10-29-25 Scott Sloan Show

in a very tight council racers. Three thousand people running for the handful of seats left, and it's going to be musical chairs in just a few days. For sure, Anna, welcome back. How are you?

not going to be available. And across the county that represents over nineteen million dollars of food assistant benefits, and I know for the city of Cincinnati that's over twenty nine thousand households. So this is a real crisis moment where families, according to the head of Freestore Food Bank, they get nine out of ten meals with their SNAP benefits and Freestore other local pantries only be one out of ten. Right, So we're about to lose funding for

nine one ten meals for these these thousands. Is incredible people, Yeah, it's a true crisis.

But and think about it heading to the holiday season here, with Thanksgiving and then Christmas coming up, the really busy time in the winter, when people are colder. Uh, people are cold and hungry. It's going to put a strain already on an overstrained system.

something for snaps? But instead, we've got a president who's on an international tour right now, isn't even in the country, and we're going to have millions of people going hungry starting Saturday.

Whether you talk to Republican or Democrat, we all agree on that you just can't continue subsidizing. And Republicans don't really have a plan to fix healthcare. So there's our problems. And I'll be let's pivot a little bit here to the food truck hearing now when this happened. To bring those listening up to speed, if you're listening, okay, we'll refresh my memory on this one. I got lots to go to my mind, Sloan, I got you so August fifteenth, it was even earlier than that was, I think maybe

September or later in that September. Anyway, there's a hearing about food trucks and basically, hey, you know where we had the hookah bars and hookah lounges or some food trucks around and the street violence and the food trucks are open late and these tend to get people congregating around it to eat and then violence breaks out, and so sure long and her wisdom said, you know what, We're just going to omnissue an edict that says, now we've got to shut the food trucks down at eleven PM,

which I took a great issue with. It's like, well, they're there to feed people, you're there to police and keep the streets safe. So if I want to I don't know a hot I want to cheese cony or slice of pizza or a taco, where the hell it is at two o'clock in the morning, when the bars closed, I should be able to get that from a street vendor who's there legally. I'm there legally. Why are we shutting down and punishing good people?

showing that food trucks are specifically causing these issues. And honestly, yesterday I heard a lot of talk about people being maybe overserved, Right, they're too drunk and that's causing issues, and that's the separate issues. But food trucks are small businesses. And to your point, I think if someone is coming out of the bar at two in the morning, they should be able to get their taco before they had

or their hamburger whatever like that. And we want the city to be a fun place to hang out, right, we want the city to have a lively nightlife, and food trucks and people being out and being able to get a bite to eat is part of that vibrancy for me.

food trucks here. We don't have a kitchen or the kitchen isn't open, you know, and closing, right so letting patrons come out and grab a pipe to eat is something that you know, the bars themselves appreciate and you have to think about. I have to assume these food trucks have most of their get most of their revenue at those late night hours to right, So closing at

eleven PM just seems crazy to me. And then not be able to come yesterday prepared with the data to show us that there's a direct cause and effect between food truck hours and some of these incidents that they're reporting. I just I was very frustrated about and hopefully in two weeks when we come back to this that the administration will be better prepared to make the case she made.

we help the bar stand business? And if we just start shutting everything down, it's going to make it really hard on our business owner.

You get all that done, and then I turn around, and now the city goes, well, now you got to close at eleven. Well, you know, I would imagine from eleven to two or three am, that's you're probably making a lot of money as the bars closed, as the club's let out, or there's an event downtown, a ball game, a concert, whatever it might be. That that's where you're making your bank. And we're shutting that down. Why because we can't control violence. It's a separate issue.

that big crowdsed dunk people can be unruly. But again, if the problem is that people are being over served in the bars so they're blackout drunks, you know, causing issues, well let's go deal with that problem, right, That is a separate issue than to be a small business trying to feed some people late night through food truck.

endorses all this stuff. The city endorses those events. I don't see how this is any different other than that's a you know, probably a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night thing.

other cities that's restless. And the other thing I was really shocked by yesterday is in the presentation. So this I think the food truck rule was changed in twenty twenty three. They said they had no issues in twenty twenty three, no issues, in twenty twenty four, got through half of twenty twenty five, or at least the first part twenty twenty five no issues, and then it was just this summer where they saw some issues. So I tried to act sking Okay, what caused that? You know,

what type of problem solving did we do? And I just think ultimately we took an administration took a big swing here without really doing some of the leg work to look at what's actually happened here, what are the problems we need to solve, versus punishing businesses that aren't doing anything wrong.

what it is. I mean, you're looking for all these straw men to blame the violence problems on, saying well it's this, it's that's all these little It's not it's it's a lack of leadership within the administration on that point, whether it's this with the food trucks, or the way the Harringer homicide was handled, or the street violence, the beatdown where the you know, the person is charged later and it was completely racially motivated. This whole thing is,

to me an indictment on the same administration. Do you think it's time for new leadership specifically? And now we'll see what the mayor ll race. I think Gaftab's gonna win reelection, but is sure along the right person for the US job.

officers saying there are the hot these hot spots. You know, we think that food trucks are creating the hot spots because people are gathering here and I want to respect the fact that that's our officers coming back and getting that feedback. But to me, there just needs to be a little bit more like work on Okay, what are the specific incidents, how many are there? Is it one

specific truck that's causing the issue? Is it one specific block, right, and trying to do a little bit more problem solving that specific to either that truck or that's that specific spot versus again this wide uh you know, eleven PM caught off that that impacts all these trucks that aren't doing anything wrong. So again I want to be responsive to to problem solving and understanding what our officers are

seeing on on our streets and doing all that. But we got to look at the data and we've kind of look at you know, what are the specific exes that solve for this problem versus punishing small businesses that are doing the right thing.

