The Ron Verb Show - Full Broadcast from Friday, 08/07/26

Now, Ron Verbe. On News Radio 570, WKBN. Callers online stand by because I want to talk to somebody who I talk to this afternoon. Here's a guy that I got to tell you. I just admire. I admire because do you remember a couple weeks ago when I played you some of the sound bites out of Florida from Ron DeSantis and his philosophy when it comes to property taxes and taxes in general? As I said to you in Florida, they are spending less this year than they did the year before. And they're spending less that year than they did the year before that. Not adjusted for inflation. The dollar amounts, forget adjusting for inflation. It's less. They're spending less each year. over that period of time than they did the year before. And so they do something called zero-based budgeting. In other words, we're not going to start and say, hey, this is where you were last year, so let's start from there and see if you need any increases or anything. They're going to simply say, okay, we start at zero. It's the philosophy. Like Ron DeSantis says, we in governments, the only way we can give relief to our citizens is through trying to let them keep more of their money as far as taxes are concerned. instead of the other way arounds. His attitude is just refreshing. It's just refreshing when you listen to him talk. And in November, they got something on a ballot down there that's going to have some major reforms on property taxes in Florida. And with that in mind, I mean, I just admire his philosophy. But there's a guy in Lake County that I admire his philosophy. Commissioner No is his nickname there. John Pletnik is his birth name. John, welcome back to the program. Hello, hello. It's John Pletchnik. Good to be here. Pleschnik, okay. I keep doing it with a C. I don't know why I do that. It's Pleschnik. It's almost like an S, you know what I mean, as opposed to a C. Pleschnik. Okay. It's like a C. Pledge, Nick. And actually, there's a reason for that. If you look at my logo on any yard sign, you'll see a check over the sea. I didn't come up with that. There's a check over the sea in Slovenian. I'm a first-generation American. My father came from Slovenia. Pledgenik is a Slovenian name, and the accent mark, the check over the sea, shows it's pronounced C.H. So it's Pledgenick. No wonder I don't get it right. See, I need the checkmark there. Before I get into your philosophies, which I find fascinating, tell me a little bit about yourself, because I'm intrigued about you. Tell me about where you went to high school and your academics, or what I want to say, were you smart in high school, then where you went for your bachelor's degree, and then you went to Duke Law School. Tell me a little bit about your journey to become.

and a Duke going to Duke and graduating as a lawyer. I mean, those are some monumental accomplishments. Absolutely. So I was very blessed to be homeschooled. My mother was a teacher before she married my father. And so I went all the way through high school as a homeschooled student. And my mother was just an absolutely brilliant teacher, and it was a great blessing. Then I went on to Belmont Abbey College, where I not only studied, but I worked in the monastery kitchen for the Benedictine monks. floors, set the tables, you know, and when it occasionally snowed, I even made pizza for the monks. But, you know, I worked almost 40 hours a week while I went to college, a major in accounting. And from there, I went on to law school at Duke University, where I graduated at the age of 22. And I used that law degree to go to New York City to practice tax and employee benefits while I continued to go to school at night. at New York University School of Law, the number one ranked graduate tax program in the country, and that's where I earned my master of laws and taxation. So I have degrees in accounting, law, and tax, and that's why I have always been a strong fit when it came to working on budgets, governmental or otherwise, because those are the fundamentals, accounting, law, and tax. So did you graduate Duke at the age of 22, you said? That's right. That was with a law degree or an accounting degree? With a law degree. I graduated from college when I was 19.

You know, this is really something, man. I mean, this is, like I say on the year when you're not here, I'm a, I graduated University of Akron, and I don't think I'm worthy to even speak with you. I mean, it's like, it's just very impressive. I mean, it's, so homeschooling worked out really well for you. I mean, your mother really gave you a great education. It gave you a huge head start. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. I said in the footnote to my very first law review article, I dedicate this to my mother. Her sacrifices are my success. Yeah, because, I mean, what she did in the education you got from homeschooling from your mother, I don't know that that would be equal if you went to the public school system, would it be? I don't think it would have been equal in any school system. Home schooling isn't right for every family. The parents certainly have to be qualified, but given that my mother was a teacher by trade, she was the most qualified and the most motivated to give me the best education humanly possible. So I'm not here to say homeschooling is right for every family, but it was very right for our family, and I'm grateful to my mother for giving me that education. When you graduated from Duke as Duke Law School, I mean, why didn't you say, okay, I'm going to get a job at some firm or I'm going to represent people? Why wasn't it? I did. I did. I was in, I was at a law firm for two years in New York City. Did you like it? I did. I did, but in the back of my mind, I always wanted to be a professor. My father was a professor of philosophy, logic, and theology, and I always wanted to teach myself. So while I was enjoying the work at the firm in the back of my mind, I thought, what could I do to ultimately teach? And I called my old tax professor at Duke University, Professor Richard Schmalbeck, and I said, what can I do? You know, what should I do if teaching is my goal? And he said, you need to do a federal clerkship. You need to work for a federal judge. And obviously, if you want to be a tax professor, the U.S. tax court is the... is the clerkship for you. And I said, well, I happen to know some of your former students are judges on the tax court. Would you be willing to recommend me? And he was kind enough to do so. I ended up accepting a clerkship with a brand new judge, one of President Bush's, George W. Bush's last appointees. And I was his very first law clerk. I opened the office in D.C. And so after two years in New York City working for my firm, I spent two years in Washington, D.C. as an attorney advisor to a brand new judge on the U.S. tax court and helped to write opinions. And that was a great experience where I got to see the law for the perspective of the bench from the judge and continue to build my expertise. So after you got done with Duke Law School, what possessed you to say, I'm going to go further and you went to New York?

Well, I graduated with the Faculty Award for Tax and Estate Planning from Duke, and I really wanted to continue my education and tax. As I said before, NYU is the number one ranked graduate tax program in the world, and it has been as long as the rankings have existed. So it's not like it competes with other schools. It's been number one forever. And if you want to be a tax guy, NYU is where you want to go. A side note, you might know Barron Trump as a student at NYU as well in the undergraduate program. But if you want to be a tax person, NYU is the school. And so I love tax law. I felt like this is the fit for me. Ultimately, tax law is the nexus of all public policy because, you know, it comes down to how we pay for society. Taxes are... the centrifugal focus of all politics. And so given that, I wanted to know how government worked and how to make it work better, I wanted to study tax law. And NYU is the number one place in the world to do it. I mean, it's interesting to me that once you got through Duke and once you got a law degree, that you wanted to go on further and study tax law. I mean, it would seem that would be like about the last thing in a world anybody would want to study. Well, you know what they say, find something no one else wants to do and do it well. You always have a job. Right. And so you study tax law, and then you also said accounting, correct? That's right. Accounting was my undergraduate major. Then I got my law degree from Duke University, and finally my master of laws and taxation from NYU. I mean, those are very impressive credentials. How did that, working in a New York law firm and the things that you described to us earlier, John, how did that lead you to be in Lake County and becoming a commissioner? Tell me how you went from where you were working to where you are now. Well, as I shared, my goal was to become a tax professor, and I was very blessed in that I had multiple offers to teach, but one of them was from Cleveland State University, and given that my father's family had largely settled from Slovenia and the Cleveland area, I felt a strong connection to Northeast Ohio. I've been coming here my entire life, and so it was an easy choice to say yes to Cleveland State University, where I began my full-time teaching career. But almost as soon as I started to get involved in the community, people said, would you step up in this and this and this leadership role. And I went from chairman of the Willoughby Hills Recreation Commission to vice president of the Willoughby East Lake Library Board of Trustees. and ultimately vice president of Willoughby Hill City Council, that's the point where ultimately and unexpectedly a commissioner appointment came open. One of the county commissioners resigned. And so, given that he was a Republican, that meant the Republican Party had to appoint his replacement. And when push came to shove, 79 people voted for me. And here's the interesting part, Ron.

I got exactly 79 votes to be appointed the 79th commissioner in the history of Lake County, Ohio. I mean, isn't that something? And when I sit back and think about people in these particular offices, I can think of no one better qualified from an academic standpoint than you to go into an office like this. Can you tell me when you first entered politics, was there much of a learning curve for you, whether that was when you first started or when you became a commissioner, or were you pretty adept to it from the very beginning because of your educational background? I think my educational background prepared me for public service very well. Understanding government fund accounting, incrementalism versus zero-based budgeting. These are concepts that I've studied, researched, and taught my whole life. So the public service part was a really tight fit. I immediately understood. The politics, though, I don't think anything can prepare you for. I know you've seen it firsthand as a public figure on. It's never been nastier out there. People are not trying to have a full and fair debate. There's minions and keyboard warriors and trolls and fake profiles. And it's just a pile of nastiness designed for political power. We're not really having a debate between gentlemen and gentlewomen to see who the most qualified people are. Politics today is a blood sport, and it's sad, because a lot of the most qualified people aren't willing to fight it out. Over the years, John, I interviewed a lot of people over the years in politics, and I stopped interviewing most of them. They weren't that impressive. I mean, this sounds bad, and I don't want to sound bad or arrogant. They weren't that bright. They weren't that impressive. And it seemed like so many of them were in it because it was a good job for them and a good paycheck and good benefits. And they really didn't know how to do anything else. But they didn't come to it with great academic credentials or an understanding of... Just money and business, I guess you would say, or public service. Well, unfortunately, when the best people demure, because they don't want to deal with the nasty politics, who's left? And the reason why I felt such a strong commitment and calling to continue this work, even though it's often difficult, almost always bankless, and you usually get yelled at by a bunch of people that don't know you. I continue to do it because I consider the alternative. As you pointed out, most people who enter politics do so because they're self-interested. They want to make a career of it. They want to be famous. I can honestly say if I were making this decision just for me, I would not be running for re-election. I would leave it to someone else.

But I feel a sincere calling to do the job. I don't think there's someone right here right now who's ready to do it better than me, and so I feel called to do this work. And I think that more people who truly have expertise in their profession need to make the sacrifice of running for office to take those punches. to let those insults roll off their back shoulder because we need the best people in office. We don't need whoever is left. We don't need people who can't find a better job so they go for politics. We need people for whom it's a genuine sacrifice to make that sacrifice. I mean, George Washington gave up. a beautiful life on Mount Vernon to fight a war and risk treason against Great Britain. Donald Trump risk going to prison for the rest of his life to run for president three times. We need men like that who are willing to sacrifice everything who could live a much better life without politics. The people who don't want it are the ones that we want to serve. When I started out, I started out talking about Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who I think is terrific as a governor. And if you study anything that he – first and foremost, the thing I like about Ron DeSantis is he reads. I mean, he reads. And that's how he makes a lot of his decisions. He's a lawyer as well. But he reads. And when he goes beyond that, he has the same type philosophy that you do when it comes to taxes. Do you – Sense that. Let me do my break, and then I'd like you to respond to that. Get your comments about Ron DeSantis. We've got a lot to cover here with Commissioner No, John Plushnik, back in a minutes.

Hey, and talk station, 570 WKBN. It's 325 in the afternoon news radio 570 WKBN. Do you understand the comparison I make because when I take a look at Ron DeSantis and what he's doing with property taxes and his philosophy and your philosophy, not just as lawyers, but I see a lot of similarity. Do you notice that or do you look at that at all? I do. I do. I was recently speaking on a panel hosted by DiaStream at the Cleveland Metro Park Zoo. And when I was asked about property taxes, I quoted Ron DeSantis. I said, how absurd is it that we pay tax every year, every year, every year to stay in our home, like a surf paying rent to the government? We would never do that with a television set. As Governor DeSanis said, we pay sales tax once and the TV is ours. We would revolt if we were told you have to keep paying on that TV every month, every year. It's absurd. And we sometimes need to reframe these issues like Ron DeSantis does in a powerful way. Would you be willing to pay property tax on your TV? No, you'd say it was a joke. And so why are we so willing to pay such high property taxes on something as sacred as our home? And then it isn't just based on, even if you continue to pay, and based on what you paid for your home initially, that's one thing. But to say, okay, we're not only going to have you pay these taxes every year, but we're going to tell you we think your house is now worth this, and this is what your taxes are going to be. That even goes to another step. And that, Ron, is a tax on unreal. they're taxing you on income you haven't even earned yet and let me say it more powerfully they're taxing you on income you may never earn because your home might not be worth as much as they say or even if it is it might go down in value before you sell it so they're taxing you on income that you might never earn with a holy fictional value that serves no purpose other than to raise your taxes how is that legal It's because the Ohio Constitution is not as well written as our U.S. Constitution. A lot of people say, oh, property taxes are unconstitutional, and I would say yes. Under the U.S. Constitution, the federal government, Congress, cannot charge you a direct tax on your property without going through a whole bunch of shenanigans that go way beyond the scope of our conversation today. For practical purposes, A property tax like we have in Ohio could not be levied by the federal government. It would be unconstitutional. That's because our founding fathers and mothers were wise. Unfortunately, the Ohio Constitution gives a lot more room for taxing than the federal constitution, and that authority's been abused. So it leads us to where we are today. Incidentally, we had the re-evaluations where taxes went up pretty significantly here in Mahoning County. Then we just got through with the other re-evaluations that just took place where they'll go up again. But because of Dave Thomas, those increases will be based on the rate of inflation, not on that 25% increase, correct?

