ 57.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: The reality is our property taxes are going up faster
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: than our legislators are cutting them. That's a losing battle.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: We need to get the signatures to get the petition
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: on the ballot. We need to keep pushing. That is
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: the only way to make Columbus take a serious And
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: if they don't, it gives each of us as a
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: voter the ability to take our taxes back.
• 10:06
  Speaker 7: Well, and here's what's really disgusting. We've been talking around here.
• 10:09
  Speaker 7: The Mahoning County Board of Developmental Disabilities is putting an
• 10:13
  Speaker 7: additional levy on it. for this fall. We've been talking
• 10:16
  Speaker 7: about it. I think the director said their budget has
• 10:18
  Speaker 7: gone from $ 60 million to $ 100 million in a roughly
• 10:22
  Speaker 7: shorter period of time, I think maybe 2019 to now,
• 10:24
  Speaker 7: something like that. So I started asking around, and I
• 10:27
  Speaker 7: found somebody, an insider. They have a client that they
• 10:33
  Speaker 7: service who's severely, I guess, handicapped in some way, shape,
• 10:38
  Speaker 7: or form, and is in For whatever reason, they had
• 10:42
  Speaker 7: to ship this person out to a facility in Missouri.
• 10:48
  Speaker 7: They shipped this person out last December. They just retrieved
• 10:50
  Speaker 7: them in the last week or two. Do you know
• 10:52
  Speaker 7: what the cost per day for servicing this individual at
• 10:55
  Speaker 7: this facility in Missouri was?
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: $ 3, 000 a day.
• 10:58
  Speaker 7: $ 3, 000.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: A day.
• 11:04
  Speaker 7: My mother-in-law just saved $ 57. They're spending $ 3, 000 a day
• 11:08
  Speaker 7: servicing one individual. Is it any wonder why their budget
• 11:13
  Speaker 7: went from $ 60 million to $ 100 million when you have
• 11:16
  Speaker 7: imbeciles running these places and on these boards that are
• 11:19
  Speaker 7: approving expenses like that? It infuriates me. Almost as much
• 11:25
  Speaker 7: as when I was walking in Trumbull County today. Go ahead, Rich.
• 11:31
  Speaker 7: When I was walking in Trumbull County today, in Trumbull County,
• 11:33
  Speaker 7: who doesn't pay a nickel for the WRTA bus service
• 11:36
  Speaker 7: that Mahoning County has a sales tax that funds? WRTA,
• 11:40
  Speaker 7: Trumbull County gives virtually no funding to that bus. But
• 11:43
  Speaker 7: yet there's a WRTA bus parked in front of the
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: Trumbull County courthouse with zero people on it, on a
• 11:49
  Speaker 7: 35-passenger bus, which they're going to start replacing the gas
• 11:53
  Speaker 7: ones with electric ones.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: At $ 1.
• 11:54
  Speaker 7: 4 million apiece. This is why you need to repeal
• 11:58
  Speaker 7: all this nonsense. These people do not, they are poor
• 12:03
  Speaker 7: stewards of your money. Quit giving them your hard-earned money
• 12:06
  Speaker 7: because they're wasting it.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I've said it before, I'll say it again. Government never
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: saw a dollar it didn't want to spend. If you
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: give them the money, by golly, they'll find a way
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: to spend it. And unfortunately, the examples you've given demonstrate
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: that whether they're overspending on something that's worthy or they're
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: spending on something that's absolutely worth less, they'll find a
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: way to spend the extra money. Government will never have
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: money left over. They're never going to voluntarily give the
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: money back. I've had a couple people say, well, you
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: guys can't just cut property taxes and then have government
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: figure it out. You need to work with government to
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: find the savings first. And my question is, how has
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: that worked for you so far? You know, we've been
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: asking governments since the dawn of time, be more efficient,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: save money, stop raising taxes. Have they ever done it?