that at the time. Now you've got the food truck thing, You've got the curfews that looked like they didn't work because the people are you know, they're still young people out there doing what they do. You're empowering activists like

Iris Raley where she's interfering with police work. So we've had a track record now and a bad policy decision saying, you know, we're gonna treat criminals like victims and we're gonna give them a slap on the wrist when they get to court, and we're gonna let them out with a two dollars bond, or we're gonna give them an o R and they're gonna go out and get a gun and shoot someone or cut their ankle, monor off. We're not gonna take this seriously. The mayor refuses to

lean on judges. You have these policies coming down from people like shil Long and then you turn around and fire Thiji. To me, that's like the food truck thing all over again. You're blaming the wrong person. It's the policies and how you handle things in the series and of how you take crime and how you hold people accountable as opposed to all this other stuff out there

in the ether. And I think and all, but it's gonna it hurts people like you because I mean, let's face it, I mentioned three thousand people running for council seats. You're one of the people could be displaced by this. The voters are not gonna blame AFTAP, They're gonna blame someone like you.

And I agree, right, But I think a key part of that is the fact that we have the collaborative agreement that we as a city did the work in the early two thousands to make sure our police force is the best in the nation. We do work with community and across right this is the collaboration stick ty word there. Right, no one person alone can fix anything,

right there. These are big things and so having that collaboration across lawmakers, police force, and the community is a really important part to how we function as a city and how we keep everyone safe. So, you know, those are values that I.

the police are great, They're keeping my neighborhood safe. And what winds up happening is there's the small percentage of criminals of sociopaths out there that are exploiting that and we refuse to treat them like the criminal, repetitive criminal element that they are. We're looking at reasons to why we need to release them rather than reasons we lock them up. And you know who that hurts the same people. These policies are.

those right. How do we help people get good paying jobs, How do we build more housing so there's more housing options out there, How do we help people get access to healthcare? And you know we just talked about SNAP and food. I am very, very worried about what SNAP not being issued on this Saturday. What that is going to do to our residents? Like we talked about people

are going to be desperate? What does that mean? So whatever we can do to help stabilize families right and meet people's basic needs community that's ultimately what's going to make for a safer community.

now is nonsense. And you know the idea as well, if we could just get the Democrats to admit they're wrong. When the Democrats are going, if we could just get the Republicans to admit they're wrong, what we need to do is force them Tom, they're both wrong. Is that you sit down. He made your point, Now figure it out, fix it, And I get it. We know we're just subsidizing stuff, and the Democrat existence is to subsidize it.

We got to subsidize. We've got a subsett we need more subsidy, which means what it means you're still spending well even more money on things in order to make it affordable for people. So basically, like the Democrats are about giving up coupons, it's a coupon, it's a voucher. Got a coupon. Well, it's a coupon. Well, I need food or healthcare. It's this much. But here's a coupon for eighty percent off fifty percent. Great, But who's paying for that? Well, we all are. So we're just borrowing

more money we don't have. We have a thirty eight trillion dollar deficit, and there's complicity there. The other side of it is, and I've yet to hear an argument from Republicans, is the how you fix healthcare? Because we are in benefit season right now, it's time to make those tough decisions. See how much more you're going to cause it's going to come out of your check for how less coverage you're going to wind up doing. And it's not because you know your evil corporate overlords want

it that way. It's the way the system it's jacked up. You know, if we don't like a THEACA, if we don't like affordable care, if a legal of subsidy, you have the power controlling both sides, both the House and the Senate and the Presidency, to be able to maybe implement something to fix it. So give me a plan. Say what you all about subsidies, which I hate, but it does something for people. If it's broken, it doesn't work, and subsidies are terrible, then then come up with a

way to fix the healthcare system. And yet what do we do we have My side is right, your side is wrong. We have a government that is not functioning. We have a Congress that can't pass a budget. They have one job. And in my lifetime now there have been two times where we've balanced the budget. We haven't been able to do that. The other three thousand years I've been alive. Not good, not good. To blame. Well, Trump's out in the dead in another country, and it's

not on Trump, it's on Congress. Now, can he say something that maybe encourage Yeah, I guess, but again that's you're not understanding. The most basic sense of government is it is the United States Congress, and when they don't do stuff, then what happens is we give all the power to the president, either Biden or in this case Trump, and he uses his pen and executive power to write an executive order when Congress should be doing this stuff. Okay,

I get it. You made your point. Time to probably pass another continuing resolution, kick the can down the road for another and shut it down in seven weeks we'll have this conversation again. It's exhausting, is what it is. Relative to Anna Albey, And I think it's interesting now we have more evidence here of the incompetence of sheer Along in particular. And I would say, after Tod pure

vol put them in the same boat. And if I'm a if are in council right now, like I don't, I'll be I would not be as genteel as she was, uh and worried about party politics and kissing the ring and everything else, because after to have puervoal is going to cost somebody their seat. Now he's going to wind up getting re elected. Could I be wrong, absolutely been

wrong before. But if you look at the fundraising, if you look at the power of the incumbency and everything else, and it's not an insult of all the Corey Bowman, then Corey's a great guy. He's got some decent ideas. But being a pastor who is related to JD. Vance in deep, deep blue Cincinnati is not good. There's baggage already. People are going to pay attention, people are just going to tune them out instantly, and so by default I have to have wins. Could I be wrong? Could we

have the huge upset? Sure one hundred percent. Is it possible, But it's unlikely. I think what's more likely are how voters respond relative to the city council. It feels like, you know, I can't change that with AFTAB, but I sure as hell can change the makeup of counsel, and probably for the better. So I don't understand if you are one of these folks, and maybe it's for office later on down the line, or another appointment or something like that, if you kiss the ring, you get that.