That's true, but we need to bear in mind that inflation can be very substantial. Since 2019, we've had something like 30% inflation. So Representative Thomas's bill limiting increases in the value of your home to inflation is an improvement. I would argue it's not enough. To your original point, Ron, if we're going to keep property taxes, which I don't want to do, but if we're going to keep them. value should be set at sales price. It should never go up unless or until you sell your home. Absolutely. I think everybody listening that would say if we're going to keep them, that's how it should be. But I want to do a follow-up question. Stand by. Oh, no, I get some time here. The follow-up question to that would be. What do you do from the aspect of government because they're victims of inflation and a fire truck has doubled in price or a police car has gone from 50,000 to 80,000? Their wages have gone up to keep employees and their health care benefits costs more. So they do need additional money for their employees just as a private sector business would have to raise prices. So how do you do that? I'd say that argument is a fallacy. because you can respond just as easily. You can't raise taxes because taxpayers face inflation and they can't afford it. The reality is we have a bimodal question. Do we put the burden of inflation on the taxpayer or on government? And I believe it's government's job to become constantly more effective and efficient in a way that mitigates inflation. You should be X percent more efficient every year. Frankly, you should outpace inflation with your efficiency increases. That's the standard we should set. Stand by. Stand by back after the break. I told you he's fascinating. Back in a minute. News Radio 570, WKVN. John Houston has joined the ranks of those calling for the resignation of Ohio Congressman Max Miller. The House Ethics Committee is investigating accusations of abuse by his ex-wife, the daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno. Miller is denying the allegations. Three East Cleveland homes have been left in ruins after a Thursday fire. The fire began at a vacant home on Carlyan Road and spread to two neighboring properties. Firefighters at the scene reportedly had issues with water from the start. No one was hurt and the cause of the fire is not yet known. Picklefest returns to Akron this weekend for its third year. Picklefest visitors can expect to experience a celebration of pickles, including pickle-themed games and contests, plus a number of food vendors featuring pickle-centered items. Picklefest happens Sunday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. at lock 3. Admission is free. I'm Andy Betts. Listen on the free iHeart Radio app for all your music, news, talk, and sports radio. Podcast 2. Download the app. Free never sounded so good. A to Z dependable services, plumbing.

Now, Ron Verb on News Radio 570, WKBN. Back to it, News Radio 570 WKBN. And Ron Verb from Lake County, it's Commissioner No, John Plushnik, is on the end of our line. So you basically, when I talked about Ron DeSantis, as I say, Ron DeSantis, this year. He will spend less money than the year before. In the year before, he spent less money than the year before that, not based on inflation. I mean, he doesn't adjust for inflation. It's just we're spending less money each year than they did. That's the type of efficiency you're talking about when it comes to government, correct? That's right. And yet, and I have to give a little perspective here between Ohio and Florida. And yet Ohio spending is going up and up and up. I mean, Ohio spends about twice as much per capita as Florida does. So I agree with you. Florida is making itself, if not one of the model for governance amongst the states. But Ohio is way behind. And there's a lot of low-hanging fruit. There's a lot to cut. So when people say you can't just cut spending to make up the difference, I say Florida is proving you wrong. Right, because, I mean, just think about it. Each year he's spending less than he did the year before, once again, not adjusted for inflation. So it's the same dollars. You follow? You dig what I'm saying, right? Exactly. I mean, and that's the approach. And it's just an amazing philosophy that he has. It reminds me so much of what you're doing. So you're saying you want to get rid of property taxes altogether. But if we have to keep them, you say it should be based on what you initially bought your house at, not what they say it's worth and you're paying on that. Exactly. And for those who say that's impossible. California has that rule. Liberal California. So they passed Prop 13. It was a ballot initiative. Obviously, their legislators wouldn't have adopted something like this, but they passed Prop 13 in California, which froze property values at sales price. It's being done. It can be done. It would work here. And I've long said, Ron, that if we can't agree to abolish property taxes. then two reforms would deal with a lot of the grief. One, we just discussed, property value equals sales price. The other is we should absolutely abolish property taxes for seniors. I want to abolish property taxes for everyone, but if you're unwilling to go that far, it would only cost us 3% of Ohio's all-funds budget to exempt seniors 100% from property taxes. That's the minimum we should do. Define senior, is it age-based 65? How do you define this? I would define it the same way as the homestead exemption, which is 65 years of age and older. Would it be income-based or just age-based? If we had no income limits, no value limits, it would cost less than 3%.

of Ohio's budget. If you imposed income and value limits, it would be even cheaper. Probably half as expensive. But, I mean, I would be opposed to imposing any type of financial requirements because they're always set so low. It just eliminates a lot of people. To me, if you're going to give, once again, I go back to Florida. In Florida, everyone gets a homestead exemption. If that's your primary residence, it isn't age-based at all. Well, my point to you, Ron, is that even without income or value limits, so that every senior, everyone 65 years of age and older gets it, that's a $3 billion annual cost that's less than 3% of Ohio's budget. That's an inflation adjustment, Ron. And the fact that our state legislature hasn't made that tiny, modest, doable reform tells me they're not serious yet. So to do that, you're saying that they should be able to do that without raising any taxes by simply cutting some of the ridiculous spending in the state of Ohio, correct? Cut a little spending. Our surplus this year was almost enough to pass this. I mean, they'd have to cut less than 1% of their budget, throw the surplus at it, and boom, you've exempted every senior from property tax. How would that affect the local community, then, if the seniors stop paying property taxes? Would it come from the state or would it just be void? Under my plan where I'm saying cut the state budget, the state would reimburse the localities just like they do for the homestead exemption, and there'd be no effect on localities. Okay. So in essence, the state just covers those taxes by the surplus that they have and or by cutting some degree of spending. Because what percentage is the $3 billion of the state budget? The state budget's a little over $100 billion, so a little less than 3%. So you're questioning, why isn't this being champion? Why isn't this getting done? I know that Senator Alcatrona has a bill in the state legislature for a 50% exemption for seniors. I've talked to him. He said he's open to doubling it to 100%, but he says that his bill has gotten no movement. It's stuck in committee. And that should change. That bill should be updated to 100% exemption, and it should be priority number one. And both Vivek Ramaswamy and Amy Acton, if they seriously want to stand in front of us and say we're leaders, The Vec Vivek Ramaswamy and Amy Acton should go to the state legislature and refuse to leave until they pass that exemption. Do you think the constitutional amendment will get enough signatures? I believe it will, but not until next year. I mean, I think folks were hopeful. I was certainly hopeful that a miracle would happen, and we could collect over 600,000 signatures in one year. But realistically speaking, this is not a paid campaign. We do not have paid circulators going around Ohio collecting signatures. Everyone is volunteering. And to get half the signatures in a year is pretty miraculous. Now that said, I know Brian Thomas Massie, the founder of the movement to abolish property taxes, he's from Lake County, and he is 100% confident we're going to have the signatures by next year. I share his confidence.

I mean, I sit back with a great deal of pride of how many signatures we've gotten in this community and the volunteers that we have in this community that I would say are second to none. If we could clone them and send them to other areas, we would be blessed to say the least. I mean, I sit back in question why talk radio isn't doing more in other communities because they're doing nothing and why we don't have more Denise's out in the world and the girls that are helping her. collect these signatures. I mean, we have a lot in this community to be proud of. I completely agree. Mahoning County has done an extraordinary job of mobilizing and collecting signatures, and that effort is not going to waste. We have put big government on notice. It may take us another year to get there, but we're done being talked down to and told there's no appetite to cut taxes. We can't afford to cut taxes. Tell us how you're going to replace the money. Let me ask you this, Ron. Does anyone go to the homeowner and ask them, how can they afford to pay higher and higher property taxes? Does the government ask you before they raise your taxes? Ron, do you have a plan to afford this? Do they say, okay, you don't? We're not going to raise your tax. Do they ever ask you, Ron? No, they never have. Exactly right. So why should we ask governments? The reality is the burden is going to fall on the taxpayer or the government. It's bimodal. It is one or the other. Who can better afford to take the hit? And let me tell you, government is fat and happy and the taxpayer is being squeezed to death. If we have to choose who takes the hit, this is an easy choice. Let's make our government more like Florida. Let's cut back. and finally give the taxpayer some relief. But the next time I hear someone say, how are you going to pay for it? I laugh. I've given you the answer. Two words. Cut spending. The fact that you don't like the answer isn't my problem. Right. And it's obviously clear. That's what he continues to do in Florida and continues to provide all the services that people are asking for. If anything, Florida provides better services than Ohio, and it's doing it for about half the cost. So to all the naysayers who claim there's no way that we could possibly provide good government services and abolish property taxes, they've been disproven 10 times over because Ohio is overspending to such an incredible degree. Ron, according to Wallet Hub, we are the 16th highest tax state in the nation. Also, according to Wallet Hub, we have the eighth highest property taxes in the nation. We don't have the eighth or the 16th best services. We are way overtaxed. We are way underserved. And here's the bad news for government. Taxpayers aren't saying cut my taxes and cut services. Oh, no. The news is far worse for big government. We're saying we want to abolish property taxes and we want more and better services and Florida is proof it can be done. If this gets on the ballot, do you believe it to pass? So far, Ron, every poll says that it will.

I mean, we've seen... But you know, John, John, you know there will be millions spent by all the lobbying groups to run commercials to defeat it. scare you to vote. I know, but I think that that's a little bit of a red herring here, Ron, because all those special interests know that this is not your typical campaign. You want to beat John Pletchnik. You run a bunch of ads saying that John's terrible or stupid or wrong, and people scratch their head and go, wow, there are so many commercials saying he's a bad guy, maybe he is. It's very easy to personally attack a representative to attack a person. on an issue, particularly an issue that benefits the taxpayer. They pretty much have to run the attack on you and say, you taxpayer are greedy. You are a bad person. You aren't willing to share. How dear you? I don't know that that kind of advertising is going to resonate when you're telling the voter that they're a terrible person. And they should be ashamed because they can't afford these property taxes that are asking for relief. I think the backlash will be epic. I think if they do spend tens of millions of dollars telling voters that they're selfish and that they won't have roads, police, or fire if they vote for this. I think you could see 80, 90% vote against them because even a majority of Democrats in some polls show they support abolishing property taxes. I think there's a real danger for government here that they are overplaying their hand. The people are already unsatisfied with how government's being run. We see the wastefront and abuse in our face every day. And if you're going to add insult to injury and tell us we're greedy and stupid. stupid because we complain our taxes are too high, get ready for all the bums to be thrown out of office. Let me play you a clip from Ron DeSantis and then I get your reaction to it, okay? I keep you on the line here as I play this. We're looking to give people relief from the high cost of living. I mean, we've had a major inflationary period in American history, one of the most inflationary, groceries, all these things. Who knows what's going to happen with oil? The one thing we control is tax. And so in Florida, local governments get property tax. We don't get at the state. We've got a plush rainy day fund. We've paid down half our debt since I've been governor. I've got all this great stuff. We're doing great. Local governments, when I became governor, were taking in $32 billion. Now they're taking in $60 billion. So the revenues almost doubled in seven years. Why? Because they're assessing the values higher. And the values have gone up. And so we're saying, okay, if you're a Florida resident and you're homesteading your property, that's your primary homesteaded residents.

