Do you want to be an American?
She got blown back on seven hundred wws. So we have a coalition about half of the United States. The United States and District of Columbia are suing the Trump administration over the suspension of food staff benefits. With the government shutdown happening right now, so here in Ohio, we can't control DC. But now we're going, all right, what about Snap? What about TAMP what about Wick? What about
that money if we don't get federal funds? With looking that way 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?
Oh, I've had better days, I'll tell you that, But I bet this is toughbelievable.
Yeah, we got so to bring people up to speed on this. To bring up to speed, one point four million Ohioans reliance SNAP benefits and about forty three thousand kids, so roughly one in eight folks who live in Hamlin County are getting some form of SNAP benefits. Every month in Hamlin County, SNAP pays out nineteen million dollars, I said, nineteen million a month. With your budget and even the city's budget. I don't know how you overcome that, Alicia.
Yeah, I mean it, you look at it. We can overcome it. I mean, we're talking to almost two hundred and forty million a year, and we're looking at ninety seven thousand of those people, like you said, right here in Hamilton County, and you know they yesterday, the Director of Jobs and Family Services. One of the things he talked about, these are people who are working. Majority of these people who actually work every day, some of them working two and three jobs. You're looking at children who
innocent children. Then you're looking at senior citizens who pay their dues.
There.
You know, that's a bit chunk of people.
Serve.
Yeah, veteran to serve this country. I mean, this is uh uh, this is unbelievable. And to deny them something as basic as being able to have food on the table is unbelievable. And then one of the things the food free store, food bank, which you know, uh, the in world hunger. That's one of my it's just been dear, dear, my heart, and I've always worked with them for you know, most of my life helping. One of the things that was said that we can't food pantry ourselves out into it.
You know, even with the money that we have, uh that we had from SNAP. We had SNAP and food Bank was kind of a gap filler. It was never the main line, and so it won't be we won't be able to. We're going to put more money toward that. We as a as a county commission, we've put about two million dollars with the URPA money that we did. We're looking for more opera money. We know we probably got at least another two hundred thousand. We're scraping to sign some others so that number may go up, but
we know that that 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 you're going to buy stuff, You're going to go to the store, you're going to go to Kroger whatever, and that money gets pumped back into the economy, and that means jobs and a few people are done. You know, Okay, you don't need that many people at Kroger working wherever you get your groceries, and you can't, you can't. I talked to a Kurt Ryber on Monday Show, Alicia Rees, CEO of the Freestar Food Bank, and he was he was kind about you, 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 gonna have to lean on his vendors as suppliers. And of course the generosity of Cincinnatians 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.
It's the worst time possible. And as you indicate it, we looked at also the Director of Jobs and Family Services, because all of the snap benefits don't happen just at the beginning of the month. Right, We've got half at the beginning of the month, so we've got a group that will be impacted November first. Then we've got another half where theirs are in the middle of the month, so theirs would go out right at Thanksgiving. I mean,
it's unbelie believable. And then you talked about Krogers and others. 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 it affects you know, Krogers 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 afford the medicine or the food. And everybody knows when you take medicines that it says you got to eat with the medicine.
So it's a trickle down effect. And then we had C. Mha 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. Uh. 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? And you know, it's slow, it's just everything, and you know, I've been on this property taxes just chilling us, you know, and we did that, We did that Bengals deals sloan and they took out thirty percent, so we can't even try to get the thirty percent rebate. Then the state would not do anything on the property taxes. Yet they're still fiddling their trying.
To figure out what's going on.
That's that's a whole separate, complex issue, right, and then the man time it's coming up, bottom line is Saturday. Unless things change in Washington, a lot of people are going to have to do without. And I, you know, I look at this thing, Alisha Reese's you know, and we've been for example, the federal workers for example, who are working out of the paycheck. And I said, when this thing started, I was like, Okay, it's theater, is what it is. And then what happens in about thirty
days that theater becomes reality. So you see the snap benefits cut concerns with the FAA. You have frederial workers now missing a couple paychecks. You know, the 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.
Yeah, they got to show up to work not getting paid. So now we're in twenty twenty twenty five right, twenty twenty five people working and not getting paid. Come on, in this society, there'd be a furlough. These people have home mortgages, they will have the property taxes. We do their gas and electrics do. Now you're talking over here those with the snap benefits. Now they can't get anything
to eat. Children and families worried, how this is outrageous, and then it's song, we have until this Thursday, and I don't think it's going to go. The state then said, hey, you fixed the problem on property taxes, and you saw Butler County. In Warren County, they looking to double the
homestead to help the seniors. But it doesn't look like you know, I asked the administrator to look at all options, and it doesn't seem like I'm going to get the support to be able to do that here in Hamilton County. So now what do we do. 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 any thing to eat. And most of them are working every day. I mean, what what are we doing here?