Maybe that's part of politics, I guess is if you are the good soldier, you'll get rewarded. Somewhere along the line. But in the short term, you're out of a job. I just think voters are pissed off enough to start holding people accountable. If it can't be Aftab, maybe it's someone else on counsel. That's unfortunate, because I think we've got some good and a few people that maybe not so good on counsel will probably have to go anyway.

But nonetheless, we have this new story out yesterday and the choir regarding what transpired right before share Long fired chief Thiji. No, she's not fired, she's just done paid administrative leave. Okay. Well, you named an interim superintendent in Adam Haney. Okay, So if you name someone in interim head coach, that means you're waiting for the next head

coach to come along. If you're acting head coach, you're waiting for the person who's the coach to come back or get better or whatever it is the reason they took leave in the first place. So right away, you're telling me that she's fired, even without saying she's fired.

So this email comes out on August fifteenth, I'm sure along to Thiji, and it mandated that all communications external meetings announcements have to be clear through the city manager's office because she needs to save face because it's a bad look. You caught me off guard when you said you want to be on a task force to the Hamlin County Police Chiefs Association and Tim Holloway to address the revolving justice system, because the problem here, one of

the problems is the justice system. We know how drunk and broke it is, where we have judges that are taking people with very serious charges against them and giving them better for the doubt that they they're going to show back up to court, that they're going to go talk to their probation officer and get a job and all these things, and then they turn around and pick up a gun that's probably the almost the same gun that they got in trouble with in the first place,

and go on commit even worse crimes. And we have a steady drum beat of that for a long time, but especially this summer. That is a reasonable thing for a chief to do to go, hey, listen, my men and women that didn't move line. The officers of the City of Cincinnati, Hamlin County Sheriff's Department. We got a problem here because we're catching people, we're apprehending them, we're

giving you the charges. Prosecuted does what they do, and the judge simply says, well, these are just these are criminals, but they're victims too, when we have to treat them like they're victims, which is the mentality I think from progressives largely, whether it's in the bench or whether it's the city manager and the mayor of the city of Cincinnati, and so again, more worried about optics, more worried about being caught off guard, and more worried about how things

look the perception is, rather than your safety. You know, we're more worried about how we look to the wrestler. Well, when that video splashed with it beat down in July, the hell we look to the rest of the world. I was halfway around the rest of the world in Australia and that was on the news. I turned on the TV. Michelle's getting ready, We're gonna go to dinner, last few days of our trip, our bucket list trip, and I'm watching this violence. I'm looking at it going on.

It looks horrible. I wonder if that's Chicago or is it La Is it Nope? Is a point, it's got to be Portland that looks like Nope, Cincinnati, Ohio, Holy crap, Holy crap. Here we go. So the optics are, you're not doing your job and that's the problem. Wh You're all worried about how things look. You're not focused on the important stuff. So she goes at THEIJI and says, there's some challenges messaging. It can cause in confusion, and

we got to be united on safety and messaging. And now we just hired Frost Brown Todd at what forty fifty thousand dollars to come up with reasons why we fired Chief Thiji after we fired her is to justify that behavior. And it may take months. It's going to take well after the election, that's for sure. Maybe by the first of the year we'll have an answer on this thing. About the same time we'll have and answer as to what the hell happened in July twenty six

with the street beatdown. No word about that either, by the way normally stuff comes out, there's no we're not hearing a word about that because there's an election to be one, damn it. Nonetheless, it doesn't this undermine the money that you're spending already with this law firm. One may ask, because what you're trying to do is come up to the reason why you fire Chief Thigi. And Chief Thigi says, well, listen, there's nothing in my jacket.

I've been here thirty five, thirty six years. There's just a significant You have no cause to fire me. You don't need cause with a contract, but there's no cause.

to separate Chief Thegi's behavior of our policies. We've got to look for the behavior of Chiefdiji to justify firing her, and that's what we're looking for here. Well, this doesn't help that case, does it, Because now if this memo comes out, if this leak's ount and City ser Long is saying, well, listen, we got to rein you in, you're going off the reservation. Now we've got to control all your communications and meetings and announcement. It's got to

be cleared through my office. Not not like, hey, let me know it's gone to but cleared. I have to approve who you're meeting with, who you're talking to, what you're thinking, and what you're about to say. Doesn't that look to you like the chief or any chief or any administrative leader in our city doesn't have autonomy that the mayor and the city manager under the mayor are

dictating policy. Doesn't that undermine that money that you, the taxpayers, are spending on this law firm to find out reasons why we're looking for something anything to blame Terry Thigi for to justify her dismissal. And then you come out in this and I think this helps Terry Thief a lot, and I think there's a reason why this this was leaked out. But nonetheless, Long said, any outreach or contact with elected officials must go through the city director's Government

Affairs office. So she can't talk, she can't think, she can't do it. She has no autonomy to kind of, you know, press some levers and make some noise in order to police the way she sees fit. That totally underminds that argument, I think. So she's on administrative leave. And then the other thing that comes out of this email, which I think is really funny, and Willie, you'll probably

be talking more. As the timeline with this is, we get the Fountain Square shooting downtown on October thirteenth, and there's growing public concerns, as you know, to everything from Patrick Hairringer to the viral fight and everything else. So two days later, after the Fountain Square thing, she leaves for Denver, or maybe the night before she left for Denver, Terry Thiji for this conference. So two days past at nine twenty six am, Fiji emails sheer Along and the

HR director about payroll issue. She mentions in the communication it's her thirty sixth anniversary with the city and said I can't stay forever here forever, so I just want to plan. No one knows what that means, and so Long and the HR director say, well, we'll meet about this particular staffing issue. Payroll describe maybe it's her payroll,

I don't know whatever. That's in the morning. By the afternoon, sure, Long texts Terry Thiji, who's at this police conference in Denver, saying call me, call me at one seventeen, call me. Terry's in a car on a way the conference's got another chiefs in the vehicle and says, well, can I wait till I get back to the hotel, And didn't get a response other than maybe no. But at that point she also, I'm guessing she realized what's going on.