We think that should be excluded. Now, that's about 30% of the overall property tax revenue if you just did it on day one. So it's got to go on the ballot in November of 2026. And it would be something that would be phased in, most likely. But we could get to a point very quickly in Florida where 90-some percent are not paying anything. And eventually we'd phase in the elimination. So it can be done. And if we don't do anything. They're going to have $84 billion in revenue in 2031. So that's 12, 13 years to go from 32 to 84. So when people will say, you can't do it, you're not going to have any services. Just ask them, did we not have schools and police in 2019 when they were taken in $32 billion? Of course we did. Now, give them inflation, give them population growth, give them a couple percent just for kicks on a Saturday night. That takes you at about 46 or 47 billion. It doesn't take you to 60. So how would you want to do that? Maintain the growth of these governments or give Floridians really historic property tax relief. What do you think, John? I say exactly, and we see those numbers parallel in Ohio. As Ron DeSantis said, we've had the highest inflation in the last 40 years. That's pumped up home values, that's pumped up property taxes. It's a crisis that we all saw coming. And if we look at government spending, specifically the Ohio State budget in 2019, it was about $69 billion per year. Now it's over $100 billion. That's a more than $30 billion delta. That's more than all we collect in property taxes. We could abolish property taxes in Ohio and have $10 billion to spare if we just went back to 2019 levels of spending. So to the governor's point, the numbers show very clearly. that abolishing property taxes isn't some kind of crazy or apocalyptic idea that would throw government into bankruptcy and mean we have no services, it would be an adjustment. It would force government to go from constantly spending more, even outpacing the rate of inflation, to force being constantly more efficient. And that's the government that people rightly expect. And that's not a big ask in a state like Ohio, Ron, that is clearly overspending. Florida is efficient and they're still becoming more efficient. We don't even have to become efficient to save money. We just have to stop wasting so much. There's so much low-hanging fruit. There's so much waste fraud and abuse. I mean, we can pay for these exemptions with just the waste.

So just to clarify, you think we'll get enough signatures. I mean, I thought it was impressive how many signatures were gotten in that short period of time by a volunteer effort. I thought the results were quite impressive, and I think it's a monumental hill to climb, but I think with the time frame being there, and remember, he wants a large cushion, Brian Thomas Massie, and justly so. If we get there, and I think there is a real possibility of that. that it can get on the ballot. And I get nervous because I can hear those attack ads. If you vote for this, you're going to be paying high income tax. If you vote for this, you're not going to have police services or whatever. I can almost hear them put together and funded by the school systems and everybody else benefits for property taxes. Ron, I just don't think people believe it. I think they're floating those threats because they know it won't actually work. If they were confident that those type of negative ads telling the taxpayer, you're greedy, you're stupid, pay your taxes, shut up, eat your broccoli, pay your taxes, if they really thought that would work, Ron, they wouldn't be showing their hand and threatening this is what we're going to do. They would just quietly wait until it got on the ballot and then dump those ads. The reason that they're telling us, quote, unquote, what they're going to do is they know it won't work. They know you're not attacking a person or a candidate here. You're not even attacking an issue. To win this fight, you have to attack the taxpayer themselves. You have to say, Ron Verb, Mr. Taxpayer, you're a greedy, stupid idiot. And if you vote to lower your tax, the world will end. Stand by, John. Stand by. Do you find that? Your one stop for at 70. WKBN. 355 in the afternoon. It's 84 degrees on this August 7th. John Plushnik, the Lake County Commissioner, Commissioner, No. A title that you take a great honor in having because you, they call you Commissioner No because you say no to these tax increases, correct? Correct. I'm not sure everyone considers it a compliment, but I take it as one. They call me Commissioner No, because I always vote no on taxes. And while the taxpayer hears that and says, hooray... What a lot of folks don't understand, why do so many good people go bad in politics, the pressure from all the public employees, the pressure from everyone in the building, including elected officials who just want a bigger and bigger budget, they don't like to be told no. And you need to elect strong people who don't have a problem saying no on your behalf. Because the most important person is never in the room when these decisions are made.

We need to remember that we work for the taxpayer, not the folks who want the bonuses, new offices, new buildings, new everything. We work for you. We work for the taxpayer, and that means we need to say no to government. Are you optimistic about the future of this problem being remedied any time quickly? I mean, we had to fight like crazy just against the double homestead exemption here in Mahoning County. And they only did it after they did it in Trumbull County, in Columbia County, to be able to get that. And it's just a small benefit that you get to keep your money. But we need more reform. I mean, we... And Ron, I will say, I know your show had a big impact there. I talked to the commissioners in Trumbull. I talk to the commissioners in Mahoning, and I know that this conversation has had a positive influence. The people's voices were heard. That's a good thing. But to your point, doubling the homestead exemption, that's another $500 in the pocket of a senior. That's important. That's not nothing. But we have a lot more to go. And do I believe we can make it? Yes, I do. Ron, I can't predict the future, but my best insight into where things are going is that property taxes are going to go down in a big way next year. They're either going to go down because the state legislature sees that Brian Thomas Massie and the movement have enough signatures to abolish property taxes. They panic and they cut our taxes in a big way to try to head that off at the pass and say, hey, instead of abolishing property taxes, would you accept this? Or the state legislature continues to ignore us, won't even exempt seniors, won't even freeze. Home values at sales price won't make the modest reforms you and I've talked about. And then the people say, you know what? You haven't heard our voice. We're taking all the money back. And that's when you see the amendment go on the ballot and pass overwhelmingly. So I think next year is the year when we see Ohio property taxes go down in a big way. Whether they're abolished or not, I think that comes down to the state legislature. Because I think a majority of people... would probably accept some pretty big cuts and take that. But if the state legislature continues to do nothing or to pass sweet little nothings that cut future increases but leave the taxes on the books as they are, then I think the people of Ohio are going to stand up and say not enough and abolish property taxes next year. Can you stand by and can you give me a few more minutes, John? Absolutely. All right. I'll come back with him. After the break here at four, terrific guy. Glad to have him. We'll be back. Mike Roe here with Arnold Studios. This is 570 WKBN Youngstown, an I-Heart radio station, guaranteed human.

ABC News. I'm Chuck Siebertson. Analyst, we're expecting a net gain of 83,000 jobs last month. Instead, the Labor Department reports 23,000 jobs went away. Totals for June and May were revised downward. KPMG chief economist and managing director Diane Swank says some of the numbers can be attributed to temporary workers cut after the World Cup, but not all. We actually are seeing the squeeze on low- and middle-income households in terms of their discretionary spend. They also cut back on restaurant purchases for several months now. That is besides the World Cup. Department of Homeland Security says while they promise to equip each enforcement team with an officer wearing a body-worn camera, it says it will review footage and will only release it when it is in the best interest of the agency. Weather affecting air travel today with more than 1,100 flight cancellations, says flight aware. Todd Blanche is just enough support to become the next Attorney General with Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy saying that he'll vote for Todd Blanche. ABC's Jay O'Brien at the Capitol. Bill Cassidy acknowledged he has a history with President Trump. He voted to convict President Trump in his second impeachment. Trump back. a primary challenger against Bill Cassidy. But he said, despite all that, the decisions are made by President Trump. And he believes that in some instances, while he's concerned about weaponization of the Justice Department, he believes that Todd Blanche could push back on President Trump and try to blunt some of the president's instincts. Number of critical U.S. air defense missiles is extremely low, including those used in Patriot systems, says a government report, ABC News contributor, retired Army General, former NATO ambassador, Doug Lute, mentioning the Russian leader. Vladimir Putin is watching very carefully because he has doubled his ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine because he knows that Ukraine is suffering from the same shortage of Patriot Interceptors. Doug Lute on the Interceptors, and you're listening to ABC News. If you haven't switched to Pure Talk because you're not sure their coverage is every bit as reliable as big wireless, why not take them for a test drive? For a limited time, Pure Talk is offering any of their plans for just $15 a month for the first three months, including their top-tier unlimited data plan. No contracts, no commitments. Just a great deal on a high-speed network with unlimited data from an American wireless company. Dial pound 250, say Mike Rowe, and let the savings begin. These days, heading back to school means more than pencils and notebooks. It means laptops, tablets, online accounts, and a lot of personal information moving across the Internet. WebRute Total Protection gives families powerful online defense tools with antivirus, VPN, cloud backup, identity protection, and more. Helping keep your digital life secure throughout the school year and beyond. Go to webroot.com slash radio and get 60% off today. That's webroot.com slash radio for 60% off. Live a better digital life with WebRut because peace of mind shouldn't be optional. A spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's National Security Commission says the general framework of an agreement with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz has been finalized. Iranian officials have publicly said the deal would establish new shipping routes, allow commercial ships to enter the Persian Gulf through an Iranian-controlled route, and exit through a lane controlled by Oman.

The Senate today approved a long-awaited Russia and Iran sanctions bill. It heads to the House of Representatives, which is on recess until the end of the month. A growing number of national restaurant chains are pulling jalapinos from their menus due to a salmonella outbreak linked to the spicy peppers. They include sweet green, kudoba, and Chipotle, who all say they're doing it out of precaution. ABC News medical contributor, Dr. Alec Kash Patel. What's concerning and tricky about this is... Produce such as jalapinos, they don't go through that cooking step to kill the bacteria. They get chopped up and then added later to another product. Dr. Kash Patel advises that when in doubt, cook the jalapinos. New Mexico court has ordered META, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to pay $567 million to address children's mental health. By far, the largest category will be $420 million for treatment as to treat the kids who have been impacted by addiction and exploitation in our state. but also requires screening and assessment, awareness prevention. New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres. Wall Street's major indexes closing higher. Chuck Sievertson, ABC News. A to Z. Now, Ron Verb. On News Radio 570, WKBN. 406 in the afternoon. Great guests. I mean, I can honestly sit here and tell you I admire him tremendously. I admire his education. I admire his philosophies. I admire his passion. And so he's a commissioner in Lake County. And you folks in Lake County are very lucky to have him. And so you folks, if he's your professor, you're lucky to have him as well. John Plushnik is our guest, the first hour of the program. Let me take some calls for you. Are you willing to do that? Absolutely. All right. So I got a bunch of calls here. Let's see what awaits me. You're on the air. You want to talk with John? Yeah, sure, Ron. How are you doing? Good. Go ahead. I would have a question because I think the biggest, I mean, the first hour was amazing. Outstanding. But we don't get these things done without applying pressure to our legislature. And that's what I'd like to know what else he can do. What can be done at his level of government to apply pressure at the state level? I think we're all in the same route. We could say that there's one party that has a faction in it that wants these things done, another party that completely opposes all these things. So how do we... put the chokehold on our current elected officials to get this job done. And if not, then I think we need to put our focus on removing those folks from office and putting candidates in their places that will do these things. How do we apply that pressure? So number one. sign the petition to abolish property taxes. It is the only reason we've seen any reforms come out of Columbus. We've had several state reps admit that. Dave Thomas is one. If it hadn't been for the petition, nothing would have happened. And while we have a long, long way to go, I am not happy with what's done. We need to understand that our singular best tool to apply pressure to Columbus is to take all the money back. That's number one.

Number two, we do need to start telling our state reps and senators what we expect of them. If you're not going to be more like Ron DeSantis, if you're not going to be cutting my taxes, if that's not why you're there, why am I paying you? What's the point? And we're going to have to start primaring people. It's too late this round. The primaries are over. But if your Republican state rep or senators says, no, I'm not willing to cut property taxes, you say, no, I'm not willing to vote for you again. Exactly. On my end, too often all I hear are people complaining about the situation, but not doing anything about it. And the complaining is just beating up the Republican Party, opposed taking a step back and you look at the big picture. Gotta be careful. We don't want to beat ourselves into a corner where we start losing people that vote. But I would be critical in the following sense. And John, would you agree? I think that there are many Republicans who don't support eliminating property taxes. And to a certain extent, have become career politicians who are opposed to making major changes with property taxes, too. It's because they become part of the system, Ron. Say again. Because they've become part of the system. And those folks are the most dangerous. We need to call them out, and we need to say, you've been in government so long you've become government and you need to go. Right. Exactly. That power becomes like a drug and they can't get enough of it. But sometimes, Ted, a lot of this stuff is easier said than done. The power of incumbency, the name recognition, the amount of money you have, the connections you have. Sometimes it can be difficult. It can be done, but it has to be done at a grassroots level. Do you remember many years ago when the Democrats Party was taken over by Mike Morley? Yes. I forget what their theme was or what they called themselves. Democrats for change. Democrats, that's what we need. We need Republicans for change. And it starts at your local level. You know, we're trying to knock the king off the mountain to get things sick. That's not how it works. We've got to start at the grassroots level. That means city council, townships, your municipality. I would go a level even more basic than that. I've often said the most powerful job. in politics that no one has ever heard of is central committee person. Both the Republican and the Democrat parties are governed by your precinct committee people, and you need to run for your precinct, you need your friend, your brother, your neighbor to run for their precinct. I became a commissioner because 79 precinct committee people voted for me. There's no other way someone like me would be appointed a commissioner in Lake County or anywhere else. That's because we had good conservatives on our Republican Central Committee. You need to recruit them. You need to be one of them. Forget city council. You've got to start a level below. You need to organize at the precinct level.