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: You know, has government ever voluntarily given the money back? No.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: The only way we make this work is if we
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: starve the beast. We have to take the money back first.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: and that will force government to become more effective and
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: more efficient. It's not that we'll have less services. I
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: would argue that taking away property taxes would actually improve
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: services in the net because it's going to force government
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: to look at itself from the top down, engage in
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: zero-based budgeting, have a constant improvement program. And the irony is,
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: even though we'd be spending $ 20 billion less, we should
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: have better services. And by the way, every time Ohio's
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: cut taxes in recent memory, our revenues have gone up.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: There's a reason for that. If we're too high on
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: the Laffer curve, if we're overtaxing people, we literally lower
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: revenues by raising taxes. And Ohio is an overtaxed state.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: The ultimate irony of this entire debate, Ron... is that
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: if we cut property taxes to zero, there's a darn
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: good chance we'll have more money in the government coffers
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: than when we started.
• 14:05
  Speaker 7: That's what happened with Trump, I believe, isn't it? When
• 14:10
  Speaker 7: they cut the taxes, they actually took in more money.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: It is, and it's also what happened with Reagan and
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: the Tax Act of 1986. This is not my idea, folks.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: The Laffer Curve has long been proven true. And in Ohio,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: where we are so highly taxed, it's a no-brainer.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Rich. Appreciate it.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Take care.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: With John Plushnik, you're on the air. Hello.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Hey, Ron.
• 14:35
  Speaker 7: Hey, John.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: This is Mark.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: I emailed you or texted you earlier this week.
• 14:39
  Speaker 7: I want to thank you for calling in.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: My point of view here is as long as these
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: communities keep doing what they're doing, for instance, in Borgman,
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: They got a police levy on brand new money. They
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: just passed a renewal in the spring. The school has
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: a five-year renewal on for November.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Guess what? They went and they.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: Changed it to 10-year renewal now. We got the MRDD.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: We've got Canfield trying to get these people to approve
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: a 5.9. My point, as long as these communities keep
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: hitting us with these taxes. You get this on the
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: ballot and it will pass by 80 percent.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: You mark my words. They keep hitting us.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: They keep ripping us off the way they're doing.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: This will pass.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: And Mark, the polls agree with you. The polls range
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: from about 60 to 80 percent support for abolishing property taxes.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: So for those who try to act like this is
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: an extreme group, This is not just a majority. This
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: is a super majority of Ohioans saying no more. We
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: can't afford this.
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: And you know what else, too, John?
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: I talked to Brian when he came down.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Stand by. Stand by. I'll come right back to you
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: after the break with you and John after this. NewsRadio 570.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Mike Rowe's Weather and Talk Station, 570 WKBN. 424 in
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the afternoon. Ron Ferb from the Kingdom of Mahoning on
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: this Friday, August 7th, 84 degrees. John Plushnick is with us.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: He is a tax attorney, if you will. Duke Law graduates.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, what an impressive education this man has. And
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: he's a commissioner in Lake County. He's a college professor.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: He's a graduate of Duke Law. He's an accountant. He's
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: a tax law attorney. Those are his credentials, and he's
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a commissioner, and call him Commissioner No, and he's a
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: breath of fresh air. And you were saying what to him, Mark?
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: Oh, yes. We were collecting signatures probably about a month ago.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Brian Massey came down, and we sat there and we
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: asked him some questions. I don't think if the state
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: starts running scared and they want to try to promote
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: something to us to have us not put this on
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: the ballot, I don't think it's going to work. I
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: don't think it's going to work.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: The impression I got from Mr.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: Maskey was, no, we're going for the juggler here. They
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: could offer whatever they want to offer us. Once it's
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: on the ballot, it's going to go. So thank you, John,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: for all that you do. I wish we had you
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: down here. You don't know how bad I pray we
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: had you down here.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Right. I would agree. Thank you, Mark. Appreciate it.
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: You're on the air with us.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark. And I want to
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: agree with you. I know that Brian Massey is committed
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: to bringing this issue to the ballot no matter what.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: All right. Next caller with John Plushnick. You're on the air.
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: Hello.
• 17:35
  Speaker 9: There's no other state that's done this before, correct?
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Correct. Correct.
• 17:41
  Speaker 9: Okay, so next question. You had mentioned, you know, I
• 17:44
  Speaker 9: want this to go through just as much as anybody else,
• 17:46
  Speaker 9: but I think that the messaging has to be appropriate, too.