She got a statement from the Reds praising her for her work and trying to fight crime downtown and sends that to share a long and about this time here on seven hundred WWT, it's the afternoon, Willie is on at about one o'clock in the afternoon, and how fast world travels is evidence in this too. Is about the time that Sharon Long is about to call Terry Thigi back and write her question. She'd come back from Denver. The word has already gotten out that Terry Thigi is

coming back to be fired. Remember that happened? Is like they've called the chief back. She needs to get back as an urgent concern. Fiji then mentions back to shar Long because she's in Denver. She said, well, I much have mentioned like I don't know, are you hearing anything out there? She said, I hadn't gotten any calls. Maybe

WLW being typical dramatic, is what Terry Thigi said. And I'm guessing that as a reaction to us here on this radio station, particularly Bill Cunningham talking about what's happening with Terry Thigi, Like the words already spreading because Terry knew, and if Terry knew, other people who know, because she's probably gonna maybe talk to some people about and say, they're calling me back from Denver, what the hell's going on in the city. I think that's a reasonable thing,

like what happened. Now, it's been two days since the Fountain Square shooting. We have something else going on. I got to come back. What's happening? And someone said, no, there's nothing going on there, just summoning you back, which then would indicate you're about to get fired. You don't call someone back in for no reason whatsoever. Going well, we've got some man, we've got some leadership things we got to talk about. But I'm at a conference. I

can't wait. No, you need to come back right now. So, of course word travels fast, and the word gets out that and you Willie was right, we're not being dramatic.

You got fired. And then there's some other tacks saying, in light of the recent high profile incident and heighten public attention surrounding it, we need you back in town in the earliest flight you can catch, please call me, which sounds very pre in light of the recent higher profile incident, heightened public attention surrounding and we need you back in town because she hadlready made that decision to let her go. I mean heightened public attention. We're kind

of at peak on Monday. Okay, that happened on the weekend, and two days by two days, okay, we settled the nan. It's like, okay, there's heightened public attention to the fountains Grose shooting, for sure, But why would you call her back from Denver. There's nothing you can do about what happened forty eight hours earlier. There's nothing unless you had some information about some sort of I don't know, planned attack or planned criminal activity. There's no reason for her

to do that. And that was like the end of the conversation. And then she came back and then by the twentieth on the twenties, so that was five days after that is when the City and tear and UH and Share Along places Stigi on administratively paid administrative pending internal investigation and the effectiveness of her leadership. And of course she's lawyered up. She's a political scapegoat. I believe that to be true. I agree with Steve m on this.

But the whole thing is the fact that this indicates to me that most certainly share along and most certainly have to puival dictate the policy. You're now hired a law firm to prove the exact opposite. Terry. Theg is like, look, you're the piper. You call the tune. If you're worried about DEEI, if you're at about treating our criminals like victims, that's the game you want to play with your administration.

That's how you were on the city. I take my orders from you, Okay, I'll fall in line and make sure the troops fall along. And to that degree, I think that's why she had a rift with maybe some of the beat cops, and she was not really loved all that much by the beat cops. It was kind of a love hate situation. I guess from what I understand. And you know, if you're a boss, you're not going to keep everybody happy, especially if you're the chief of

police and you have a police union. And I get that, but I also think that if you're going to take that job, they're going to tell you what to do and how to do it, and you're just going to kind of follow it. And you know what, you're blaming Terry Thiji for your bad policies. You made bad policy decisions.

It sounds like you took some I don't know, some study from Harvard or some sort of nutty professor that told you the way to keep the peace is to simply appease the criminals rather than lock them up and be strong about it. You know, we're gonna empty the jails, we're gonna have no bond, we're gonna have a war. And now a percentage of the population takes advantage of that because that's what they do, not all of it, but a small percentage of the criminal And this is

what you wind up getting. And so that's not the fault of Cary Thig. That is the fault of failed leadership above Terry Thig, and she's paying the price. Very interesting though, it sounds to me like the mayor's office and sherlong dictate how Terry Thigi should perform her job. I mean, controlling the what she's saying or thinking sounds to me like they're underminding the whole investigation. They desired a big law for them to do, and it just

gets crazier every day, really does. We'll get a time out and we've got news in just about four minutes here on seven hundred WW when we return County Commissioner at Lisha Reese on this show, can the county help plug the looming snap gap that's about to hit on Saturday? We'll get into that and much more just ahead when the Scott's Loan Show continues after this on seven hundred WW.

as we get closer to Saturday. Locally, Governor Dewin said he's studying options involving state money. I had a council member all be on earlier this morning and she said the city's looking at this too, And the county held they hearing yesterday where Alicia Reese was a holding court as she usually does. Commissioner Reese welcome, how are you?

children who in it's to children. Then you're looking at senior citizens who pay their dues.

of my life helping. One of the things that was said that we can't food pantry ourselves out and do it, you know, even with the money that we have that we.

is just a temporary situation. Then what people don't understand the economic impact of the snap benefits. In other words, for every dollar that we put in you talked about the nineteen million, we get one dollar and fifty four cents back. So we're talking about almost you know, over two hundred close three hundred million dollars economically in the economy to keep this economy going, because.

was kind about that. They said, well, I'm optimistic we'll get this thing settled now here it is, you know, we're heading in the back half the week, and all of a sudden that's not looking at a certainty or a guarantee for sure. But he said, look, we might have to open twice a month to folks who are on snap are supposed to once a month, and he's going to have to lean on his vendors as suppliers.