And I will agree with you 100% because I've got a friendship with someone who's running for office, and we were discussing some plans last week, and I thought that they were, and I haven't told them this yet, so maybe if they're listening, they're going to hear me now. I thought they were skipping the level. They're asking people to come to them in trying to organize a grassroots effort. You've got to go inside every community. You've got to reach out to every precinct person, and you've got to build your base. from the precinct committee people up. And you've got to get those people organized to come out and vote and work and do a lot of that legwork. They ran for that position. That's what that position is about. And then you build from there. So I agree with you completely 100%. And that's what we have to focus on. Isn't this guy terrific, Ted? I mean, seriously. It's amazing. It's unfortunate that we can't have a year. But if we put him on the radio enough and we stick to the issue and repeat everything that he has said, that's how you start building a ground move. You know, the Democrats for change. We can't become the Republicans for change, but it's not going to happen by complaining on the radio and doing nothing else. Like he said, we've got to start with precinct committee people. We've got to start there and build the base there. But it can be done, and Mike Moore has proven it can be done in Mahoney County. All right. Thanks, Ted. You're on the air. Yeah. Hi, John. I don't want anyone to take for granted that we're going to get this to the ballot. I want people to get involved more and just get us a few signatures, even if it's 10, 20, or 30, because we have 300,000, and if every one of those people would have gotten one signature, we would be at 600,000. So we just need people to do a little rather than a few of us doing a lot to make sure we get it to the ballot. So if everyone would just go to AX-O-H-Tax.com and download a petition and, you know, just circulate among your sphere of influence. I think that's going to really bring it home. All right. Make sure you follow the directions and get the signatures properly. Very important to do so. Yeah, and then just call your zone captain if you have a question. The maps are out there. You could just call us directly. You got it. The only thing I can add to that is to repeat ax.O.H.tax.com. That is the website to download the petitions so you can become a volunteer circulator as well. I completely agree. The most powerful way to pressure Columbus, the most powerful way to abolish property taxes, the most powerful way for change is to become part of that change. And you start by going to AX. T-A-X-O-H dot com. Ax-O-H-Tax.com. Thank you. Because if we were not to get these signatures, just think of what the state legislature would think of us then. Right. Then they'd really raise our taxes. So you better think about that. Thank you, Denise. Appreciate it. You're on the air with John. Hello. I would just like to thank him for everything he does because it's a breath of fresh air. You see so many public officials that are in positions like Mr. Chaconne, who shouldn't be there and this guy. I would elevate you to governor if I could. I'd much rather see you than Vivek Ramaswamy, but that's a whole other issue. I went today and paid my mother-in-law's property taxes. She had a stroke, so we'd do her financial stuff for her. And I went up to Trumbull County because they have the tax bills ready.

The difference, the first half we paid, it was $1,145, the second half with all the cuts, the rollbacks, everything everybody's done, it was $1,088. It was a $57 reduction. For all that effort that Dave Thomas did, for the commissioners voting to repeal all that, saved her $57 bucks, 5% of the cost from the first half. It's disgusting. I mean, I'm not going to complain. $57 is better than nothing. But we need to repeal. They need to go. We just need to get rid of them. Go ahead, John. First of all, first of all, thank you. And I appreciate your kind words are energizing because this is a battle. We're all in it. We've all heard the nonsense and the naysayers. So your thanks and your encouragement mean a lot. Secondly, it is telling that all this fighting, all this work has cut $57. That is the exclamation point on the sentence that we have not done enough, that the state legislature has not taken this seriously. And while I'll take any reform, I'll take a nickel, I'll take a dime, I want to move in the right direction, this is not enough. And for the folks who want to pat themselves in the back and say, look at all these reforms we've done. This is quantity over quality. You've passed and proposed hundreds of different bills, but it necks to $57. The reality is our property taxes are going up faster than our legislators are cutting them. That's a losing battle. We need to get the signatures to get the petition on the ballot. We need to keep pushing. That is the only way to make Columbus take us seriously. And if they don't, it gives each of us as a voter the ability to take our taxes back. Well, and here's what's really disgusting. We've been talking around here, the Mahoning County Board of Developmental Disabilities is putting an additional levy on for this fall. We've been talking about it. I think the director said their budget has gone from $60 million to $100 million in a roughly short of period of time. I think maybe 2019 to now, something like that. So I started asking around, and I found somebody, an insider, they have a person, they have a client that they service, severely, I guess, handicapped in some way, shape, or form. And for whatever reason, they had to ship this person out to a facility in Missouri. They shipped this person out last December. They just retrieved them in the last week or two. Do you know what the cost per day for servicing this individual at this facility in Missouri was? $3,000 a day. 3,000 a day. My mother-in-law just saved $57. They're spending $3,000 a day servicing one individual. Is it any wonder why their budget went from $60 million to $100 million when you have imbeciles running these places and on these boards that are approving expenses like that? It infuriates me. Almost as much as when I was walking in Trouble County today.

Go ahead, Rich. When I was walking in Trumbull County today in Trouble County, who doesn't pay a nickel for the WRTA bus service that Mahoning County has a sales tax that funds. WRTA, Trouble County gives virtually no funding to that bus. But yet there's a WRTA bus parked in front of the Trumbull County Courthouse with zero people on it on a 35 passenger bus, which they're going to start replacing the gas ones with electric ones at $1.4 million a piece. This is why you need to repeal all this nonsense. These people do not, they are poor stewards of your money. Quit giving them your hard-earned money because they're wasting it. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Government never saw a dollar it didn't want to spend. If you give them the money, by golly, they'll find a way to spend it. And unfortunately, the examples you've given demonstrate that whether they're overspending on something that's worthy or they're spending on something that's absolutely worth less, they'll find a way to spend the extra money. Government will never have money left over. They're never going to voluntarily give the money back. I've got a couple people say, well, you know, you guys can't just cut property taxes and then have government figure it out. You need to work with government to find the savings first. And my question is, how has that worked for you so far? You know, we've been asking government since the dawn of time, be more efficient, save money, stop raising taxes. Have they ever done it? You know, has government ever voluntarily given the money back? No. The only way we make this work is if we starve the beast, we have to take the money back first, and that will force government to become more effective and more efficient. It's not that we'll have less services, I would argue. that taking away property taxes would actually improve services in the net, because it's going to force government to look at itself from the top down, engage in zero-based budgeting, have a constant improvement program. And the irony is, even though we'd be spending $20 billion less, we should have better services. And by the way, every time Ohio's cut taxes in recent memory, our revenues have gone up. There's a reason for that. If we're too high on the lafra curve, if we're overtaxing people, we literally lower revenues by raising taxes. And Ohio is an overtaxed state. The ultimate irony of this entire debate, Ron, is that if we cut property taxes to zero, there's a darn good chance we'll have more money in the government coffers than when we started. That's what happened with Trump, I believe, isn't it? When they cut the taxes, they actually took in more money. It is, and it's also what happened with Reagan and the Tax Act of 1986. This is not my idea, folks. The Laffer Curve has long been proven true, and in Ohio where we are so highly taxed, it's a no-brainer. Thank you, Rich. Appreciate it. Take care. With John Plushnik, you're on the air. Hello.

Hey, Ron. Hey, John. This is Mark. I emailed you or texted you earlier this week. I want to thank you for calling in. My point of view here is as long as these communities keep doing what they're doing, for instance, in Borgman. They got a police levy on, brand new money. They just passed a renewal in the spring. The school has a five-year renewal on for November. Guess what? They went and they changed it to 10-year renewal now. We've got the MRD. We've got Cancel trying to get these people to approve a 5.9. My point, as long as these communities, keep hitting us with these taxes, you get this on the ballot, and it will pass by 80%. You mark my words. They keep hitting us. They keep ripping us off the way they're doing. This will pass. And Mark, the polls agree with you. The polls range from about 60 to 80% support. for abolishing property taxes. So for those who try to act like this is an extreme group, this is not just the majority. This is a super majority of Ohioans saying, no more, we can't afford this. And you know what else, too, John? I talked to Brian when he came down. Stand by. Stand by. I'll come right back to you after the break with you and John. After this, News Radio 570, Doty, Kimian.

Microhues, weather, and talk station, 570 WKBN. 424 in the afternoon, Ronfer from the Kingdom of Mahoning on this Friday, August 7th, 84 degrees. John Plushnik is with us. He is a... tax attorney, if you will, Duke law graduates. I mean, what an impressive education this man has. And he's a commissioner in Lake County. He's a college professor. He's a graduate of Duke law. He's an accountant. He's a tax law attorney. Those are his credentials. And he's a commissioner. And he's a commissioner. And he's a breath of fresh air. And you were saying what to him, Mark? Oh, yes. We were collecting signatures probably about a month ago. Brian Thomas Massie came down, and we sat there and we asked him some questions. I don't think if the state starts running scared and they want to try to promote something to us to have us not put this on the ballot, I don't think it's going to work. I don't think it's going to work. The impression I got from Mr. Thomas Massie was, no, we're going for the juggler here. They could offer whatever they want to offer us. Once it's on the ballot, it's going to go. So thank you, John, for all that you do. I wish we had you down here. You don't know how bad I pray we had you down here. Right. I would agree. Thank you, Mark. Appreciate it. Okay. You're on the air with... Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark. And I want to agree with you. I know that Brian Thomas Massie is committed to bringing this issue to the ballot no matter what. All right. Next caller with John Plushnik. You're on the air. Hello. So there's no other state that's done this before, correct? Correct. Okay, so next question. You had mentioned, I want this to go through just as much as anybody else, but I think that the messaging has to be appropriate, too. I think you said if we went back to 2019 spending, I mean, that right there, I could just see the headline right now. They want to go back to a 2019 spending. That's just absurd. We can't do that. I think that's bad positioning and marketing for this, just my opinion. I listen to your intro. You know, I'm not going to... even try to compare myself with your tax knowledge or law knowledge or anything like that. But the whole thing is if this passes, we don't have to worry about from my understanding what our county commissioner or this fund or whatever that does, if we just get the money back, we kind of circumvent all of that. So the marketing for this has to be a lot better to actually get the signatures. Do you guys have any money, any funding? Is there any marketing for this? Is it just the website? Do you guys have YouTube videos that people can actually look and watch and see, or do I have to go out and have a conversation with somebody about abolishing property tax where most of the people don't even know what they pay in property tax?

Those are questions for Brian Thomas Massie. I don't pretend to manage or run the movement. That's his committee. But I have seen a plethora of YouTube videos that Brian's put out that explain. And listen, what's convincing to you is completely unconvincing to someone else. Yeah, you say that it's not a powerful argument to point out that just a few years ago, Ohio spent less, you know, $30 billion some dollars less. That's incredibly convincing to a lot of people. I would agree with you. I would agree with you, however, I am also looking at, and believe me, I'm on your side. I'm on everybody's side calling, but I also have to look at reality. We do not live with inflation today, as we did in 2019. So if anybody's going to push back on this, or if you're going to give the opposition a position to push back on this, that's one that I would pick and hunt down to actually, again, push back on us, because you're right. What are you going to do? Go after the taxpayer and say you're stupid and greedy. They're going to have to find some roundabout way. to try to stifle this. And I think that's one of the ways, if that's a positioning or posture of, you know, this moving forward. I think what this comes down to is we have to make multiple arguments because they're not going to be convincing. No one argument is going to be convincing to everyone. You make the overarching argument that it's doable, that it would take a less than 20% cut to the state budget to abolish property taxes with no cuts to local services. That's one argument. Another argument is you never truly own your home if you have to pay rent to the government. Costs be damned. It's simply wrong. Another argument to make is that Ohio is severely overtaxed, and we're either going to cut income or property taxes in a big way. It should be property taxes. Those are three powerful arguments, very different arguments, and you're going to have to make different ones to different people because not everyone is worried about this issue for the same reason. I totally agree with what you're saying. What I'm saying to myself is, if you guys are having a petition at the Canfield Fair signing there, do I walking with my French fries and lemon shake, turn around and say, do you ever truly own your own home sign? Or do I stop and say, do you want $6,000 back in your pocket? Wait a second. What's that? Because, you know, the people listening is you know what you're talking about. We know what we're talking about. But for the average person who you need to get that signature for, you need to have something to move forward. And you're talking about the uninformed voter. I get what you're saying. Yeah, the uninformed voter by far. And my only concern with this, too, is, and believe me, I'll say for the fourth time, I want this to go through. But for no other state to have a precedent, and you'd be able to explain this a lot better than I can probably even ask the question. Well, stand by. Stand by. I've got to pause. John, can you hang with us, please? Sure. All right, so back for John to answer that question and more straight ahead. News Radio 570, WKVS.

