Donate and listen to the podcast at WRWL.org. All righty, we are back, and we're talking about property tax, folks. And I know that I think the state of Florida is going to do away with property tax. Yeah, what they're doing is Governor DeSantis is working with the state legislature. The legislature is actually going to put amendment on the balance so the people do not have to collect all the signatures.
That's what we need here in Ohio. Yeah, but then you're talking about leadership. And that's what we're, that's a real problem here in the state of Ohio because you got Matt Huffman as the Speaker of the House and Rob McCauley as the in charge of the Senate. And they're not worried about the average citizen.
Well, we need to do something to worry them.
Okay. We need to remember in November.
Well, that's absolutely right. And one question they keep asking, how many signatures do we have? All righty.
So with that, I'm going to start off with a fellow who's been striving at the bit in there. He's been wanting to jump in on this here.
So go ahead, Stile.
Well, first and foremost, I want to say that I agree with about 90% of it.
So there's no animosity on there is a problem. Everybody agrees that there's a problem. We've addressed the problem. Absolutely, I agree in terms of tiffs and abatements as well. Those need to be phased out completely.
They're taken advantage of, and we see the repercussions from it. I agree with the problem. We have the problem. I look at it in a three-phase plan. Phase one is where we're at now.
We have the problem. Phase two, with this amendment, if it passes or fails, and phase three is the after. And I agree with you all the way up to phase two, but phase three is where that falls apart. I do want to ask two questions, just for my clarification, if that's okay. Mr.
Pleschnick, I'll address it to you, if you don't mind. From what I gather, and again, I'm not entirely knowledgeable of the entire group here, this is a grassroots organization. No, it's no political party affiliation. It's of the people, by the people. Amen.
OK, I just want to make sure that I had that correct. With that, my follow up question would be how many votes? I know it just got joked about, but isn't that important that the people know that their voice is being heard and how far off they were? I know corporately it might be an excuse to say, oh, well, we don't want motivation to be down if it's a low number. But shouldn't the people know what their vote is?
So I agree with Mr. Massey. Once again, Commissioner John Pletchnick here. I agree with Mr. Massey and the organizers that in politics, you got to keep the other side guessing.
At the end of the day, July 1st is coming very quickly. The people will see the signatures one way or the other soon enough. But right here and now, this is about collecting as many signatures as possible, making sure that folks don't know where the signatures are, where you might be able to disrupt the signature gathering. Because we've had we've had campaigns in Ohio like HB6 where people have hired professionals to stop signature gathering. And frankly, if people know too much about the grassroots effort, there are folks who have a very powerful incentive to try to stop it.
I mean, at the end of the day, when you stand between government and its money, it can be a dangerous business. I have to tell you, let me add to that. Senator Jerry Serino, a couple of months ago, met about 100 politicians in Willoughby Hills. He made the statement to these politicians that he is not supporting the movement to abolish property taxes. He's not going to sign the petition.
He's not going to vote for it if it gets on there. And he's suggesting that they should not sign the petition and they should tell 100 people they know not to sign the petition. I took that as a declaration of war against we, the people, the state of Ohio.
So we're telling Jerry Serino and the other legislators, we, the people of Ohio, are declaring war on the legislators. And when you're at war, you never give the enemy any intel.
So I am the only person in the state of Ohio that knows how many signatures we have, and I'm not telling anyone.
Okay, that's understandable. That's a completely valid response. I just would think you also want your supporters to know at least a somewhat idea of where the signatures are, a percentile, a ballpark estimate somewhere that people know that they are making forward progress. It didn't make the ballot in November. It was chosen to go for this coming election cycle as well.
Interesting, though, that we've divided this. Leonard did a great job of dividing the state into 11 different zones of eight counties per zone. And he's got zone leaders in each one of those. And those zone leaders, they're responsible for getting more circulators. We've got over 2,000 circulators throughout the state of Ohio.