• 17:49
  Speaker 9: I think you said if we went back to 2019 spending.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, that right there, I could.
• 17:55
  Speaker 9: Just see the headline right now. They want to go
• 17:58
  Speaker 9: back to 2019 spending.
• 18:00
  Speaker 7: That's just absurd.
• 18:01
  Speaker 9: We can't do that. I think that's bad positioning and
• 18:04
  Speaker 9: marketing for this, just my opinion.
• 18:07
  Speaker 7: I listened to your intro.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm not going to..
• 18:09
  Speaker 9: Even try to compare myself with your tax knowledge or
• 18:12
  Speaker 9: law knowledge or anything like that. But the whole thing is,
• 18:15
  Speaker 9: if this passes, we don't have to worry about, from
• 18:17
  Speaker 9: my understanding, what our county commissioner or this fund or
• 18:21
  Speaker 9: whatever that does. If we just get the money back,
• 18:24
  Speaker 9: we kind of circumvent all of that. So the marketing
• 18:27
  Speaker 9: for this has to be a lot better to actually
• 18:29
  Speaker 9: get the signatures. Do you guys have any money, any funding?
• 18:33
  Speaker 9: Is there any marketing for this? Is it just the website?
• 18:36
  Speaker 9: Do you guys have YouTube videos that people can actually
• 18:39
  Speaker 9: look and watch and see? Or do I have to
• 18:41
  Speaker 9: go out and have a conversation with somebody about abolishing
• 18:45
  Speaker 9: property tax where most of the people don't even know
• 18:47
  Speaker 9: what they pay in property tax?
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Those are questions for Brian Massey. I don't pretend to
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: manage or run the movement. That's his committee. But I
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: have seen a plethora of YouTube videos that Brian's put
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: out that explain. And listen, what's convincing to you is
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: completely unconvincing to someone else. You say that it's not
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: a powerful argument to point out that just a few
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: years ago, Ohio spent less, $ 30 billion-some dollars less. That's
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: incredibly convincing to a lot of people.
• 19:22
  Speaker 9: I would agree with you.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: I would agree with you.
• 19:26
  Speaker 9: However, I am also looking at, and believe me, I'm
• 19:29
  Speaker 9: on your side. I'm on everybody's side calling. But I
• 19:31
  Speaker 9: also have to look at reality. We do not live
• 19:34
  Speaker 9: with inflation today as we did in 2019. so if
• 19:37
  Speaker 9: anybody's gonna push back on this or if you're gonna
• 19:39
  Speaker 9: give the opposition a position to push back on this
• 19:42
  Speaker 9: that's one that i would pick and hunt down to
• 19:45
  Speaker 9: actually again push back on this because you're right what
• 19:47
  Speaker 9: are you going to do go after the taxpayer and
• 19:49
  Speaker 9: say you're stupid and greedy? They're going to have to
• 19:51
  Speaker 9: find some roundabout way to try to stifle this. And
• 19:55
  Speaker 9: I think that's one of the ways, if that's a
• 19:57
  Speaker 9: positioning or posture of this moving forward.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: I think what this comes down to is we have
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: to make multiple arguments because they're not going to be convincing.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: No one argument is going to be convincing to everyone.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: You make the overarching argument that it's doable, that it
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: would take a less than 20% cut to the state
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: budget to abolish property taxes with no cuts to local services.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: That's one argument. Another argument... is you never truly own
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: your home if you have to pay rent to the government.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Costs be damned. It's simply wrong. Another argument to make
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: is that Ohio is severely overtaxed, and we're either going
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: to cut income or property taxes in a big way.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: It should be property taxes. Those are three powerful arguments,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: very different arguments, and you're going to have to make
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: different ones to different people because not everyone is worried
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: about this issue for the same reasons.
• 20:53
  Speaker 9: I totally agree with what you're saying. What I'm saying
• 20:56
  Speaker 9: to myself is, if you guys are having a petition
• 20:59
  Speaker 9: at the Canfield Fair, signing there, Do I, walking with
• 21:02
  Speaker 9: my french fries and lemon shake, turn around and say,
• 21:04
  Speaker 9: do you ever truly own your own home sign? Or
• 21:07
  Speaker 9: do I stop and say, do you want $ 6, 000 back
• 21:11
  Speaker 9: in your pocket? Wait a second, what's that? Because, you know,
• 21:14
  Speaker 9: the people listening to this, you know what you're talking about.