The pressure is on, and now both of Ohio's U.S. senators are calling for that embattled congressman from Ohio to step down. Ohio Senator John Houston said Thursday on X that Representative Max Miller of the Cleveland area should resign from Congress saying the allegations of domestic violence of which Miller is accused of committing regarding his ex-wife and their daughter should be dealt with in private, not in the House Ethics Committee, not in a re-election campaign. Houston is joining Ohio's other senator Bernie Moreno in calling for Miller to resign. Marino is Miller's former father-in-law. I'm Tom Moore. In sports, the freshman running back, Legend Bay will not join the Buckeyes on the field as preseason camp gets started this week. Head coach Ryan Day confirming that Bay has been suspended for violating team rules. It's going to miss a couple of practices. I'm Sandy Susan Collins. Listen on the free iHeartRadio app for all your music, muse, talk, and sports radio. Podcast, too. Download the app. Free never sounded so good. A to Z dependable services, plumbing, septic, heating, cooling, and one-day baths. Get your typical construction delays in Trumbull County, I-80 West down to one lane from Salt Springs Road to Route 46. Also, construction in Friedrich Merz County has you down to 50 miles per hour on I-80 from 376 to the state line. See a crash. Give us a call 330359. I'm Mike Ross from the Total Traffic Center. This report is sponsored by Audible. When you start listening to Books on Audible, traffic might seem like less of an annoyance. More of an opportunity for another chapter. Audible. Stories that speak to you. New members can start listening with a 30-day free trial at Audible.com. This is Doug Gottlieb. Here's what's trending from the IHeart Sports Network. Presented by iHeart Advertising.com. There's a report that Kauai Leonard had a second secret endorsement deal that the clippers allegedly used to circumvent the salary cap. New Commander's wide-out Stefan Diggs said today, he's always been a productive receiver and hopefully he can leave the team in the right direction. Former all-star greats Gary Matthews, Sr., Ralph Garg, Reggie Smith, and Andre Thornton will be inducted next month into the Negro Lids Baseball Museum Hall of Fame. I'm Frank Garrett. Run a business and not thinking about radio? Think a kid. Now, Ron Verbe. On News Radio 570, WKVN. Back with, I think I'm the chairman of your fan club, incidentally. I think you should designate me president of the John Plushnik fan club, okay? Consider it done, Ron. I got to read you. I got to read you an email, okay? Remember what when he started out with the name and you said, C.H. or S, right? You remember that? Yeah, yeah. Here's an email. I want you to hear it. I don't care if it's C.H. or S. He's got my vote.

There you go. I'll take it. Thank you. Thank you, Ron. I mean, that's what they... So the emailers are digging what you're saying, John. I just think that was a great email. All right. Back with you, Alec. Go ahead with you. Finish your thoughts with John. Are there any elected Democrats in Ohio that are on board with this? I am not aware of any elected Democrat that has signed the petition. It's not that there might not be someone I'm unaware of, but I am not aware of an elected Democrat who has signed the petition. I know that Brian Thomas Massie has reached out to both Vivek Ramaswamy, and Amy Acton. Vivek Ramaswamy did have a meeting with Brian and myself, although he's yet to sign the petition. He has expressed openness. and he's listened to us. Amy Acton has never responded. And I'm not aware of any elected Democrat who has, but I welcome them. We want everyone, Republican Democrat, left right, to sign the petition and abolish property taxes. But I do think that the Republican Party more traditionally has supported cutting, lowering, abolishing taxes, and you're seeing that bear out in the politics of this movement. And then are there any other states that are working on to the same degree that you are right now to get this past? I mean, are they same signatures as anybody ahead, just behind that you know of? I don't know that it's possible to say who's ahead, but I know that there are strong movements in Pennsylvania in Florida. It's really multiplying. Leonard Gilbert has really headed up field operations and talking to other states, so Leonard will be a great person to talk to about that. But, yes, it is spreading to other states. My concern is always, there's an old saying the second mouse gets the cheese. I just don't want to have those bad repercussions that we can't even think about happening. And I know you could push back for probably an hour and a half about it. I just also think that sometimes when we compare us with what Florida is doing is just a little disingenuous from the plan that we could do the exact same thing. Florida has... way more resources than we have right now. And I don't know if we can use the exact same model. It's the philosophy, though. It's the thought process and philosophy of the governor. I can assure you, I would go on, you'd go so far as to say, if Ron DeSantis was governor of Ohio, he could be doing the exact same thing. It's his mentality and his vision. I don't doubt he wouldn't be doing the exact same thing. My old thing is if you're the coach of Bill, if you're Bill Belichick on the England Patriots, you've got Tom Brady, you look a lot better. If you're Phil Jackson, your coach of the Chicago Bulls with Michael George, you look a lot better. But why are those teams so much better? It's because they had a coach that recruited the right players that started to build that successful team. Why is Florida...

so much better off than Ohio. Why do they have more resources? I'll tell you why. Because they've been cutting taxes and making themselves a more appealing place to move to for years. They started somewhere. There's a positive migration to Florida for a long time. So you're right. We have a longer way to go down the road than Florida. But honestly, the reforms we're talking about would have an even more positive effect in Ohio because we have a lot more spending to cut. There you go. I would agree with that. Thanks for doing what you're doing. Appreciate it. Thank you. And it's Radio 570.2.Q. In with John Plushnik. Commissioner Nowe and Duke Law, you're on ear. Hey, first of all, thank you for what you're doing. Really, really appreciative. Three big takeaways. When people say, sometimes there's nothing left to cut, or what are we going to replace it with, or no, there's not enough fraud to pay for property taxes. I think you said it's laughable and I agree 100%. Now, hopefully some of the voices on the radio will write this down and we don't have to hear about it ad nauseum, Ron. Make your compelling case to him about sometimes there's nothing left to cut. Well, I will make that case. Sometimes, for example, if I look in Austin Township, when we take a look at our spending, which is pretty fiscally sound to a large extent, you can't always cut your weight out of a situation. When you have a situation where you're paying more for police cruisers, you're paying more for health care benefits, you're paying more for officers, and you've cut officers, and you need to add one so the guys can have time off. and we don't have excessive overtime. Sometimes it does take additional money when you're running a tight budget to begin with. So when you have a tight budget to begin with and fiscal responsibility to begin with, you can't always cut your way out of it on a local level because you are paying more for a truck to plow the road, substantially more for that, more for a fire truck, more for a police car, more for health care benefits, and more for employees. You know what I don't say? No, no, you asked me to explain it to you. So I want to explain it to you. I'm not talking about a bloated form of governments. I'm talking about an efficiently run form of governments, which I think the township overwhelmingly is with the number of personnel in the road department or not a police departments. So, Ron, that is a really nice problem to have. And I wish that every local and state and federal government agency had that problem. If Boardman is truly fiscally responsible, they are in the extreme minority of local governments where that is true. More than that, the tiniest percentage of property taxes are going to our townships.

60 to 70% of your property taxes, depending on your district, go to public school. Correct. That is the largest part of the problem. And it's important to emphasize that the obligation for funding public schools belongs to the state. See Article 6, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution, the state legislature shall fund the common schools. And so we're talking about the state budget here, not the township budget, not the library budget, not the city budget. We're talking about... the state budget, which includes public schools. And that budget has more than enough bloat, more than enough waste, more than enough fraud, more than enough abuse to cut all of property taxes, and then some. I would argue you could abolish property taxes and you'd still have extra money sloshing around Columbus. money that they don't need. And I agree with that assessment. I agree with that assessment that you made on a state level. And I would further put a comment to this caller, which doesn't understand what I'm saying to him, is that you take a look at a township level in the local government fund, which has been slashed by the state on our tax dollars that are supposed to come back to our local community. and they keep slashing that amount of money that we should have returned to our local community. It is just, it's frustrating. At a time, John... But, Ron, it's even worse than that. If you go back four score and a dozen years ago when the state sales tax was originally adopted, important point to note, the sales tax that we pay in Ohio, 5.75%, the vast majority of it goes right to Columbus. That state sales tax was supposed to be used for three things. Number one, alleviation of poverty at the county level. Number two, local government fund. Number three, public schools. Exactly. They kept all the money, all that money that was supposed to stay local Columbus spends. Then in the 70s, they passed the income tax. And they said, we promise, this time it'll stay for local government fund and public schools. But they've kept more and more of the money, and that trend accelerated under Governor Kasich, a man who doesn't even deserve to be called a rhino. He doesn't even deserve to be called a Democrat. He's a damn communist. Did you see, John, where with the marijuana situation where the local community, if you put a dispensary in your community was to keep a certain percentage of that tax, what was the first thing the state wanted to do? eliminate the local community from getting their percentage of it. So they wanted to keep it all. The last I heard there, the state's planning on keeping something like two-thirds of the marijuana tax. They kept the lottery. We can go on, Ron. It's been the same story.

For over a hundred years. State government has continued to grow like a great Leviathan and all the money that was supposed to stay local for public schools and local government for your roads, police, and fire. Columbus is spending on God knows what nonsense. And then there's no money here locally and they cry poor. I call it. And a solution. The solution can't be that it goes back onto the local taxpayers then to fill in the gap for the money that the estate didn't give back. Well, then we'll eliminate cops. But that is the solution that they've adopted so far. Yeah. I mean, I'm just going to get a ridiculous argument with a guy to say there is a point where you have to say. This is the reality of a local community, if you will. We can change all that stuff on the state. That would take time. But we don't want to get down to where we have three officers or somebody not coming when you need assistance. I mean, the shenanigans the state is pulling by keeping local government money from the local government is absolutely reprehensible as far as I'm concerned. And they do it at every turn. I totally agree with you on the state level. But it makes it difficult for some of our local communities to function. It does, but I think we need to remember how bad this problem is, Ron. As tough as it would be for a community to go from four police officers to three on shift, as difficult as it would be to wait for two or three years to repave a road. Those are safety issues. Those are real problems. Think about this, though. If someone said to you, Ron... We can have four police officers and repave the road this year, or three police officers and repave the road in three years, but you're going to be homeless. if we have four officers and repay faster, but you can keep your home if we go a lighter load, which would you prefer? I mean, having a home is the most important. You don't care about the police department or the road if you're homeless. So we need to remember that while all these things are important, having a home. It's above all of it. I agree with that. It's just to say local communities have been getting the shaft by the state by not returning your state tax dollars to your local community, putting the burden on the local community to ask its citizens for additional money because they want the roads plowed or they want an ambulance to show up or they want somebody there to put out the fire. And it's reprehensible what the state has done to local communities. I just – I mean – And I think the taxpayers are speaking loud and clear. We're not asking for less –

services. We're not asking for less police or less. And in fact, I hear most people asking for more. They want more for less. And you could say, oh, that's unreasonable. Well, no, it's not. We are paying for a limousine, a private jet, and roads paved with gold. And we're not getting close to that. We are paying for the luxury experience. And yet our services are poor. That's because the folks in Columbus have been siphoning off the money and wasting it. And even they don't know how much they're wasting. Right. I mean, it's a serious issue. I mean, when you actually hear your local communities talk about the situation they're in, in providing services, I mean, in plowing your streets, salting it in the wintertime, having an ambulance show up quickly if you're having a stroke or heart attack. your fire department there to be put out of fire or a cop to show up, it can be overwhelming. I can tell you, like in the township in which I live, Austin Town Township, you know, when you have, in this guy's case, let's say you have four or five guys on a shift. I'm here to tell you on the overnight shift and on the afternoon shift, they are busy. Every one of them is busy. So it's hard to function with three. I mean, it's just, unfortunately, whether we like it or not, where we are in our society with some of the issues that we're having in our society. But I agree with you on the state that it's difficult. And to a certain extent, even on a county level, the state is screwing the counties, aren't they as far as kicking money back? We're in the same boat as any local government. We, just like them, we're in the local government fund as well, and we've had the same cuts. So whether you're a county, a city, a township, we've all experienced the same cuts at the state level, and we've been forced to make it work. Unfortunately, we've reached a point where this can't continue. It's just unsustainable. The state is spending so much money. I mean, we're going to have to abolish local governments at some point. And I'm not saying that because I want to. I'm saying the state is absorbing all functions. It's absorbing all the money. I mean, at a certain point, there will be nothing left. There'll be no more oxygen in the room for your township, for your county, for your city, because every tax, every dollar, the state is keeping it. Right. And therein lies where the problem begins for local communities. At some point when they decided what we're going to screw the local community and not send, by the way, John, your state tax dollars, all of us living here, back to your community. And I had a debate with a state representative. I won't say her name. And she said, well, if we give the money, then we should control everything because it's our money. And I said, no, I pay the state taxes, same as I pay the local taxes. It's my money. And she replied back, well, we have a philosophical difference. And I said, yes, we do. All tax dollars belong to the taxpayer. I don't care if they're local tax dollars, state tax dollars, federal tax dollars.