Yeah, I mean pretty soon, I mean it's gonna be You're gonna look at it and go, Okay, well I can feed my kids, or I can pay the electric bill. And you know, you can have a really good job and good income stream and still feel the pinch of the spadic.
Hell, Alicia, you got a couple of you.
You you make good money, and you still have a hard time paying your electric bill.
Hey, let me just say let me say this. Let me say this.
I am.
I am a normal and I and I have the struggles of everybody.
Manager.
Because this morning Alicia was a little late because her phone died because her power went out.
And I said, well, I mean you gotta pay that, you gotta pay, you gotta pay.
Duke Kennedy girl, I jumped up, saw, I said, wait, mane you know my list, I got my receipt.
I'm gonna go waving in somebody's face. Somebody, Yeah, that's what it is.
I love the conspiracy, I really really do to do.
She's Alicia Ras County Commissioner on the show.
It's no. Let me just tell people. I've got the five or three release bus and we have helped thirty thousand people where we got the bus going all over the county. We're going to try to connect people to as much help as we have available to them right now. We're bringing food, We're bringing all kind of help from jobs and family services, anything we have. We're going to try to connect them and answer the problems that they may have. And we also try to get people. Let's
get these unclaimed funds, every little dollar count. We're in a nine to one one right now.
Yeah, we are, and you hope that cooler heads prevail. Like if I were to talk to Democrats and Republicans, I think the sentiment of the country is, Okay, you made your point.
You made your point.
Now now once you get past And the reason why the longest shutdown was thirty five days is because after you know, first few weeks at theater, once you start to get past that thirty day, market really starts to hurt people who don't deserve it, and you so at the end of the day is you could play party politics and our sides 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 fix 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 budgetalasea, you got one job, you can't do that, and then you shut the government down like every ten minutes on the tens.
Well, we got to come together. But this is an economics fight we've got to fight going right now. Sloan from creating the have and the have nots, and the have nots is growing and getting crushed at whatever they do. I encourage all of them to come together, but we also got to make sure that we could afford to
go to the hospital. I mean, I mean it's an economics fight, like you said, whether it's a snap benefit, whether it's a property taxes, whether it's you know, whether it's cannot afford to go to the hospital right now, because you know we can't. Basically, Americans, we just can't afford to pay more. 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 taxes. We
just squeezed, you know, 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. Fight for Americans to be able to look.
Forward, to live, go back and negotiate and come up with something. And you know, Democrats, it's about subsidy. I think subsidy is terrible because it's just making affordable or I guess pretending to make affordable something that's not. You're taking cash from one palm, move it to another.
At the end of the day.
This is why we've got a thirty eight trillion dollar deficit with the subsidies republics. And I've talked to many of my friends in the right side of the l 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 subsidy, 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 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 Fund. 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 it only verifies eligibility. That's a federal government runs that system.
Well, I think we all got to have there's unpresident. This is unprecedented what we're doing.
It's self inflicted. That's the worst part.
Yeah, we're self inflicting and Americas are getting hurt and you're reading articles that you get in ballrooms even though it's private money. Can you imagine three hundred million of private money immediately? We need two hundred and forty million to do SNAP. The money is out there, but they're just squeezing everybody to having no money, and then only certain people have money. And we, like you said, we pay our taxes and we got to get a return
on it. We got to resent us stuff to Washington, and damn it, Washington, we got to get it back here.
Problem.
It's a problem working people. I mean, you know, let's take care of the workers focus. Most of the people on SNAP are working families are working at least a couple jobs, and County Commissioner a Lisha Reese, I'll let you go before I don't know. Do you need me the venue money so you can pay your electric bill? Can I help you?
What can I do for you?
It's been paid? Okay, all right, it's been paid.
And you're wireless. Clearly words, Thank god, I.
Don't want to be There's some people out there. Let me just say, who can't pay? And I guess I got a glimpse of would have liked to be in the dark. And that's.
Day.
Appreciate you so much, Alicia, Thanks for jumping on this morning. Thanks take care, have a good one. It's always bringing the eat here. Sure you're not any money that electric bill? Get to some cash or cricket wireless, keep that phone going. She's good radio. She is Alicia Reese Hamblin County commission in a very serious issue though on Saturday.
Uh if these benefits, it's part.
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 gonna be Saturday exactly that all of a sudden, we're gonna have all, now what four million people starving, and I no, it's good a few days, but uh, the point has been made. It's time to actually govern for a change. How about that we sent you to Washington to governor how about governing?
Why did you do that? Sloaney seven hundred, wil