• 21:16
  Speaker 9: We know what we're talking about. But for the average
• 21:18
  Speaker 9: person who you need to get that signature for, you
• 21:20
  Speaker 9: need to have something to move forward with.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: You're talking about the uninformed voter. I get what you're saying.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: But..
• 21:25
  Speaker 9: Yeah, the uninformed voter by far. And my only concern
• 21:29
  Speaker 9: with this, too, is, and believe me, I'll say it
• 21:31
  Speaker 9: for the fourth time, I want this to go through.
• 21:33
  Speaker 9: But for no other state to have a precedent, and
• 21:35
  Speaker 9: you'd be able to explain this a lot better than
• 21:37
  Speaker 9: I could probably even ask the question.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Well, stand by, stand by. I've got to pause. John,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: can you hang with us, please? Sure. All right, so
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: back for John to answer that question and more straight ahead.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: NewsRadio 570 WKVS.
• 21:56
  Speaker 10: The pressure is on, and now both of Ohio's U.S.
• 21:59
  Speaker 10: senators are calling for that embattled congressman from Ohio to
• 22:02
  Speaker 10: step down.
• 22:03
  Speaker 11: Ohio Senator John Husted said Thursday on X that Representative
• 22:06
  Speaker 11: Max Miller of the Cleveland area should resign from Congress,
• 22:09
  Speaker 11: saying the allegations of domestic violence of which Miller is
• 22:12
  Speaker 11: accused of committing regarding his ex-wife and their daughter should
• 22:16
  Speaker 11: be dealt with in private, not in the House Ethics Committee,
• 22:20
  Speaker 11: not in a re-election campaign. Husted is joining Ohio's other senator,
• 22:24
  Speaker 11: Bernie Marino, in calling for Miller to resign. Marino is
• 22:27
  Speaker 11: Miller's former father-in-law.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I'm Tom Moore.
• 22:31
  Speaker 10: In sports, the freshman running back, Legend Bay, will not
• 22:35
  Speaker 10: join the Buckeyes on the field as preseason camp gets
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  Speaker 10: started this week. Head coach Ryan Day confirming that Bay
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  Speaker 10: to miss a couple of practices. I'm Sandy Collins.
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• 24:00
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• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Now, Ron Verb on NewsRadio 570 WKBN.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Back with, I think I'm the chairman of your fan club, incidentally.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I think you should designate me president of the John
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Plushnick fan club, okay?
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Consider it done, Ron.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: I've got to read you an email, okay? Remember when
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: we started out with the name and you said C-H-R-S, right?
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Remember that? Here's an email. I want you to hear it.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I don't care if it's C-H or S. He's got
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: my vote.
• 24:50
  Speaker 10: Okay.
• 24:54
  Speaker 7: There you go.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: I'll take it. Thank you. Thank you, Ron.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's what they get. So the emailers are
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: digging what you're saying, John. I just think that was
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: a great email. All right. Back with you, Alec. Go
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: ahead with you. Finish your thoughts with John.
• 25:10
  Speaker 9: Are there any elected Democrats in Ohio that are on
• 25:12
  Speaker 9: board with this?
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: I am not aware of any elected Democrat that has
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: signed the petition. It's not that there might not be
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: someone I'm unaware of, but I am not aware of
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: an elected Democrat who has signed the petition. I know
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: that Brian Massey has reached out to both Vivek Ramaswamy
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: and Amy Acton. Vivek did have a meeting with Brian
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: and myself, although he's yet to sign the petition. He
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: has expressed openness, and he's listened to us. Amy Acton
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: has never responded. And I'm not aware of any elected
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: Democrat who has, but I welcome them. We want everyone, Republican, Democrat, left, right,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: to sign the petition and abolish property taxes. But I
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: do think that the Republican Party more traditionally has supported cutting, lowering,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: abolishing taxes, and you're seeing that bear out in the
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: politics of this movement.