We're the ones paying them. The state isn't creating a penny of wealth. It is taking money off the top. And it is our money. But I'll tell you, some of these folks have been in Columbus so long, they literally think it belongs to them. It's their dollars. You know what I've learned in the times that I've spoken to you at my Mary University of a graduate? There's two things in life that I would recommend for that state rep to understand. You don't argue with a Philadelphia or Duke School lawyer. That would be the... That's what I would tell her, all right? And you know it to be true. I want to just shift gears off of this. What do you think of data centers? Listen, we all know that having data centers so that the Internet works so that we can save pictures on the cloud. We all agree that there's some use case. And there's always been data centers, by the way. It's not a new thing. What we're really asking is, what do you think of hyperscale giant data centers that are now popping up all over the country specifically to facilitate artificial intelligence? Do we need data centers? Yes. Do we need hyperscale data centers right down the street from your home? No. Do they pollute? Yes. Do they guzzle energy? Yes. Do they... present noise and other issues when they're in residential neighborhoods? Yes. So what's the solution? Number one, you don't put a data center in a residential neighborhood. And number two, we need to more seriously ask the question, is AI really worth this investment? Is it really worth it to us? Because at the end of the day, it's not just business as usual. Government is subsidizing these giant AI data centers. I mean, if they're profitable, the free market says, go ahead. Build them wherever you can. But they're not asking to come in and pay their taxes. Stand by, John. They're asking for tax abatement. Stand by back with John in a minutes. Stay tuned.

Your one stop for advertising. WKBN. I've heard from the Kingdom of Mahoning, 455. It's 84 degrees with John Plushnik, Lake County Commissioner, Professor Duke Law. Oh, he's got it all. So I'm jumping around real quick before you probably want me to let you go here. So when it comes to data centers, quick answer, what should we do? Quick answer, we need to protect home rule. Every community should be able to decide whether or not they want a data center, and I think most are going to say we don't want one next to a residential or in a residential neighborhood. We hear the state legislature is considering taking away home rules so they can plop a data center next to your house, and your local zoning commission can't say no. That's dangerous. We all know that there need to be some data centers. There always have been, for that matter. But I don't think we want them in our backyard, and I don't think we want hyper-scale data centers raising our power bills or getting tax abatements. Like any business, a data center should be properly zoned away from residential neighborhoods. They should have to follow the same environmental regulations as anyone else can't just dump into the lake or the river, and they should pay full freight on taxes. They're a profitable business. They should pay their fair share. Did you – I know I've been two hours. I got about 10 more questions I want to ask you after the break at 5. You got 10 minutes or not? Absolutely. All right. So I'm just – what do you think about, Mike DeWine, who said data centers don't have to pay sales tax on the stuff that they buy to build the data center, but I have to pay sales tax if I add on to my garage? I think it's amazing that Mike DeWine says we can't afford to abolish property taxes for homeowners, but we can afford to cut taxes for data centers, that he'd sign legislation that cuts taxes for nuclear power plants. The reality is there's money to give everybody a tax cut except for you, the taxpayer. That's outrageous. What were your thoughts when you saw as a Duke lawyer Anthony Fauci take the fifth constantly in that fiasco, and do you think he'll ever be held accountable? I think the Senate was right to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt. We see from his diary and his non-testimony what a dangerous, toxic person he is. It's frightening that he was in charge of the health of the United States during COVID. It's frightening that he may well be the cause of COVID as we learn that he funded the laboratory where COVID may have originated. And the fact that he suppressed scholarship and research that showed. that a lab origin is very probable, if not likely, is more frightening still. Will he be held accountable? I don't know, but he should be, and I'm very grateful to Senator Rand Paul for giving him, giving him a serious inquiry, not letting him off the hook, and forcing him.

behavior or paper. I give a lot of... ...investment coach, John Arnold Studios. This is 570 WKBN Youngstown, an I-Heart radio station, guaranteed human. From ABC News, I'm Chuck Severson. Department of the Homeland Security says, while it promised to equip each enforcement team with an officer wearing a body camera... It says it will review footage and will only release it when it's in the best interest of the agency. ABC's Luke Barr. The body-worn camera policy was written in early 2025 and says that after a high-profile shooting or incident, a panel of individuals will review the footage and determine whether it be released. Analysts were expecting a net gain of jobs last month. Instead, the Labor Department reports overall losses. Totals for June and May revised downward. ABC's Jim Ryan. The consensus was for a net gain of 83,000 positions last month. Instead, the Labor Department has... reported a loss of 23,000 jobs. The same report shows the no-hire, no-fire employment market still dominates. At 4.1% the unemployment rate was essentially the same as the June figure, as was the number of unemployed Americans at 6.9 million. Weather affecting air travel today with more than 1,400 flight cancellations as flight aware. Todd Blanche has just enough support to become the next Attorney General with Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy saying that he'll vote for Todd Blanche. ABC's Jay O'Brien at the Capitol. Because Todd Blanche, in Bill Cassidy's view, had served as the president's personal attorney, he could tell the president the truth and he could push back. on him in a private setting. I can tell you it's the opposite characterization you often hear, particularly from Democrats of Todd Blanche, which is that the fact that he was the president's personal attorney ties him closer to the president's viewpoint and ties him closer to following direction from the president. Wall Street indexes closed out their best weeks since April with the S&P 500 setting a new record. The lower Labor Department jobs numbers for July signaled that the Federal Reserve may not raise interest rates prompting the buying of stocks today. Crude oil prices held at yesterday's lower levels. You're listening to ABC News. If you haven't switched to Pure Talk because you're not sure their coverage is every bit as reliable as big wireless, why not take them for a test drive? For a limited time, Pure Talk is offering any of their plans for just 15 bucks a month for the first three months, including their top-tier unlimited data plan. No contracts, no commitments. Just a great deal on a high-speed network with unlimited data from an American wireless company. Dial pound 250, say Mike Rowe, and let the savings begin.

These days, heading back to school means more than pencils and notebooks. It means laptops, tablets, online accounts, and a lot of personal information moving across the Internet. WebRute Total Protection gives families powerful online defense tools with antivirus, VPN, cloud backup, identity protection, and more. Helping keep your digital life secure throughout the school year and beyond. Go to webroot.com slash radio and get 60% off today. That's webroot.com slash radio for 60% off. Live a better digital life with WebRut because peace of mind shouldn't be optional. A New Mexico court has ordered META, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to pay $567 million to address children's mental health. Meta must pay, says New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres. In view of the fact that they knew about these harms. that they were not forthcoming about the danger. They were not honest with parents and policymakers and families not only in this state but around the world. Settlement requires META to create educational material for parents and educators and to produce public service spots for media. Extreme heat evidence for ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Z. Lake Mead has hit their record low. That is that big reservoir outside of Las Vegas. They're also in Las Vegas at an extreme heat warning for the ninth day in a row. That will dry things out even more. We're going to stay with those warnings all the way through Sunday, at least. The heat advisories go up to Boise. Salt Lake City goes to 102 today, Palm Springs 109 and Phoenix 112. Amanda Knox, convicted later acquitted of murdering her roommate Meredith Kircher in Italy. years ago is performing comedy stand-up at an arts festival in Scotland today. Kircher's sister launched an online petition against it. Knox's reaction... I can't speak to what is or is not triggering to Meredith's family. What I can say is that I've never seen the kind of scrutiny and criticism pointed towards a wrongly accused man that I've seen pointed towards me. Amanda Knox, the petition has got over 7,000 signatures. Chuck Sievertson, ABC News. A to Z. Ron Verb on News Radio 570, WKVN. All right from News Radio 570, WKVN and Ron Verbs. So Anthony Fauci is, you took the fifth too often and you liked Rand Paul and the people that were attacked and silenced during the whole COVID situation. Absolutely, and I have to say Dr. Anthony Fauci more than arguably broke the law in trying to ask for the Fifth Amendment on issues where he's received a presidential pardon, and that's exactly why the Senate has voted to hold him in contempt. He's taking the fifth where he has no criminal liability. He's taking the fifth on issues for which he was formally pardoned. And you can't have it both ways.

But once again, Dr. Anthony Fauci doesn't want to take responsibility for locking down the country. He doesn't want to take responsibility for demanding masking and social distancing, all things that have been discredited by this point, it's really a shame that instead of having honest medical advice that relied on tried and true science and research, we had a power-hungry, self-obsessed narcissist in charge. And when you look at the excerpts from Dr. Anthony Fauci's diary, it's frightening, Ron. You're looking in the mind of a self-absorbed psychopath. Agreed. We're seeing on the Democrat side, the strangest people get winning these primaries, Democrat Socialists, is a category they fall into. What do you make of those candidates? And why do you suspect in the United States of America they're winning these... party elections. Remember that Nazi just meant national socialist labor party. Socialism is dangerous. It has killed countless millions of people over the ages. And if you voluntarily accept the term socialism, if you're not just being attacked, oh, he's a socialist, if you yourself claim the term, you're a dangerous person. But they're winning in the United States of America. It's as though people are saying they don't believe in capitalism anymore. We have young people, and I'd like to know your comments about it, that are they frustrated to say, listen, I'm playing by all the rules, I'm making some decent money, but I can't afford a car. They're $50,000 or a home anymore, or I'm just not able to make it anymore because everything is so damn expensive. that you hear from a lot of younger people. Fair argument to make. Is that why they're leading to these Democrats socialists and voting that way? I think so, but what folks are failing to understand... is the reason prices are so high, the reason life has become so unfair is precisely because so many of these socialists have been elected. Real capitalism, true free markets mean a growing pie and rising tides that lift all of our boats. The reason we're having such a hard time is the socialists are raising our taxes, they're over-regulating us. and ultimately they're killing our economy. If you want to have a better life and more upward social mobility, we need capitalism. We need democracy. Socialism and communism are precisely the reason why countries die. It creates a permanent lower class for the dictator to rule over. And guess what? Your odds of being the dictator ain't great. Right. But take a look at New York City and who they elected mayor. It's unbelievable. It is, and they're already regretting it. I think that folks believe that socialism is just like a fair form of capitalism. They don't understand that it's essentially just a kinder, gentler name for communism. There's really not a huge difference between socialism and communism. They both end in the same place where the government ultimately controls virtually everything.

and a handful of people hold all of the wealth. And once again, the odds of you being in that handful of elites are not very good. I used to joke with my communist friends, okay, you win, we'll have communism, but I get to be the dictator and you get to be the peasant. Oh, that doesn't sound so good? Well, guess what? Your odds of being the dictator are not in a country of hundreds of millions of people. You're going to be the dictator? You're going to be the one? No, you're not. Communism is only good for the handful of elites that rule society, and socialism is communism life. What did you think about the amount of money spent against Thomas Massie, and he was defeated as a congressman with a lot of special interest money coming into that district? I think that there are two very different narratives about the race with Thomas Massie, and I think that folks tried to emphasize one over the other. But I really think it's simpler than the narrative of he was fighting the powers that be. I think that Thomas Massie continued to vote against Trump's premier and most important legislation. Donald Trump did not endorse him for re-election, and he lost. President Trump has had a very strong record of winning primaries, and Congressman Thomas Massie just refused to vote with the president on his marquee legislation, and Trump said, we need somebody new in there. I really think it's that simple. The Thomas Massie that I admire is Brian Thomas Massie. I think Thomas Massie kind of got drunk on power, and he started voting like a liberal against President Trump. Do you think that as Trump lost his focus, as he lost putting the American agenda first, as we've gotten involved in this war with Iran and regime change and things that he said he spoke against when he was running? I mean, what are your thoughts about this Iran situation and the oil situation and the inflation that's coming from it? Not at all. I think that President Trump has been remarkably consistent with his foreign policy, where other presidents have had long-term occupations, boots on the ground, armies marching across subcontinants. President Trump has always been a surgeon. He strategically bombs negative assets, and while there's... certainly a cost to that both in human life and in money compared to ground assaults. President Trump is a surgeon where other presidents have played general. And so I think that with Iran, we continue to see the Trump doctrine at play. He said, I am not going to allow you to have a nuclear bomb, and he stopped them. And the reality, Ron, is that if he did nothing, and a nuclear bomb went off in Tel Aviv or New York City, either one, everyone on planet Earth would say, why didn't President Trump act? A few missiles could have prevented this disaster.

