Speaker 1: Hi, Billy Cunningham, the great American. Welcome this Tuesday afternoon
Speaker 1: in the Tri State Reds baseball kicks off about six
Speaker 1: oh five. Lousy game last night, and as an old
Speaker 1: pitcher myself who pitched for Thomas Funeral Home, Deer Park,
Speaker 1: Ponykeg and Zava University, it appears obvious to me that
Speaker 1: Chase Burns was tipping his pitches much like Randy Johnson did.
Speaker 1: But he didn't have Randy Johnson's stuff. That's the problem.
Speaker 1: I think he got one out, gave up about sixteen
Speaker 1: thousand runs Chase Burns. But someone's got to get to Chase.
Speaker 1: I could tell whether it was a fastball or an
Speaker 1: off speed pitch by the way he held his hand
Speaker 1: inside of his glove. If I could figure it out,
Speaker 1: guess what I think the other team, the Red Sox,
Speaker 1: can figure it out. All the action starts about six
Speaker 1: oh five tonight. Let's see what occurs. Jonan, you and
Speaker 1: I now as Senator Steve Huffman from the Tips City area.
Speaker 1: I love Tip City things a little north of Dayton,
Speaker 1: and he's one of the great senators in the state
Speaker 1: of Ohio. As you may know. By midnight last night,
Speaker 1: the governor VETOED sixty seven, the all time high vetos
Speaker 1: inside the omnibus spending package for the next two years.
Speaker 1: And now the House and the Senate's got to decide
Speaker 1: if they can override the veto and Joan, you and
Speaker 1: I now are Senator Steve Huffman and Senator welcome again
Speaker 1: to the bill. Cunningham shows just procedurally here we are
Speaker 1: a little bit a little bit afternoon on Tuesday. How
Speaker 1: much time do you have to override the veto? Can
Speaker 1: they be overridden? Give the American people a full report.
Speaker 2: Well, the Constitution says that any VITA override has to
Speaker 2: originate in the chamber that the bill originated in. So
Speaker 2: this was is a House bill, House Bill ninety six,
Speaker 2: So the House has to initiate any veto override and
Speaker 2: it can go to the end of this General Assembly.
Speaker 2: So till the Mike d Wines last day in twenty six,
Speaker 2: the December thirty first, twenty six, we could override that detO.
Speaker 2: So we got a year and a.
Speaker 1: Half, you got plenty of So there's no emergency this morning,
Speaker 1: this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow morning. There's no emergency.
Speaker 2: That is correct. It is just making good policy and
Speaker 2: deciding which one of the sixty seven, if any, that
Speaker 2: we want to overturn.
Speaker 1: Well, I understand it takes sixty in the House, twenty
Speaker 1: in the Senate, which is about a little more than
Speaker 1: two thirds of each house. The Republicans control everything. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about specifics. The governor did not veto the part
Speaker 1: of the unplaim funds that give to the Browns, like
Speaker 1: six hundred million dollars in order to start a project
Speaker 1: in southern Cayhua County. The Bengals are kind of left
Speaker 1: out from the larch at this point. What is your position,
Speaker 1: your view as a powerful state senator about the Browns
Speaker 1: getting that kind of money fund unplaying funds and the
Speaker 1: Bengals at this point getting nothing.
Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't say the Bengals don't get anything. It
Speaker 2: says it gives them an opportunity in the future going
Speaker 2: forward to ask for those unplayed funds, and it sets
Speaker 2: up a set of rules and guidelines that they can
Speaker 2: or the soccer team or if theaters and other things
Speaker 2: can also look at getting those funds in the future.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like down here though, you're kind of
Speaker 1: halfway in a sense. But if you're a Bengals fan,
Speaker 1: as many of us are, we feel as if we're
Speaker 1: not being treated the same as the Browns. But having
Speaker 1: dealt with this issue the last couple of weeks, that's
Speaker 1: not the case correct that the Bengals have the ability
Speaker 1: to apply. By the way, there's no deal at this point.
Speaker 1: I know the media went nuts, but there's an LOI
Speaker 1: that has about another month ago for the two parties
Speaker 1: that come together, and at this point there's no deal.
Speaker 1: So it would be required that the Bengals to County
Speaker 1: whatever NFL have a deal deal, then go to the state.
Speaker 1: And so for those who say, wait a minute, you're
Speaker 1: treating the Bengals unfairly, what would you say.
Speaker 2: I would disagree. Like I said, it sets it in motion.
Speaker 2: The deal in Cincinnati is not fully dated, right the
Speaker 2: one right, it is fully baked, yes, and it gives
Speaker 2: opportunities going forward for them.