And of course the generosity of Cincinnatians and and they serve not just Cincinnati, but as you know, like twenty counties. So if you're hearing this and like I have, make a donation the free Store Food Bank. Because it's that time of the year and now we're getting to you know, Thanksgiving and Christmas when the need is even great. It's like the worst time possible for this to happen.

They're small, there's farmers' markets, there's smaller retails. Over almost ten thousand retails stores throughout Ohio will be affected. So now we're talking about some you know, some of the smaller stores as well as that affect you know, Kroger's and all those because the less people buy, right, the higher the prices and so. And then some of the smaller retail stores, the farmer markets and those kinds of things, some of them have indicated they might go out of business.

And those are the ones that provide the fresh fruit into some of these food desert areas, so it's a trickle effect. Then you have senior citizens who many are on medicine, and some children that have to take medicines, and now you have to decide can I afford the medicine or the food. And everybody knows when you take medicine that it says you got to eat with the medicine.

So it's a trickle down effect. And then we had CMHA, a director come in and he said it also affects because now we're talking about housing and his program has because of the government shut down. He indicated that it will affect people with affordable housing as well. And you know, we've been pushing affordable housing. Will people be able to have a place to live? Yeah, And you know, it's slow, it's just everything. And you know, I've been on this

property taxes. He just chilling us, you know, and we did that. We did that Bengals dealsloan and they took out thirty percent, so we can't even try to get to thirty percent rebate. Then the state would not do anything on the property taxes.

what it is. And then what happens is in about thirty days that theater becomes reality. So you see the snap benefits cut concerns with the FAA. You have Frederick workers now missing a couple pass. You know, most families can afford. You know, Okay, can we tighten it up for till the next pay cycle? Sure, we do that all the time. You start talking a couple of pay cycles, it's a different story entirely. And yet these people still have to show up to work.

We can't give the homeowners to break federal workers furloughs. That's your middle class that they're working with no paycheck. Senior citizens have done their time and they can't now get anything to eat. They don't know if to pay for the medicine or can they pay to get something to eat. Children out here hungry. These ninety seven thousand people affected about the snap benefits, like you said, nutrition and all that, they can't even get anything to eat, and most of them are working every day.

don't deserve it. And you know, so at the end of the day is you know, could play party politics and our side's got to win and crush the other side. But you know when when individual families and kids and veterans and seniors are getting squeezed out and literally not getting food, I think that's time both sides have to go. Look, we made our point. We've eventually got a govern here. We got to legislate and let's fit this problem through

the legislative action, not executive order. And a lot of people blame Trump for all this thing, but it's party politics. It's the lines are so defined and it's such a gap between the two parties right now. This is why Congress largely we're sending them to Washington. What are they doing. All they're doing is shutting. They came and bounce a budgetally share you got one job, you can't do that, and then you shut the government down like every ten minutes on the tens.

economics fight. Like you said, whether it's a snap benefit, whether it's a property Texas, whether it's you know, whether it's cannot afford to go to the hospital right now, because you know, we can't. Basically, America, we just can't afford to pay. We can't pay more to go to the hospital. We can't pay more to go to the doctors. We can't go out here and cut our snap benefits. We can't pay more for property takes. We just squeezed.

So the economy has squeezed us. And like you said, here we are down at the bottom, trying to trying to survive. And I think I would want all of them. I don't care who you are. Take the posits out of it enough, fight for Americans to be able to look.

a thirty eight trillion dollar deficit with the subsidies. Republicans, and I've talked to many of my friends in the right side of the owl, talk about you know, empowering people to take care of better care of their health and incentivizing well and it's that's all well and good, but that takes ten, twenty, thirty forty years or more for that to take it. We need a plan right now. We need to fix the broken healthcare system right now. We don't need more substant and we don't need, you know,

to empower people in future generations to get healthy. We still need to have people today that have cancer, that have diabetes, that are in wheelchairs, that have mental illness, all those things, and we're not we're not addressing that. We're just kicking the can down the road. And both sides are complicity. That's all it is. And it's squeezing out the county, the city, the state. We're screwed. We don't have the rainy day fund and now that was in the proposals is to get to wind to tap

the rainy day funds. There's four billion dollars in that. I don't know how long that would fund snap. It might get us through another month. But the problem with that though is, you know, Alicia, is the General Assembly needs to pass the legislation and that's not going to happen. By Saturday. You can't directly fund SNAP because the state only verifies eligibility. That's a federal government runs that system.

on it. We gotta We sent him stuff to Washington, and damn it, Washington, we got to get it back here.

issue though. On Saturday, Uh, if these benefits expired, I want to believe that even Washington has some sense and goes, you know, we really, we really need to come to some common ground here because people are going to suffer starting on Saturday. Now is it going to be Saturday exactly? That all of a sudden, we're gonna have all now what four million people starving? And I went, no, it's good a few days, but the point has been made. It's time to actually govern for a change. How about

that we sent you to Washington to governing. How about governing? Why did you do that? Slooney seven hundred w O. Helping you put the big P in profession. Here's our career, sir, Julie Balki, all right headed towards November first, some people losing their snap benefits and other people have to make a decision on their healthcare. If you're in the private sector like me, maybe you, that means trying to figure that out and navigate that. And only fifty seven percent

of full time employees understand their benefits coverage. That is the lowest it's been since twenty twenty. And why that is and what's driving that? She has the answers. It's Julie Bouki from the Bouki Group, career coach and consultant. It's Julie on the job of Sloaney this morning on seven hundred double WoT. How you been, good morning.