We're adding more every day. Leonard's talking to dozens of people every day. And they don't want to know. They are so motivated to say that this tax is so immoral, we are going to get it on the ballot. And there's no doubt these circulators are not worried about the signatures.
They tell us, Brian, don't tell anything that would give any clue. Matt Huffman, the Speaker of the House, I'm told at a meeting of the caucus of the Republicans, he said, well, I don't think those guys are going to get it on the ballot. They're going to need about 700 signatures, and I don't think they're going to get it, so I'm going to spend the $3.9 billion on special interest groups.
So that, again, is just another indication that Matt Hoffman and all of these legislators are not worried about that, that $3.9 billion could have eliminated the property taxes for all seniors in the state of Ohio for one solid year. I agree completely. I agree 100% with that statement. That's a ridiculous waste of money that could have been gone to actually fight the thing that we're sitting here fighting. I'm not advocating for any legislature by any mean.
I'm not advocating for property tax by any mean. You and I just have a different way to approach it. And like I said, I think we agree on 95% of all the things that we talked about here, certainly the school district. That's a big thing for me. 611 roughly in the state of Ohio, 200 roughly in Cleveland alone.
That's a ridiculous number. That's a ridiculous amount of waste right there. My issue is, well, you and I might agree with abolishment of property tax at a core level. You and I might also agree that North Korea is bad. I don't think we would sit here and drop a nuke on North Korea tomorrow if we had the chance, because that would cause repercussions in the after effect.
We had to look at the after here, and by eliminating property tax across the board completely, we're eliminating property tax from corporations, from companies, from interest groups, from organizations like BlackRock, Amazon, data centers that are already moving into Ohio. We're opening the door from this. I've heard programming, I believe you mentioned Keith Davey as a member of your group. I heard him on 1420 on the Jake Underwood show discuss that, well, you know, they're doing it anyway.
So what's the difference? That's a very bad mindset, in my opinion. Communism exists. The left exists. Trans ideology exists.
Satanism exists. And it's going to.
So why fight it?
So in that regard, why fight it if it's just going to exist anyway? Why not stand up to tyranny like we're called to do in the Bible?
So I think Keith Davey's position needs to be expounded upon. Once again, Commissioner John Pletchnick here. What Keith is saying is that— Just real quick, I don't mean to cut you off, John, but I like Keith Davey. I'm friends with Keith Davey. I don't want to seem like I'm throwing him under the bus.
Not at all, but I think his position deserves to be expounded on, which is that the data centers, the big corporations, the big businesses, they're already being exempted from property tax, sales tax. They're already getting major tax abatements and TIFs. And you put all those together, Tax Policy Matters has found that every year the state legislature is giving away over $12 billion.
So it's not to say continue evil. It's to acknowledge that abolishing property taxes for someone who doesn't pay it already doesn't actually change anything. And the reality is the big businesses, the donor class, are already getting those tax abatements. What this does is even the playing field and gives it to Jane and John Q. public, grandma and grandpa, and young families who are trying to have a mortgage that they can afford without so many property taxes on top of it that home ownership is just unavailable to them.
That's 100% right. That's true. What we should also be aware of. The other question we get, well, Brian, what are we going to do locally for police, fire, and roads and bridges? And I said, we're not anarchists.
We're going to pay for reasonable government services. But what we have discovered at the state level, in the last, I believe, 10 years, the general fund budget has gone up 70%. There is something called the revenue distribution, and that's called local government funds. That's where the state will take the money that they've accumulated from all of the counties, from the various taxes that they collect, and that is supposed to go to the local counties. The counties then will distribute that money to the various municipalities based on either the state formula or a predetermined formula agreed to by the municipalities.
What has happened over the years is that local government fund, that sharing of money from the state has been cut drastically. Therefore, the local governments have then have to go back to the citizens and say, we need to raise your property tax or we need to raise your income tax because we're not getting the money from the state.