Speaker 1: Who makes the decision. Let's say the deal comes together
Speaker 1: by I don't know August first, there is a deal,
Speaker 1: deal and there's a missing three hundred million dollars. I
Speaker 1: would think that's not a checks in the mail situation.
Speaker 1: Who actually makes the deal whether to give the Bengals
Speaker 1: of the county the three hundred and sixty million.
Speaker 2: Who makes that decision, I'm not sure, but I believe
Speaker 2: it's the Department of Commerce that would make sure that
Speaker 2: all the ducks are in a row and everything's in
Speaker 2: line to make that decision, and then it would ultimately
Speaker 2: go to the Controlling Board for approval.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's deal with the flat tax. If
Speaker 1: you make twenty six thousand dollars a year or less,
Speaker 1: you pay no state income tax. In fact, if you
Speaker 1: make one hundred thousand dollars a year, on the first
Speaker 1: twenty six thousand you pay zero, and then after that
Speaker 1: it's a flat tax. And the governor did not veto
Speaker 1: last night the flat tax. Do you like that idea
Speaker 1: or not?
Speaker 2: Well, I introduced that bill six years ago, I think
Speaker 2: in every General Assembly since. So yes, I like that.
Speaker 2: It gives about one point four billion dollars in tax relief.
Speaker 2: And I know what people are going to say that
Speaker 2: you know it's for the rich. But this is the
Speaker 2: next step to progress to a zero tax, to start
Speaker 2: marching that two point seventy five down every two years
Speaker 2: in the budget un till we can get to zero.
Speaker 1: Let's deal with the issue of the real estate taxes
Speaker 1: with so many in our community is very concerned about
Speaker 1: and I'm sure in Miami County the same situation is true,
Speaker 1: that people are outraged about the evaluations of their property
Speaker 1: and the fact that every time they turn around, it's
Speaker 1: an in co it or an implicit value they have
Speaker 1: they don't have in their hands. So if you have
Speaker 1: a home worth two hundred thousand dollars and the county
Speaker 1: comes in and says every three years and now it's
Speaker 1: worth three hundred thousand dollars, you might say, well, where's
Speaker 1: the where's my one undred thousand dollars? I don't have
Speaker 1: the money. It's in co it, it's implicit, it's a
Speaker 1: passive thing. I don't have the money. I haven't sold it.
Speaker 1: And so when the real estate tax thing gets on
Speaker 1: the ballot, which likely will be next May, I believe
Speaker 1: I don't think they'll have time get the signatures by November.
Speaker 1: And there's a two line entry should we eliminate state
Speaker 1: real estate taxes? Most people are going to vote yes.
Speaker 1: And if that happens, now we've got a crisis. And
Speaker 1: so this is somewhat speculative. If it gets on the ballot,
Speaker 1: which I think well, I'm not going to sign the petition.
Speaker 1: I'm going to encourage people not to sign it. But
Speaker 1: if they do, so be it. If the state eliminates
Speaker 1: real estate taxes and the state eliminates state income taxes,
Speaker 1: one might say, where do we get the money to
Speaker 1: run government?
Speaker 2: I agree, and I agree with you. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to support to getting rid of that ballot initiative. And
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of weeks ago, you had Representative
Speaker 2: Thomas on and I was listening, and you found it
Speaker 2: found it hard not to laugh when you got to
Speaker 2: the point he said, well, what's the local sales tax
Speaker 2: going to look like? And he said eighteen to twenty percent?
Speaker 2: And you found it hard to keep your emotions and
Speaker 2: you felt that was so funny.
Speaker 1: So well, the reason it's bad is that because we're
Speaker 1: a border community, and Miami County Little is not too
Speaker 1: far from Indiana. But here in Cincinnati, I'm as close
Speaker 1: to Covington as I am the King's Island. I can
Speaker 1: just go to Covington and buy a car, by furniture,
Speaker 1: do my commerce in Covington. I don't have to. I
Speaker 1: don't have to buy anything in Hamlin County.
Speaker 2: I agree, and that's why I don't think that it
Speaker 2: will pass. But we do need to get property tax relief.
Speaker 2: And you know what the governor vetoed here. So it
Speaker 2: started in the House in the Senate at thirty percent,
Speaker 2: and the Senate said, no, it's fifty percent. That a
Speaker 2: school district can only have thirty forty fifty percent of
Speaker 2: their operating on cash. There's school districts out there that
Speaker 2: carry one hundred, one hundred and twenty five hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty percent in cash. And you know, there was one
Speaker 2: one school board member testified in the Senate and said,
Speaker 2: you know, we made eight million dollars in interest last
Speaker 2: year in the cash sitting in the bank. And the
Speaker 2: senator asked them, so shouldn't that interest go back to
Speaker 2: the tax payers? Can't they have it in their bank account?