• 26:06
  Speaker 9: And then are there any other states that are working
• 26:09
  Speaker 9: on to the same degree that you are right now
• 26:12
  Speaker 9: to get this passed?
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, are they..
• 26:15
  Speaker 9: Same signatures? Is anybody ahead, just behind that you know of?
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know that it's possible to say who's ahead,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: but I know that there are strong movements in Pennsylvania,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: in Florida. It's really multiplying. Leonard Gilbert has really headed
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: up field operations and talking to other states, so Leonard
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: would be a great person to talk to about that.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: But yes, it is spreading to other states.
• 26:42
  Speaker 9: My concern is always there's an old saying, the second
• 26:45
  Speaker 9: mouse gets the cheese. I just don't want to have
• 26:48
  Speaker 9: those bad repercussions that we can't even think about happening.
• 26:51
  Speaker 9: And I know you could push back for probably an
• 26:54
  Speaker 9: hour and a half about it. I just also think
• 26:56
  Speaker 9: that sometimes when we compare us with what Florida is
• 26:59
  Speaker 9: doing is just a little disingenuous from the plan that
• 27:03
  Speaker 9: we could do the exact same thing. Florida has way
• 27:06
  Speaker 9: more resources than we have right now. And I don't
• 27:09
  Speaker 9: know if we can use the exact same model.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: It's the philosophy, though. It's the thought process and philosophy
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: of the governor. I can assure you, I would go
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: so far as to say, if DeSantis was governor of Ohio,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: he could be doing the exact same thing. It's his
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: mentality and his vision.
• 27:26
  Speaker 9: I don't doubt he wouldn't be doing the exact same thing.
• 27:28
  Speaker 9: My whole thing is if you're Bill Belichick on the
• 27:31
  Speaker 9: New England Patriots, you've got Tom Brady, you look a
• 27:33
  Speaker 9: lot better. If you're Phil Jackson, your coach of the
• 27:36
  Speaker 9: Chicago Bulls, or Michael Jordan, you look a lot better.
• 27:38
  Speaker 9: Florida has a lot more things.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but why are those teams so much better? It's
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: because they had a coach that recruited the right players
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: that started to build that successful team. Why is Florida...
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: so much better off than Ohio. Why do they have
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: more resources? I'll tell you why. Because they've been cutting
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: taxes and making themselves a more appealing place to move
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: to for years.
• 28:01
  Speaker 9: There's been a positive.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Migration to Florida for a long time. So you're right.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: We have a longer way to go down the road
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: than Florida. But honestly, the reforms we're talking about would
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: have an even more positive effect in Ohio because we
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: have a lot more spending to cut.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 28:19
  Speaker 9: I would agree with that. Thanks for doing what you're doing.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And it's Radio 570 WKN with John Kleschnick. Commissioner Ngo
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and Duke Law, you're on air.
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: Hey, first of all, thank you for what you're doing.
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: Really, really appreciative.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Three big takeaways.
• 28:37
  Speaker 14: When people say sometimes there's nothing left to cut or
• 28:42
  Speaker 14: what are we going to replace it with or no,
• 28:44
  Speaker 14: there's not enough fraud to pay for property taxes. I
• 28:48
  Speaker 14: think you said it's laughable, and I agree 100%. Now,
• 28:51
  Speaker 14: hopefully some of the voices on the radio will write
• 28:54
  Speaker 14: this down, and we don't have to hear about it
• 28:56
  Speaker 14: ad nauseum, Ron. Make your compelling case, Sam, about sometimes
• 29:00
  Speaker 14: there's nothing left to cut.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I will make that case. Sometimes, for example, if
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: I look in Austintown Township, when we take a look
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: at our spending, which is pretty fiscally sound to a
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: large extent, you can't always cut your weight out of
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: a situation. When you have a situation where you're paying
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: more for police cruisers, you're paying more for health care benefits,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: you're paying more for officers, and you've cut officers and
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: you need to add one so the guys can have
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: time off. And we don't have excessive overtime. Sometimes it
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: does take additional money when you're running a tight budget
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: to begin with. So when you have a tight budget
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: to begin with and fiscal responsibility to begin with, you
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: can't always cut your way out of it on a
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: local level because you are paying more for a truck
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: to plow the road, substantially more for that, more for
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: a fire truck, more for a police car, more for
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: health care benefits. and more for employees. You know what.