Donald Trump did what had to be done, and now he's working to have a quick resolution to the conflict in Iran. In a world where most wars take years and decades, we're talking months. Once again, President Trump is a surgeon where most other presidents have played general, and I think you're continuing to see his policy succeed. The cost has been far less. And the benefit is incalculable because once again, in a world with weapons of mass destruction, Ron, it takes one virus, it takes one nuclear bomb, it takes one dirty bomb to kill millions of people. And when you see Iran literally launch missiles at every surrounding country, including its allies, we realize that they have no loyalties. They're not even really a government. They are a terrorist-run state, and they cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Why is it not a reality to get this SAVE Act when it comes to voting passed by Republicans that are not, some that aren't supporting it and Democrats that are not? Why is it such a big deal to say you have to be a citizen and you have to have an ID to vote? And why hasn't that been successful in Trump getting it accomplished? I'll tell you why, Ron. 80% of Americans reliably support the SAVE Act and requiring... photo ID to vote. If you need photo ID to go on a plane or to tour the Barack Obama presidential library, you should have photo ID for the most important thing for the right to vote. 80% plus of Americans agree. Why hasn't it passed Congress? I'm not the first to say it, but I will say it loud and proud. The problem we have is half the Republicans are really Democrats and half the Democrats are really communists.

I got to digest that for a minute. But I think it's true. Are you a little bit disappointed that some of the executive orders that Trump put out have not been put into law that the Republican Party, though it's in charge, hasn't done more? I'm very disappointed because we know that there will be president. who disagree with Trump in the future. You know, it's the nature of living in a massive constitutional republic from sea to shining sea. And if you don't put something in the law, it doesn't have staying power because the very moment a president who disagrees with you comes in the office, they overrule every executive order. You know, Trump overrode pretty much all of Obama's executive orders. Biden overrode Trump's. Trump's overridden Biden's. I don't want the reforms that are protecting my right to vote and your right to vote. I don't want the reforms that are protecting our Constitution. I don't want those to be wiped away with a swipe of a pen. These executive orders should have been codified a long time ago. And you're right, Ron. We've got too many rhinos in Congress who secretly don't support our president. And while they're not brave enough to come right out and say it, We're seeing it in their actions and the fact that we just can't get this legislation through Congress, even though we have majorities in both houses. What are your thoughts about tariffs? I think that Donald Trump is the first president in modern history to push back on the loss of American jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, to China and overseas. And tariffs are an important tool in the toolkit as part of that. I think the federal courts have inappropriately intervened on these issues. I think President Trump acted well within his presidential authority to levy these tariffs. And we saw incredibly positive results. Look how country after country came to the table and cut their tariffs, cut their fees on American products in response to Trump's policy. He has improved our trading position with the world, foundationally, in a way that no president before him has. Where Bill Clinton and company gave us NAFTA and we lost American jobs, the hollowing out in the Midwest, Donald Trump has been bringing the back. Unfortunately, his hands have been tied too many times by the federal courts, and frankly, those unelected judges should be ashamed of themselves because they're not just hurting President Trump. They're hurting the American worker who continues to be at a distinct disadvantage to countries that are using unfair trade practices, and frankly, even using slaves to compete with our workers. I'm sorry, folks, but they're effectively slaves in China and Africa working in factories and countries in human conditions. And then they say to workers in the United States compete with that cost. You can't compete with free. And we should not allow those products to compete with American products. How do we even the playing field? You tariff those slave labor products and you don't reward a country for torturing its own citizenry. Do you think we're getting at a point? Like if, for example, if I stand in front of a judge.

politics shouldn't be a factor at all. It should be what are the facts of the case? What is the truth here before we render a verdict? Are we seeing a judicial system? As a Duke educated lawyer, are we seeing a judicial system that's getting too political on all levels? And I'd like you to comment on the Supreme Court as well as the local courts and courts in between. Are they getting too political as opposed to just doing a job of hearing a case and rendering a decision? Unfortunately, yes. Now, the Supreme Court is in a league of its own. In theory, the Supreme Court is supposed to set new precedent. and hear cases of first impression. And so to some extent, you can argue the Supreme Court is inherently political. It always has been fine and fair enough. But what's disturbing to me is to see federal district court judges, to see trial judges who are supposed to, who have taken an oath to uphold the law, not make new law, not reinterpret it in their own image, but uphold the law. It is supposed to be a humble job, Ron. Being a trial-level judge is supposed to be humble. You read the law like any lawyer, you apply it like any lawyer, and you move to the next case. The promise we've had judges like Boseberg who've seen the opportunity to become celebrities by creatively reinterpreting the law. This is nothing new. Rush Limbaugh would talk about the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals because of their judicial activism. Well, guess what? It's gotten worse. It's not just the circuit courts anymore. Now the federal district judges have gotten the same idea. You know what people want? What average Jane and Joe Americans want? They want to be able to hire a lawyer who can read the law and say, this is how it's going to come out. There's supposed to be predictability. We're supposed to know in advance. Is it legal or not? I mean, if you can't even know what the law is, how do you know if you're breaking it? The problem is we have these activist judges who are just remaking the law as it's politically convenient. You don't even know what the law is anymore because it's become an amorphous blob. Once again, the Supreme Court has always been political, and there are strong arguments that it was created to be political. But we all expect trial judges to simply uphold the law. And unfortunately, you're right, Ron. It's gotten worse. A couple more questions. Break pending. A couple more questions. You got to a few more minutes? Absolutely. All right. I mean, I want to ask him a few more questions about the court system and maybe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being a candidate. We're talking with John Pleschnick, Commissioner from Lake County, Duke Law lawyer. News Radio 570, WKBN. With John Plushnik on News Radio 570, WKBN, when Biden said when he had to make his Supreme Court pick, I want to make sure I get a black woman. What I'm looking for on the Supreme Court is the brightest legal minds in the country to hear the case and rule based on our Constitution and our law.

It seems we're getting further and further away from that. I'm not opposed to conservatives because I think that's what conservatives try to do. They try to listen and judge it based on what the law is currently. But with the liberal judges, I don't get that impression. Do you have the same thoughts? I do. I do. And unfortunately, President Biden said the quiet part out loud. He wasn't really looking for the most qualified candidate. He was looking for the most politically convenient candidate. He wanted to get votes by... frankly engaging in racial politics, and he also wanted to promote liberal ideology. And unfortunately, in so doing, he completely delegitimized his pick for Supreme Court. and it takes away a lot of confidence of the American people to know that their highest court is being populated by people for political reasons rather than based on merit. Because we want the best person for the job. You know, you go in the hospital, if you want to make sure you have the best surgeon in the world, not someone who's going to get your congressman some votes or, you know, push a certain political agenda. It's really unfortunate that Biden brought racial politics into Supreme Court appointments the way he did. But once again, the liberal versus conservative divide goes even beyond that. The fundamental question is, should judges make the law or should they interpret the law as it stands? That is the most fundamental question in judicial philosophy. and ultimately when you look to the founding documents, when you look at separation of powers, it is very clear that our founding fathers intended the legislature to make the law, the executive branch to execute and implement it, and the judicial branch to interpret it. For the judge to make the law is the judge to usurp the role of the legislature and ultimately take power away from the people. Because federal judges are not elected, they are appointed. And we don't have the ability to vote no on a Supreme Court justice when they rule against what we think is right. The only recourse we have when it comes to the law is who we vote for in Congress. And it is unfair, then, to take away Congress's power and hand it to some unelected bureaucrat or judge. Well, you even have the Democrats talking about getting rid of the electoral college and expanding the Supreme Court for their political purposes. What are your thoughts?

Court packing, Senate packing would be the end of the republic. I mean, the reality is we would cease to have a constitutional republic. We would have a communist state. Because at the end of the day, if you can create states out of thin air and pack the Senate, if you can pack the Supreme Court, we have no balance of power anymore. And it just becomes sheer political force. Our Constitution becomes meaningless. The Supreme Court is the guardian of the Constitution, and if you can appoint your nephew, your best friend, any random person in the Supreme Court, there is no longer a Constitution. You have no meaningful bill of rights. And frankly, at best, we have tyranny of the majority. At worst, we have tyranny of a dictator. Just I want to ask you about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quickly. What do you think about her that's being talked about as a potential presidential run? Because I find it frightening. Let me just say the professor is not impressed with the bartender. The fact that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a congresswoman is an insult to the American people. She is wholly unqualified. She's not qualified for dog catcher, let alone Congress, and the idea that she could be president of the United States is... To your point, frightening. All right. Final question. Now, as a Duke, I want to get your quick reaction, attorney. As a Duke law graduates, good cases aren't one or lost in a courtroom. It's the legwork you do ahead of time that you bring to the courtroom. Would you agree with that statement? I think that there's a lot of truth in that statement, but you can certainly lose a course. You can certainly lose a case in the courtroom. I have seen bad attorneys pull that off. Yet you have to prepare in advance of your argument, and that is 90% of the work. But oral arguments matter. Sometimes you change a judge's mind on the spot. I have a world of respect for you, and I'm honored that you've been on the program. Thank you, John. I got a break. Thank you, Ron. Radio 570, WKVN. The pressure is on, and now both of Ohio's U.S. senators are calling for that embattled congressman from Ohio to step down. Ohio Senator John Houston said Thursday on X that Representative Max Miller of the Cleveland area should resign from Congress saying the allegations of domestic violence of which Miller is accused of committing regarding his ex-wife and their daughter should be dealt with in private, not in the House Ethics Committee, not in a re-election campaign. Houston is joining Ohio's other senator Bernie Moreno in calling for Miller to resign. Marino is Miller's former father-in-law. I'm Tom Moore. In sports, the freshman running back, legend Bay will not join the Buckeyes on the field as preseason camp gets started this week. Head coach Ryan Day confirming that Bay has been suspended for violating team rules and going to miss a couple of practices. I'm Sandy Susan Collins. Listen on the free Iheart radio app for all your music, news, talk, and sports radio. Podcast to download the app. Free never sounded so good.

From the A to Z Dependable Services Traffic. Now, Ron Verbe. On News Radio 570, WKBN. From News Radio 570, WKBN, 534. What a fascinating day it has been. I mean, to have Commissioner Pleschnik from Lake County. And to start off the broadcast, to ask him, you know, tell me about your educational background or your background, to hear him tell that story of how he was homeschooled by his mother who just, I mean, really did terrific things as far as his education is concerned. And then to see him graduate Duke Law School at the age of 22. And then to go to go further on to become an accountant and a tax attorney, it's just his education is just really impressive. And to sit here and talk to him about his thoughts about property taxes and what he's doing in Lake County or what they're trying to do on a statewide level. It's just absolutely fascinating to me. And then they hear his thought process on so many of the other national issues outside of all of that. Well, what are his thoughts about all of this? You know, I sit here and I must tell you, I just, I sit here and I think, this is a brilliant guy. I mean, this is really a smart guy. And just an impressive individual. And when I often talk about how impressed I am, I think Ron DeSantis is the best governor in the country. I think you'd make an outstanding president. And I look at the similarities between Plushnik and Ron DeSantis in the sense of Ron DeSantis is a lawyer, Plushnik is a lawyer. Ron DeSantis is a guy that reads. He doesn't accept what people are saying. He actually reads. He puts time and effort into it. And the one thing I've always learned, not to sound like, and I don't mean it to sound this way, not to sound like a pompous ass or anything, but the one thing that I learned in... Getting educated throughout the years. I mean, there was no choice in my household. I'd just tell you that right now. As I said numerous times, there was no choice. If you went to my mother and said you were going to drop out of high school, that choice didn't exist. I can assure you of that. As I've said numerous times, you know what the dropout rate in high school should be zero. It's the least we can expect of everybody. So the dropout rate should be zero. We expect you to go to high school and to graduate, whether if you go to vocational school and learn a skill or trade or whatever the case might be, that is the expectations that we should have for everybody. And so there is no escaping those expectations. I mean, to a certain extent, it's parenting. And when I talk to Plushnik, I just think of great parenting that has taken place there from the very beginning to create the man that I just got done interviewing.