And it's just confounding to me. But at the same time, I think sometimes your health and medical benefits benefits in general falls into that same category of I'll worry about it when I need it, okay, like insurance, but general, like home insurance, like I expect it to be there for every every need I could possibly have when I need it. But I don't want to put a lot of time into reading over it because it just confuses me.

But when you think about the moment in which you really need once you're really going to need it, and how it can impact your financial future if you aren't covered and you have to have something done anyway, you just got to bear down do it. And I know that that's I know that that's hard because I will admit, back when I was in corporate America, it was little last thing I wanted to do, even for myself, and

so I get it. But and so it seems like all these people that have said I don't understand it. It seems kind of like a throw out my hands. I know companies do try to explain it, do try, they have sessions, they do things to try to help you understand it. But you know, I used to say about benefits when I was in HR. You can lean horses to water all day long, you can't make them drink. And that's that's really what this comes down to.

And sure enough the question. Here's Matt Reese in the background raising his hand and he's going to ask a thousand questions and drag this, drag this thing out three or four more hours long, and it's just it's insane. It wasn't. Fortunately, you can do that online and we have AI and stuff like that. But benefits are and the reason why we're seeing employees understand benefits lesson is because it's even more complex and expensive, right, it.

And it's those days are never coming back because certainly healthcare costs have risen crazily for companies, and so they can't. You know, I just wish, I just wish at It won't be where I'm a live or you're alive, but I wish somebody somewhere would have the courage to step up and face off with the healthcare and pharmaceutical lobby and the insurance lobby and separates healthcare benefits from employment. That works when they were unions.

that complex. All all Congress has to do is like, look, all right, starting at this date, you are no longer to offer healthcare benefits healthcare benefits as an incentive at your workplace, like you can't if you're an employer, you don't do it, just don't do it, and and that way you don't have well some companies are offering somewhere just then the practice and allow the free market, Allow of the open market, like you do with your car insurance,

like you do with your life insurance, your renter's insurance, all that stuff. The money you would save and not having to hire people like Julie Bouki to and essentially, I mean, how much of your job when you're in HR was HR. How much of your job was managing healthcare costs. You had a whole team, the bigger the company. You had to hire staffs of people to do that. Go to your doctor's office. You may have one nurse

practitioner there, but there's five or six people. Their whole job is medical coding, medical building, doing all that stuff, putting entry level stuff to comply with the government and to comply with insurance companies.

capitalist and you have money. No, it doesn't work. Though the money you save and all the compliance and all the government bs, you could take some of that money and have health care for people who fall into the poverty line and still have literally billions of dollars left over, if not trillions of dollars left over to balance the budget to put to something else. Because once employment is tied to healthcare benefits, too many people working crappy jobs

simply because they need the benefits. It's so very true if you free what would that do for the gig economy? On top of that, people who have two or three or four different jobs that would allow that to go on like gangbusters, Like what you would make up at the back end would more than cover the front end.

But of course you're protecting someone else's turf. You're protecting insurance companies and big pharma and insurance providers and PBMs and all that stuff, because they've made their success and they don't want that to go away. They don't want that gravy train to end m M exactly.

to come work there. The problem is then when the pendulum swings back the other way, those are the first things to go. But what I do like about the

personalization of benefits. So let's say if everybody has the same benefit, So as if a single person, a single thirty year old doesn't maybe doesn't have a spouse, doesn't have kids, and it's really healthy, they they they may choose a more a skinnier plan and then spend again some of those benefits dollars for catastrophic or for you know, for more vacation time or PTO or doggie daycare or so I love the idea of a bank and a

variety of benefits. There's obviously a lot of regulations around this, but the company I used to work four years ago, you had to at least have catastrophic but beyond that, it was what do you need? Do you need more medications? Are you or can you use some of those dollars

for wellness? And so if I think, I hope we're going to be heading in that direction because we are learning, whether it comes to hybrid works, remote work, in office work, one size doesn't fit all and so we have there some sort of personalization is I think a really important recruitment and retention strategy. But it's sticky. It's really really sticky.

But the companies who figure it out, I think, are the companies who are going to be the places that say, instead of saying here's the benefits package, Oh you don't need most of these things, sorry about that, instead say what do you need? And then here are your options.

analogy there, it is decision day. You decide how much more you're going to pay and how fewer benefits you're going to wind up getting. It's a mess, it's a nightmare. Only about sixty percent, less than six out of ten full time employees fully understand their benefits coverage. That's the lowest market's been since twenty twenty. It's been trending down now for the last number of years because it's become more expensive, it's become more complex. People don't like to

make the decision. They him and haw about it. They want to save some money, but then they worry what if they get sick and I cover this whole thing. So we understand to struggle the benefits and how to access them when we need them, because I mean, let's face it, if your company is trying to get the best deal possible, you're probably changing insurance companies pretty much

every year at this point. And some benefis sarian and now this company to this, well, we're not doing this, we're not covering that, and just keeping track of it as a nightmare. Imagine being an HR professional when HR staffers and senior management said, and seven out of ten then say, we don't understand it all ourselves. That's a problem. That shows you how big the problem is.