• 29:59
  Speaker 7: I don't think?
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Let me respond real quick. You asked me to explain
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: it to you. So I want to explain it to you.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about a bloated form of government. I'm
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: talking about an efficiently run form of government, which I
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: think the township overwhelmingly is, with the number of personnel
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: in the road department and in the police departments.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: So, Ron, that is a really nice problem to have.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: And I wish that every local... and state and federal
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: government agency had that problem. But if Boardman is truly
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: fiscally responsible, they are in the extreme minority of local
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: governments where that is true. More than that, the tiniest
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: percentage of property taxes are going to our townships. 60
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: to 70 percent of your property taxes, depending on your district,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: go to public school.
• 30:47
  Speaker 7: Correct.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: That is the largest part of the problem. And it's
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: important to emphasize that the obligation for funding public schools
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: belongs to the state. See Article 6, Section 2 of
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: the Ohio Constitution, the state legislature shall fund the common schools.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: And so we're talking about the state budget here, not
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: the township budget, not the library budget, not the city budget.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: We're talking about the state budget, which includes public schools.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: And that budget has more than enough bloat, more than
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: enough waste, more than enough fraud, more than enough abuse
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: to cut all of property taxes and then some. I
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: would argue you could abolish property taxes and you'd still
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: have extra money sloshing around Columbus, money that they don't need.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: And I agree with that assessment that you made on
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: a state level. And I would further put a comment
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: to this caller, which doesn't understand what I'm saying to him,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: is that you take a look at a township level
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: and the local government fund, which has been slashed by
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: the state on our tax dollars that are supposed to
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: come back to our local community, and they keep slashing
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: that amount of money that we should have returned to
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: our local community. It's frustrating.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: But, Ron, it's even worse than that. If you go
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: back four score and a dozen years ago when the
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: state sales tax was originally adopted, important point to note,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: the sales tax that we pay in Ohio, 5.75%, the
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: vast majority of it goes right to Columbus. That state
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: sales tax was supposed to be used for three things.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Number one, alleviation of poverty at the county level. Number two,
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: local government fund. Number three, public schools.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: They kept all the money, all that money that was
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: supposed to stay local, Columbus spent. Then in the 70s,
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: they passed the income tax, and they said, we promise,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: this time it'll stay for local government funds and public schools.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: But they've kept more and more of the money, and
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: that trend accelerated under Governor Kasich, a man who doesn't
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: even deserve to be called a rhino. He doesn't even
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: deserve to be called a Democrat. He's a damn communist.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Did you see, John, where with the marijuana situation where
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: the local community, if you put a dispensary in your
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: community was to keep a certain percentage of that tax,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: what was the first thing the state wanted to do?
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Eliminate the local community from getting their percentage of it.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: They wanted to keep it all.
• 33:22
  Speaker 10: Exactly.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: And the last I heard there, the state's planning on
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: keeping something like two-thirds of the marijuana tax.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: They kept the lottery. We can go on, Ron. It's
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: been the same story. for over a hundred years. State
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: government has continued to grow like a great Leviathan, and
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: all the money that was supposed to stay local for
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: public schools and local government, for your roads, police, and fire,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Columbus is spending on God knows what nonsense. And then
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: there's no money here locally, and they cry poor. I
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: call BS.