But when I make the comparison, as I did to him, as I did when I was introducing him to Ron DeSantis and as I was introducing him as far as his educational background, the philosophies when it comes to governments and taxes that Ron DeSantis has as governor, it's the philosophies. It's what's in the man's soul and brain that has created such a great environment in Florida. and how he values the taxpayer and what's happening to the taxpayer and that the key of letting them keep more of their money. His philosophies, his philosophies and philosophies of Pleschnik are very similar. That was a comparison I was making. They're both very well-educated attorneys that have very similar thoughts when it comes to taxes and government spending. And I'm impressed with both of them. I mean, at some point, I'll probably reach out to Ron DeSantis and trying to get him on to the program live. At some point, you know, he does have ties to the Youngstown area. So I think that that is doable at some point to have a conversation with him about his philosophies. Because as I played him to Plushnik, I just thought, you know, it's so refreshing to hear. what he has to say about all this stuff. And that's why I make the comparison with what, well, I played him the one of the one to Santa's soundbite, which I think is really spot on when it comes to his philosophies. In Florida, and it's not just the state, the philosophies would apply anywhere you go. Let me play you that clip in case you missed it. That isn't what I'm looking for. Let me see here. I've got to find it. And I don't want you to hear it because it's just the thought process. And you don't have that philosophy around here enough. You do. with Ron DeSantis in Florida. It is really quite impressive. Let me see here where I've got to find it. Here we go. Just listen to this. All right. Just listen to a short clip of Ron DeSantis talking. What are you looking to do with property taxes? Well, we're looking to give people relief from the high cost of living. I mean, we've had a major inflationary period in American history, one of the most inflationary, groceries, all these things. Who knows what's going to happen with oil? The one thing we control is tax. And so in Florida, local governments get property tax. We don't get at the state. We've got a plush rainy day fund. We've paid down half our debt since I've been governor. I've got all this great stuff. We're doing great. Local governments, when I became governor, we're taking in $32 billion. Now they're taking in $60 billion. So their revenues almost doubled in seven years. Why? Because they're assessing the values higher. And the values have gone up. And so we're saying, okay.

If you're a Florida resident and you're homesteading your property, that's your primary homesteaded residents. We think that should be excluded. Now, that's about 30% of the overall property tax revenue if you just did it on day one. So it's got to go on the ballot in November of 2026. And it would be something that would be phased in, most likely. But we could get to a point very quickly in Florida where 90-some percent are not paying anything. And eventually we'd phase in the elimination. So it can be done. And if we don't do anything. They're going to have $84 billion in revenue in 2013. So that's 12, 13 years to go from 32 to 84. So when people will say, you can't do it, you're not going to have any services, just ask them, did we not have schools and police in 2019 when they were taken in $32 billion? Of course we did. Now, give them inflation, give them population growth, give them a couple percent just for kicks on a Saturday night. That takes you to about $46 or $47 billion. It doesn't take you to $60. So how would you want to do that? Maintain the growth of these governments or give Floridians really historic property tax relief. So he, but I mean, what he says is basically, as Pleschnik has said, it's your money. And if we put more of your money in your pocket, that's good for the economy and that's good for you. And ultimately that can even create more tax dollars, you know, through sales, tax, through you spending it and what have you. The philosophy is in too many areas, government feels that you, the taxpayer, get the crumbs and they get the bulk of it. As Ron DeSantis says, in Florida, we feel you get the bulk of your money and government gets the crumbs. As I said to Pleschnik, for year after year, Florida spends more money this year than it did the year before. spends less money than they did the year before, spends less money that year than they did the year before. Not adjusted for inflation. So you can see that they're spending less money. You can see they're doing zero-based budgeting. This is what we have to strive for. And we don't see that here on this level. We don't see that from our commissioners. We don't see that from our, in many cases, our local government officials. We just don't see it. As they continue to get these astronomical increases, it's never enough. And they were hesitant to give you the doubling the homestead.

exemption, if you will, to double that. They were hesitant to do that, even though they had a windfall of additional money coming in. Therein lies what the problems are. You're on here. Hi, Ron. He is smart. He is very smart. I was very impressed with his thought process and whatnot, and the education was... He's just a... He's a good man. Yeah, that's undeniable right there. That's no brain right there. But yesterday, you know, as I said, I'm not, when it comes to a socialist idea, there's a lot of that is, there's a lot of negative, negative when it comes to that also, there's also some positives in it. We have to learn to find a kind of a. A balance between those two, where, you know, people can have the opportunity to... But I would say this to you, just with that being said. I can't, I don't need, I don't want socialism. I mean, for everyone that's bitching about this country, can I tell you nothing has been easy in life? I mean, no matter what course or what avenue you take, I don't think it's easy to go learn a skill or a trade. to become an electrician. It's like going to college. I don't think it's easy to become a good auto mechanic today. I don't think it's physically easy or mentally easy to become a good guy to drywall. I can go in through any number of these things. I don't think any of it is easy. It takes a lot of time, effort, and headache and heartache to do it. So, you know, I'm going to tell you, it was going through all those years of college easy? No, it was hard. And it was a sacrifice. And most people didn't succeed and graduate. They dropped out. Just as a lot of people drop out of the trades before they succeed on it. But as I've said to you numerous times, when I looked around at kids I went to high school with, they gave up their 20s to become doctors, 10 years of their life. I wasn't willing to do that. So they made a bunch of money. They deserve to make a bunch of money. That's capitalism in the United States of America. They made the sacrifice for that. I mean, as I'm older and how my life turned out, it has been unbelievable for me what this great capitalistic country has done for me. Unbelievable. So I'm not into socialism. I'm in the saying it's up to you to grab the horns and run with it. Do the best that you can do. It's a great country. Let me move on. I agree with you. I only stayed in college for about two years, and I didn't commit to it, and I never had to the, I never had the passion to fulfill that. Well, it's a sacrifice. It was hard. I mean, I'm here to tell you. It was nothing that's, I'm not, I don't sacrifice just because I didn't go, you know, finish school. No, I'm just saying to you, it was hard, and that's why most people don't finish it. But I don't know how to explain this to you.

There was no choice in my... There's also schools. I might have been an adult, but there wasn't a choice in my household that I would not complete the mission that was set out for me. My father and mother would not... If I dropped out of college, that was unacceptable, period. No, I bet it was unacceptable if my father wanted me to finish school and I didn't, I disappointed him by not doing so. Because on my epitaph, on my... My stone is going to say I've had the ability to do so much, but accomplish so little. Oh, I know. See, I don't mean it to sound that way, because anything that I see is difficult and hard. I appreciate anybody that does physically hard work, and there's so many things beyond just the educational aspect of it that is. That's just hard work. I mean, it's putting an effort forth. Once again, it's not easy to be an auto mechanic. It's not easy to be an electrician. It's not easy to be great to finish cement. It's not easy to get up and get a CDL and drive. I mean, I don't know of many people that are successful that it was easy for them. I mean, that's, and I'm not trying to say anything negative to you at all. I'm just saying socialism. doesn't cut it. Don't punish those people. You've proven your point as far as your, which how you feel about it. And I respect that. And that's, even though I disagree somewhat on some things, but I'm not denying that that's what, that there's some disadvantages to everything. There's disadvantage is to capitalism. There's not as many as someone like, as communism is not, it's something that never works. You know, it's, it's. I'm not arguing that point. The point is that I don't believe that you should take out of somebody's pocket he gives to somebody else. I've never never, never, I don't believe in that. I don't believe that that should be the case. But there's also, you want to be able to give. If I'm blessed, okay, I'm blessed to have what I have. Okay, whether through hard work or through luck or whatever. I'm running on time. I don't want to live like they do in India with somebody starving on the street. I don't disagree with what you're saying to a certain extent. I don't disagree with it. But, you know, I have an older brother that's 10 years older that's much that is really who I admire a great deal in my world and who is extremely smart. Just was always really smart and did very well in life. Well, that's because he put the effort forth and took a lot of chances. And, you know, he shouldn't be punished for that. Let me take some calls. I'll tell you what, you'll call me Monday, and we'll pick up this discussion. You're on here. Ronnie. Yes. You said that you didn't want to be a pompous arse. Yes. I think you'd just fall into the general arse category. Well, thank you very much. Yeah. But I wanted to ask Mr. Plushnik, maybe Plushnik 2028, 2032, the blanket pardon that Biden gave, they're talking about no kings. If you could become president and then anybody in your circle could be pardoned for any crime for 10 years, that is, that's a king right there.

I don't understand how this is even possible. And I wanted to ask him about that because, I mean, if Anthony Fauci was pardoned for a crime, he should at least be able to be charged for that crime, even though he knows he's going to be not, you know, he'll be pardoned at the end. But the United States should be able to see what he did to get the truth out. Right. What's just you? I agree. I'll ask him next time if I remember. Okay? All right. You're on here. You're not even going to remember what you had for dinner last night. As a matter of fact, I do remember what I had for dinner. I had Chinese. I had orange chicken and fried rice. Oh, that's great. Well, I'm glad here in my wonderful kitchen. making up some wonderful sloppy shows for my granddaughter's birthday party tomorrow. I thought you'd like to know that. You're listening audience. They're just dying to hear it. I know. Where are the helium balloons and all that kind of stuff for the party? Well, this is going to be at my son's house, so they're taking care of all that. You know what? I bet you, in all seriousness, just in my discussions with you, as I say, I'm fascinated by you. I bet you're a hell of a grandpa. I really do.

I'm not going to brag. But, yeah, I'm going to brag. I have a... Let me do my break. I come right back to you. I'll be right here. All right. I bet he's a hell of a grandpa, don't you? We might disagree sometimes politically, but he's a good dude. We'll be right back. I'm not great with words after a fight, and I'm sorry, wasn't cutting it this time. So I used Smile Tunes to write a soulful ballot about how she's always right. By the second chorus, the silent treatment was officially over. Visit SmileTunes.com and get out of the doghouse today. Looking to upgrade your home? Hey, BN. Ron, Verb from the Kingdom of Mahoning. Okay, I bet you're a hell of a grandpa. I genuinely do. You and I have our disagreements politically, but deep down, I think you're a good man. I tend to agree with you on that. I do. I'm glad you come out on that. You agree with me on that. I've been misunderstood a lot in my life, but I'm not a bad guy. No. Has life gone by quicker than you thought? I mean, when you look at how old you are now. Don't blink. Don't blink. That's all I can say. The last 40 have gone by as a... B-L-U-R-R, is it R-R-R, whatever. It's gone by as a blur. Are you healthy? I mean, overall, are you in pretty good health? Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I feel pretty good. I feel lucky, and my station in life is fine, and, you know, my feet hit the ground every morning, and here I am. Are you enjoying your retirements? I am. I am. What is there about, I mean, after years of working and then not having to work, are you saying it's good not to be able to... It is. I said it before. I'm glad I don't have to wiggle my butt for nobody anymore. Nobody. I remember when my mother retired, she was a school secretary, she said, and she enjoyed her work. She said, my time is now mine, all of my time, to do what I want when I want on my schedule. There you go. Exactly. like going out and working in the yard. What I used to do is get it all done in, you know, a couple, three hours or on the weekend. But now if it takes me a week and a half, I don't care. When you look at your children who are now adults, are you happy with the outcome? For the most part, for the most part. But, you know, kids grow up to be adults and they have minds of their own. And what your religion, what your politics, what your... station in life, you would like, you know, I'm sure you have certain things that you would like them to follow. But it doesn't always work out that way because they see the world in a different way than you do. And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. That's fine. They're adults and they can think on their own and... All right. One quick question with a quick answer. Would you, as you review your life, do you say one of your greatest accomplishments was your children? Of course. Yeah. Of course. Without a doubt. And you know what? I enjoy my time with you. It's short today, but you wrap up the week and you're just a good guy and a great grandpa. You have a terrific time tomorrow. Have a pleasant. All right. Thanks a lot. Take care. Thank you. As families get ready.