Everything was fresh done and in a notebook, and I just handed it to the hospital because I was I didn't even I couldn't even figure out where I was at the moment. So it's you know, I think you have to start. You have to put a little few brainfells toward figuring out am I ready when the worst happened. It doesn't have to consume you, but you're going to be glad you did because it comes for us all eventually.

for them because honestly, they're the experts. So it's going to be it's going to be a better use of their time.

When you hear the head of an organization say someone needs to step up, what does that say to you?

set the tone. People are looking for someone to follow, either in either in tone the tone makes set or the attitude that they support and bring to the party. And you have as a leader, nobody wants to see you stand up in front of a group and go anyone, anyone, anyone.

You can't have a team full of those. But that's a defense that tells me that's a team that doesn't have any leadership.

like what just happened? It was really it was really a really different experience being there, and that doesn't happen with tight, well coordinated teams in at Procter and Gamble or at Kroger or you know, in the city of Loveland or wherever you know. I mean, it's just the people are. People are in all those roles, and there are certain commonalities that all humans have with each other. We want to be led, we want to be inspired, and it falls to it falls to the people at

the top to set that tone. And if you can't, you've got to look at it, bring somebody in who can. It's that it's that little extra oomp that you get by having an inspiring leader.

Julie Bauki all the best our curer ship at the Bauki Group Bauk the Balkigroup dot Com career coaching consult right here in Cincinnati can help you out if you are lost in the woods or looking for your way out. She's got you Jewels all the best. Thanks again, Julie on the job this morning with the News on the way in four minutes and win a return this Zoar mamdani Is looks like he is going to be the

next mayor of the City of New York. Normally don't care too much about what happens in New York City. I care about Ohio. I came to bat Kentucky, care about Indiana. So you look at you New York Go New York LA. I you know, not a big cable news guy, don't really care all that much what's going on there. But I think you'd miss something if you

didn't see that. The attitude that's allowing that to happen, granted, very progressive, very liberal New York City, but and about socialists with some of the policies he's proposing here makes one shake their head. And how did we get to this point? Is the question that someone like that can actually win office and the largest, most impactful city in the United States. We'll get to that next on seven hundred WW Cincinnati.

you know we're in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Now, if you watch cable news, you probably get a steady die of the fear of this guy. But most people I live in Ohio, I'm in the middle of I don't care who cares New York City. If he continues the path he's going to, and let's say he winds up becoming the next mayor of New York City, he's going to help reshape the narrative and the politics and the leadership nationally if that occurs. The why and the how.

Ken Girardan is with Manhattan Institute, writes about this in Socialism. I'm the husband and I love the title. Ken, how are you Corny could vie with you. You're there there, You're in the heart of the thing. So you know more about this guy than most of us do. But is that fairly accurate? Like there's an underbelly here that this guy and we see socialism pop up from time to time, but this guy could be the next mayor

of New York City. That's gonna change. It's gonna be kind of like a maybe a mini blue wave going across the country.

taken route, some of them. Donnie had spent five years in the state of Emily in Albany, and so that was my first stop and I looked there and I reviewed There are a number of socialist proposals, some of which have pretty widespread political support, but some other big ones also predate him as an assemblement. And I thought this was a good opportunity to take a look at the full the full buffet of stuff that people in the socialist persuasion want.

course there's a host of other reasons. There's you know, central planning can't allocate resources effectively, and you get rid of competition, and it drives incentivization a whole bunch of things. And we can get into why socialism is bad as a as a political philosophy. But young people see because yeah, I look at young people to America. It's New York City or Cincinnati, and hey, they're worried about jobs, they were about housing, they worried about health care. Healthcare is

a mass. Both Republicans Democrats created this problem, and no one has a solution to fixing it other than more subsidies that we continue to borrow money to give subsceeded to people to make it afford it's not affordable. We're just taking money from one pile and moving it somewhere else you worry about. You know, people haven't worked two or three or more jobs just to keep their nose above water, and a lot of people can't do that.

Housing is getting unrealistically unexpensive. So there's like a grossola of young people feel like they're painted in a corner right now, and that is always the catalyst or something like this coming along.

things historically have always fallen apart and struggled. That's where you inevitably have markets because you always have mismatching needs and wants between family units. And that's something where the socialists don't appreciate, that difference between what goes on in the family and what goes on between people with different situations, resources, skills, and and neat.

There's no private competition, and you need all that to thrive into democracy. You need that to and you know, certainly we have problems in America, there's no denying that. But you know, you want to be like I don't know, you want to be like like the former Soviet Union. Do you want to be like you know, China during during the seventies. Do you want to be Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea? The answer is hell, no, you're.

isn't it so magnanimous? The Cuban government is providing all citizens with rice cookers. And the reason this happened was because the shortage of rice cookers in Cuba had really fanned the flames of the black market that the government had created for everything else because people weren't because there were so many shortages that people were having to go and trade on their own, and you had this sort of blossoming private, private, underground economy. And that's something that

socials don't appreciate that prices end information. Prices tell us where things are needed, where things are wanted, right, and that's why you see in those you know, in those societies that they inevitably really do lean into socialism, they inevitably run into trouble.

worse than whooping cough. Well, if you see what wooping cough looks like, you would rather take the vaccine that have whooping cough. It's the same thing.

exist in the world. We can't rely too much talk about what went on behind the Iron Curtain, and we have to talk more about where these shortfalls are in existing countries, including by the way, sometimes own, and talk about where these experiments with socialism just haven't panned out.