• 33:54
  Speaker 14: And the solution can't be that it goes back onto
• 33:56
  Speaker 14: the local taxpayers, then, to fill in the gap for
• 33:59
  Speaker 14: the money that the state didn't give back.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Well, then we'll eliminate cops. But that is the.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Solution that they've adopted so far.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just going to get in a ridiculous
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: argument with the guy to say there is a point
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: where you have to say, This is the reality of
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: a local community, if you will. We can change all
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: that stuff on the state. That'll take time. But we
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: don't want to get down to where we have three
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: officers or somebody not coming when you need assistance. I mean,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: the shenanigans the state is pulling by keeping local government
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: money from the local government is absolutely reprehensible as far
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: as I'm concerned. And they do it at every turn.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: I totally agree with you on a state level. But
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: it makes it difficult for some of our local communities
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: to function.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: It does, but I think we need to remember how
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: bad this problem is, Ron. As tough as it would
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: be for a community to go from four police officers
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: to three on shift, as difficult as it would be
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: to wait for two or three years to repave a road,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: those are safety issues. Those are real problems. Think about this, though.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: If someone said to you, Ron... We can have four
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: police officers and repave the road this year or three
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: police officers and repave the road in three years, but
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: you're going to be homeless. If we have four officers
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: and repay faster, but you can keep your home if
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: we go a lighter load, which would you prefer? I mean,
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: having a home is the most important. You don't care
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: about the police department or the road if you're homeless.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: So we need to remember that while all these things
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: are important, having a home, it's above all of it.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: I agree with that. It's just to say local communities
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: have been getting a shaft by the state by not
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: returning your state tax dollars to your local community, putting
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: a burden on the local community to say– to ask
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: its citizens for additional money because they want the roads
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: plowed or they want an ambulance to show up or
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: they want somebody there to put out the fire. And
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: it's reprehensible what the state has done to local communities.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: It is. I mean– And I think the taxpayers are
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: speaking loud and clear. We're not asking for less services.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: We're not asking for less police or less. And, in fact,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: I hear most people asking for more. They want more
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: for less. And you can say, oh, that's unreasonable. Well, no,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: it's not. We are paying for a limousine, a private jet,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: and roads paved with gold, and we're not getting close
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: to that. We are paying for the luxury experience. And
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: yet our services are poor. That's because the folks in
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Columbus have been siphoning off the money and wasting it.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: And even they don't know how much they're wasting.
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a serious issue. I mean, when you
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: actually hear your local communities talk about the situation they're in,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: In providing services, I mean, in plowing your streets, salting
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: it in the wintertime, having an ambulance show up quickly
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: if you're having a stroke or heart attack, your fire
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: department there to put out a fire or a cop
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: to show up, it can be overwhelming. I can tell you, like,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: in the township in which I live, Austintown Township, you know,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: when you have, in this guy's case, let's say you
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: have four or five guys on a shift, I'm here
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: to tell you on the overnight shift and on the
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: afternoon shift, they are busy. Every one of them is busy.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: So it's hard to function with three. I mean, it's
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: just unfortunately, whether we like it or not, where we
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: are in our society with some of the issues that
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: we're having in our society. But I agree with you
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: on the state that it's difficult. And to a certain extent,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: even on a county level, the state is screwing the counties,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: aren't they, as far as kicking money back?
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: We're in the same boat as any local government. We,
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: just like them, we're in the local government fund as well,
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: and we've had the same cuts. So, you know, whether
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: you're a county, a city, a township. We've all experienced
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: the same cuts at the state level, and we've been
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: forced to make it work. Unfortunately, we've reached a point
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: where this can't continue. It's just unsustainable. The state is
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: spending so much money. I mean, we're going to have
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: to abolish local governments at some point. And I'm not
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: saying that because I want to. I'm saying the state
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: is absorbing all functions. It's absorbing all the money. I mean,
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: at a certain point, there will be nothing left. There'll
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: be no more oxygen in the room for your township,
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: for your county, for your city, because every tax, every dollar,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: the state is keeping it.
• 38:36
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: And therein lies where the problem begins for local communities.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: At some point when they decided, well, we're going to
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: screw the local community and not send, by the way, John,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: your state tax dollars, all of us living here, back
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: to your community.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: And I had a debate with a state representative. I
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: won't say her name. And she said, well, if we
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: give the money, then we should control everything because it's
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: our money. And I said, no, I pay the state
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: taxes same as I pay the local taxes. It's my money.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: And she replied back, well, we have a philosophical difference.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: And I said, yes, we do. All tax dollars belong
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: to the taxpayer. I don't care if they're local tax dollars,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: state tax dollars, federal tax dollars. We're the ones paying them.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: The state isn't creating a penny of wealth. It is
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: taking money off the top. And it is our money.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: But I'll tell you something. these folks have been in
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: Columbus so long, they literally think it belongs to them.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: It's their dollars.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: You know what I've learned in the times that I've
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: spoken to you at my mirror, University of Africa graduate?