Speaker 2: And to me, that's really powerful to say, why are
Speaker 2: you hoarding all this money? And there's sometimes good readings
Speaker 2: to put a new rough on and pay cash or
Speaker 2: build a new building or something, and the bill would
Speaker 2: have allowed for that, but just for these schools to
Speaker 2: hoard billions and billions of dollars when we could provide
Speaker 2: tax relief. Bitta Vita, I think that is more likely
Speaker 2: one of the very first one that's that's going to
Speaker 2: get getting overhead. And when we come back in September.
Speaker 1: For those who may not be inside baseball, the bill
Speaker 1: allows for forty percent carry over. Anything more than that,
Speaker 1: which means that, let's the school district budget to say,
Speaker 1: just come up with, say ten million dollars a year,
Speaker 1: and they collect fourteen million dollars from the taxpayers. They
Speaker 1: put the four million dollars into a savings account, and
Speaker 1: they spend the ten million, and then that forty percent,
Speaker 1: that four million dollars is sitting out there. Then the
Speaker 1: next year they spend another ten million dollars, they collect
Speaker 1: fourteen Suddenly they have eight million dollars in the savings account.
Speaker 1: And I think Senator Huffman, your point is why not
Speaker 1: return that eight million dollars to the taxpayer instead of
Speaker 1: getting into a savings account. And you and the lawmakers said, okay,
Speaker 1: the most can carry over is forty percent, no more
Speaker 1: than that. There are some districts they carry over one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. And the governor vetoed that, which means that
Speaker 1: you're pretty sure you can override that veto and restrain
Speaker 1: these school boards at forty percent. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah, But we also put in there that you can
Speaker 2: put money in a special fund for a capital improvement,
Speaker 2: so that you know you need a new world and
Speaker 2: you want to pay cash, you can start storing some
Speaker 2: money in that special accounts and be able to do that,
Speaker 2: and you know that rewards, you know, you know, financially
Speaker 2: smart school districts that need things and don't want to
Speaker 2: go to the voters and go get a new levee
Speaker 2: to pay for that that new rough or other things.
Speaker 1: I live in a community with fourteen special levees. Hamil
Speaker 1: in the County has fourteen special levees for everything from
Speaker 1: mentally retarded to which is a term they use, not me,
Speaker 1: those are mentally challenged. Also, the welcome wagon, the food.
Speaker 1: We have an indignt levy at UC Medical Center. We
Speaker 1: have free lawyers, we have free doctors. We also have
Speaker 1: library funds and the zoo fund, and senior citizens, a
Speaker 1: welcome We got everything going on. And I think if
Speaker 1: you're in Miami County, for example, you may not have
Speaker 1: all these special levees. We have them here. Now let's
Speaker 1: get on to hamp in marijuana. There were many concerns
Speaker 1: over the last several months. That's certain of these so
Speaker 1: called CBD products are being sold in like service stations
Speaker 1: are being sold, popping up everywhere by him CBD, et cetera,
Speaker 1: these pills, all that kind of stuff. And you have
Speaker 1: a bill. What's the status of your hemp CBD bill?
Speaker 2: Well, so it goes along with marijuana. Senate Bill fifty
Speaker 2: six that the Senate passed out was to kind of
Speaker 2: reform some of those things. Public consumption, driving, smoking in
Speaker 2: a moving vehicle was fifty six eighty six. Senabel eighty
Speaker 2: six was all about himp passingusly out of the Senate
Speaker 2: two two and a half months ago, and sitting in
Speaker 2: the House in the House in there with and tried
Speaker 2: to combine the two and I thought we had an
Speaker 2: agreement on hemp. We hadn't talked about it in a
Speaker 2: couple of months, and we were hashing out the final
Speaker 2: details of the marijuana and last week they were scheduled
Speaker 2: for a vote.
Speaker 1: And they've.
Speaker 2: Figured out they didn't have the votes because about fifteen
Speaker 2: members twenty members of the Republican TALKUS feels that there's
Speaker 2: a different direction to go in, meaning that the Senate
Speaker 2: bill would put camp products that are intoxicating than dispensaries
Speaker 2: because they're intoxicating, right, And these house members felt that
Speaker 2: it would be better to leave in the retail stores
Speaker 2: with a verification of twenty one and over all.
Speaker 1: Right, so that's still pending. Let's talk about public consumption marijuana.