That's where you also run into really big problems with cronyism when you start to put government in charge of things like like the electric grid or the healthcare system, and you you move away from what is an imperfect but at least responsive system. And that's one of the that's one of the importances of preserving those market systems because in a in a poor performing part of the market,

you can always go somewhere else. You lose that when you have the state take over stuff and even and like I said, in Scandinavia they have a lot of social wealth spending, but they don't necessarily have assiciating state ownership of things. There's a there's a very big difference there, and I think people try to almost impolitely sneak Scandinavia through as some example of this, you know, Democratic socialist nirvana, but it's not.

talking to this in the political scene. And you know, if he winds up winning the mayoralship of New York City, which is possible, will you see like a mini blue wave. I think that'd be like a ripple effect because other people look at this and go wow, yeah, clearly the people are upset. Now that's New York City. The politics and demands in New York City much different than here in Ohio, certainly one hundred percent. But these are the things.

These are the mile posts that come along and people go, wow, Okay, it's a growing movement. It has to start somewhere, and why not in New York City? And largely because there's a lot of people who are affected by this economy, this effect that I should say, with jobs and housing and healthcare. You know, you bring up how socialism, but we have a lot of socialism baked into policies in America, right, I mean, you mentioned healthcare. Is there anything more socialistic

than our healthcare system or schools or whatever it might be. Now, granted, we're trying to be able to take your money, make it portable and have private schools and vouchers and things like that with a lot of resistance, but we've got a lot of socialism baked into the American system.

for alternatives. Doesn't mean you should throw it out, but we should always be asking the question, is this the most efficient, responsive way to do stuff because we often find it isn't look at what's happened with the postal service over the past fifty to sixty seventy years, where you've had private actors come and you know, they have been given the space to compete and in a lot of cases they're eating the postal services lunch because competition

was you know, competition was allowed there. Now we're not going to have rival you know snow. You know, we're not going to have rival roads or at private roads to our houses anytime soon. But in places like the healthcare in the education space, we routinely find that competition not only leads to innovation, but also leads to better

outcomes for folks. In New York, there are lots of what are called charter schools, which are publicly funded, privately run schools that parents can pick if they don't like how their neighborhood school is performing. And there are parts of New York City where a third of the public school kids are now in charter schools because they've been

given that alternative, that competition. It's good, it's healthy, and we should constantly be looking for opportunities to create more competition, even for instances that we right now call the government.

street from us? Same things happening today too. It's like, well, wait, why do I have to send my kid across town to a school that's performing when a underperforming school, why don't we just fix the school that's broken that steps away from my house. Same type of argument, And here

you go again. And a litm bit of time we have because I don't know how many people are found this man Danny thing, But we really haven't discussed his hit list, his wants and these and what he wants to do New York City, why he won the mayor whole primary, What are some of the promise what are some things that jumped off the page at you when it comes to the reforms they want to do with a democratic socialist or socialist system in New York City.

do the upgrades. They they don't want to spend the money on major mitigation. So instead this apartment gets warehoused, which means nobody gets to rent it. It contributes to the housing shortage in New York City. It stresses the finances of those buildings and limits the apartment owner's ability to invest other things, things that would benefit the other tenants.

And it is something that for which there eventually there will be a reckoning in New York as more apartments get warehoused, as more apartment buildings get pushed into financial distress by this law, and at the end of the day, the biggest losers are going to be the tenants.

it doesn't work. You know, central planning can't allocate resources unless you, as you mentioned, you know, there's got to be signals from the from the market on what a price on something should be. If not, you're gonna have shortages and surpluses and mill misallocate. You're gonna have a million toilet seats and no toilet papers, which are gonna wind up having. And there's no incentive for companies to make stuff. We sa again back to the Soviet Union. Now you have one one type of car is all

you have? Well, good, the hot did that work out for those vehicles, whether it's in Cuba or whether it's the Soviet Union. And Venezuela is another great example oil rich high. You know, you can talk about not having resource, but Venezuela is an oil is an oil rich nation. And you look at what happened there because they nationalize the industries, productivity went down. You had seven plus million

people fleeing and their GDP collapsed. That's why Venezuela is in the state that's in right, and that's why I've blown up ships off their coast because you know, exporting drugs as a you know, front for China is the only opportunity that they have and it's an all origination. It's it's a shame, it really is.

You don't have to hustle or do anything. But if if you do, and if you want to, we don't have room for you. There's no incentive to do that. Again, it's a ken Jerarden. You can read about this at Manhattan Institute dot dot com or is it dot org?

in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana. We don't live in New York City. So there you go news in just a few minutes. And when returned to The Scotsland Show on seven hundred w W, Sarah's here snorting through her nose, laughing about sports because the alternative is crying snorts of all sorts aka the Snort Report. Next seven hundred, it.

PSL personal seat license? In some stadiums they do this, and they don't like there's I know that my dad had to do it, right, like like like I don't know, four grand a seat or something like that, right, right, Okay, So I got to lay that out and then look at the season tickets and is X dollars a season? You know, a couple thousand? Okay, So if you go to I don't know, half the home games, can you then turn around and sell those tickets on the secondary market?

The way stadiums are now, they're not doing box office. There's no such thing as a box office. It's all secondary market. It's all hub. It's the NFL. The NFL does it whatever, right, So you got to look at that and go, all right, I put the money out. If I sold tickets to these games like the Steelers or Casey or whoever's coming to town, can I make up in those three or four games? Can I make up the difference and actually make money off the season ticket?