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: There's two things in life that I would recommend for
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: that state rep to understand. You don't argue with a
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Philadelphia or Duke school lawyer. That would be the... That's
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: what I would tell her, all right? And you know
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: it to be true. I want to just shift gears
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: off of this. What do you think of data centers?
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Listen, we all know that having data centers so that
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: the Internet works, so that we can save pictures on
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: the cloud, we all agree that there's some use case.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: And there's always been data centers, by the way. It's
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: not a new thing. What we're really asking is, what
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: do you think of hyperscale giant data centers that are
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: now popping up all over the country specifically to facilitate
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: artificial intelligence? Do we need data centers? Yes. Do we
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: need hyperscale data centers right down the street from your home?
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: No.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Do they pollute? Yes. Do they guzzle energy? Yes. Do they...
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: present noise and other issues when they're in residential neighborhoods? Yes.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: So what's the solution? Number one, you don't put a
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: data center in a residential neighborhood. And number two, we
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: need to more seriously ask the question, is AI really
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: worth this investment? Is it really worth it to us?
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Because at the end of the day, it's not just
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: business as usual. Government is subsidizing these giant AI data centers.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, if they're profitable, the free market says, go ahead,
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: build them wherever you can. But they're not asking to come.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: In and pay their taxes.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: They're asking for tax abatement.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Stand by. Back with John in a minute. Stay tuned.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Your one stop for advertising. WKBN. I've heard from the
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: kingdom of Mahoning, 455. It's 84 degrees with John Plushnick,
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Lake County Commissioner, Professor, Duke Law. Oh, he's got it all.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: So I'm jumping around real quick before you probably want
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: me to let you go here. So when it comes
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: to data centers, quick answer, what should we do?
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: Quick answer, we need to protect home rule. Every community
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: should be able to decide whether or not they want
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: a data center. And I think most are going to
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: say we don't want one next to a residential or
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: in a residential neighborhood. We hear the state legislature is
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: considering taking away home rules so they can plop a
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: data center next to your house and your local zoning
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: commission can't say no. That's dangerous. We all know that
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: there need to be some data centers. There always have been,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: for that matter. But I don't think we want them
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: in our backyard, and I don't think we want hyperscale
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: data centers raising our power bills. We're getting tax abatements.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: Like any business, a data center should be properly zoned
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: away from residential neighborhoods. They should have to follow the
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: same environmental regulations as anyone else, can't just dump into
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: the lake or the river, and they should pay full
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: freight on taxes. They're a profitable business. They should pay
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: their fair share.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: I know I've been two hours. I've got about ten
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: more questions I want to ask you after the break
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: at five. You got ten minutes or not?
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: All right, so I'm just saying, what do you think
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: about DeWine who said data centers don't have to pay
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: sales tax on the stuff that they buy to build
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: the data center, but I have to pay sales tax
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: if I add on to my garage?
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: I think it's amazing that Mike DeWine says we can't
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: afford to abolish property taxes for homeowners, but we can
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: afford to cut taxes for data centers, that he'd sign
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: legislation that cuts taxes for nuclear power plants. The reality is,
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: There's money to give everybody a tax cut except for you,
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: the taxpayer. That's outrageous.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: What were your thoughts when you saw, as a Duke lawyer,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Fauci take the fifth constantly in that fiasco? And do
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: you think he'll ever be held accountable?
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: I think the Senate was right to hold Dr. Fauci
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: in contempt. We see from his diary and his non-testimony
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: what a dangerous, toxic person he is. It's frightening. that
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: he was in charge of the health of the United
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: States during COVID. It's frightening that he may well be
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: the cause of COVID, as we learn that he funded
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: the laboratory where COVID may have originated. And the fact
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: that he suppressed scholarship and research that showed that a
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: lab origin is very probable, if not likely, is more
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: frightening still. Will he be held accountable? I don't know,
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: but he should be. And I'm very grateful to Senator
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: Rand Paul for giving him a serious inquiry, not letting
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: him off the hook, and forcing him to
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Either answer or take the death.