Speaker 1: I've had many complaint, especially in Cincinnati, walking around Washington
Speaker 1: Park where my family has deep inroads into the soil
Speaker 1: in Washington Park, Cincinnati, publicly consuming marijuana. It happens all
Speaker 1: the time. I don't know about your neck of the woods,
Speaker 1: but in urban areas behind if you're behind a car
Speaker 1: with the windows open, you smell it. You can be
Speaker 1: in a restaurant somebody walks in and you smell it.
Speaker 1: You can walk around downtown Cincinnati smoking openly marijuana, no
Speaker 1: problem whatsoever. No police stay a damn thing. So the
Speaker 1: argument about public consumption is that a canard. Is it
Speaker 1: something that's real because you can't allegedly publicly consume it now,
Speaker 1: but it's not enforced. And I don't know why I
Speaker 1: have a law if law makers and the police refuse
Speaker 1: to enforce a known law because it's that their political
Speaker 1: leadership tell them not to do it. We live in
Speaker 1: a city where the mayor and the city manager both
Speaker 1: tell the police do not enforce certain laws. Isn't that
Speaker 1: the recipe for chaos?
Speaker 2: It's certainly, it certainly is. And I agree with you that.
Speaker 2: To me, I don't care if you public consume a
Speaker 2: gummy bear or a brownie. It doesn't affect me. It
Speaker 2: doesn't affect the children. But the combustion one and the
Speaker 2: smell of it and everything like that. And to explain
Speaker 2: to your small children what marijuana is and what it's doing,
Speaker 2: I think is bad. And so you know eighty six
Speaker 2: is you could only do it on your private premise,
Speaker 2: in your house, in your backyard.
Speaker 1: Sure, if you're an adult, but do it privately. And
Speaker 1: another thing, you're a doctor. You're a physician, Medical College
Speaker 1: of Ohio, University of Toledo. I got my law degree there.
Speaker 1: And there's just a sense that there's a breakdown of
Speaker 1: law and order. That broken windows theory applied to New
Speaker 1: York City. And I see our major cities collapsing, and
Speaker 1: I don't think we can have a great nation if
Speaker 1: we have ten to twenty the largest cities in this
Speaker 1: country are in complete collapse with riots and open air
Speaker 1: drug use, fornication, urination, defecation, we have homeless encampments. Just philosophically,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're kind of a small town guy, and
Speaker 1: I look around at Washington, DC, or New York or Chicago,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and I look at these magnificent, opulent cities
Speaker 1: and collapse, and I'm thinking, can we be a great
Speaker 1: nation with no major functioning city? These uh currently that
Speaker 1: that have good public schools and there's lots of jobs
Speaker 1: available for those who want to work. Law enforcement is
Speaker 1: out there doing their job. Just as a father and
Speaker 1: as a as a physician, do you have long term
Speaker 1: concern about the status of this country with our major
Speaker 1: cities and collapse.
Speaker 2: No, I agree, especially with the major cities, and you know,
Speaker 2: and I think it's it's it's local failure of local
Speaker 2: government officials. I mean, I think, especially here in the
Speaker 2: state of Ohio, from the overall, from the state standpoint,
Speaker 2: you know, making good policy, but I think often those
Speaker 2: cities are are are are it's it's poor policy from
Speaker 2: the local officials, from from the mayorage to the city
Speaker 2: councils that give direction to the police officers. Don't arrest
Speaker 2: these people, don't don't enforce these laws. Or uh, different
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 1: So it's not good, but all right, we got to run.
Speaker 1: But I'm kind of surprised to learn you had about
Speaker 1: a year and a half to override Vetos. That's a
Speaker 1: long time in practicality. Shouldn't it happen the next thirty
Speaker 1: days so we know the direction of the state the
Speaker 1: next two years.
Speaker 2: We're not gonna it certainly won't happen in the next
Speaker 2: thirty I don't think we're gonna call special session. We're
Speaker 2: not scheduled to go back till after Labor Day. I
Speaker 2: would expect that at the least September and October. Whatever
Speaker 2: we're gonna override, we're gonna, we're gonna do. We're not
Speaker 2: gonna Knowing my cousin Matt, he doesn't like things to faster,
Speaker 2: and we'll come back. We'll initiate the veto override and
Speaker 2: first thing in September early October, and we'll be done
Speaker 2: with it. But we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: All right, Senator Steve Huffman of Tips City, et cetera,
Speaker 1: And thanks for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show, and
Speaker 1: have a great Fourth of July weekend coming up. Thank you, Senator.
Speaker 1: All right Billy Cunning in the Great America. Let's continue
Speaker 1: now writes, baseball kicks off about six oh five tonight,
Speaker 1: and hopefully the Red starting pitcher will not tip his pitches.
Speaker 1: On news radio seven hundred ww