So what we are pleading with, all of the county officials, to put the pressure on the legislator to say, share the money with the local communities. You're taking it from the people. The state is keeping it so that they can spend that money again with a special interest instead of giving it back to the people through the local government. All right, we're going to take some calls. Let's go out to New York with Vera.
Vera, you're in the air. Yes. I was called to find out if anything is going on in the state of Georgia because that's where my sisters live, and they're all senior citizens. They're being hit really bad with the property tax. I think there's a movement in most of the states, as far as I know, that want to do this.
It looks like the first one that's going to actually put it on the ballot is Florida. But if I think of it, it starts in Florida. Yeah, Leonard was—go ahead, Leonard. Talk about Michigan.
Well, Michigan, I know right now I'm coordinating with Michigan, Arizona. And Nebraska. And Nebraska. They're trying to gear up to figure out how they manage all this. And so I've been giving them pointers about what we did.
And so they're using me as a model to help them get organized. But one of the things that concerns me, and when I look at the world from a biblical perspective, which I think all Christians should be doing that. Absolutely. But the problem is, is that what we don't see, there's something bigger than the dollar and cents issue. We're missing.
It's the justice. It's the fairness issue. Yes. And what happens is, see, if you look at Deuteronomy 28, if you know it's the Old Testament, God will tell you, here's what happens. the good things happen when you're obedient to what I call you to do.
Then he also puts in the same chapter the consequences for disobedience. He didn't change. He hasn't changed at all. Not at all.
So now what happens is, is that we are socialism, which is and is ungodly. OK, it's going to die a slow death. And we're sitting here and we're talking about we need to do this and do this.
So I don't want to go this far. God is going to drive you to that point.
So now he's giving us the blessing to be able to try to right the ship because repentance is also a national thing. It's not just the individual thing because he judges nations is what is individuals. And when people tell me, well, it sounds like you're trying to legislate morality.
Well, all law is nothing more but legislative morality because we got a thousand laws on the books to tell you how to drive, when to drive, what's out of the road.
So that's somebody's morality. We were, God has ordered that we legislate morality. That's not a suggestion. Thank you.
Okay. Yes. And so what has happened is we've got to the point we have no fear or understanding of God. We're sitting here nickel and dime and saying, well, what about the fire? What about police?
If you actually think we're going to fall apart as a nation because all of a sudden we shift the tax burden, it's unthinkable. It ain't going to happen. Because you know what happened? The first family, the first ordained government is the family. The family has to be rebuilt.
Because if you don't have the family, everything collapses after that.
So we have to be driven to a point where we have to recognize the importance of family and start driving toward building those things that are going to help the family And ownership is the first place to start Because a poor man can work himself out of poverty if he owns something Absolutely Again like I said for me it to see people that have worked their whole life paid off their it happens to people my age Well, not just people my age, younger people, too, but especially to seniors that have, you know, they've worked their whole life, they paid off their mortgage, And now all of a sudden, instead of being able to leave it to their family, it gets stolen from them. Pastor, I want to ask you a question. And I want to pose this to Leonard and Brian as well, Commissioner John Pletchnick here, because we really face three choices for the future. I've said this many times. There are three doors we can walk through.
And there's really only three doors. Door number one, we do nothing. property taxes continue to go up and up with inflation. Levies keep getting passed. Seniors get taxed out of their homes.
Young people can't afford to buy a house. And we ultimately all get taxed out of Ohio. And that's the path we're on right now. We see ourselves shrinking relative to our sister states. Ohio goes on to a slow death.
That's door number one. Who wants to vote for that? Are you a fan of that, Pastor? Not really. No, I didn't think so.
So here's door number two. And This is one we hear from our state reps and senators a lot. And I personally think it's fear mongering. But you tell me. They say if we abolish or even cut property taxes substantially, that results in no roads, no police, no fire, no schools, no libraries.
It's Mad Max. We live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Are you willing to live in a country without any roads or police? No. Oh, and you know what?
But the thing of it is to see, you don't have to have property tax. You could have a tax for the roads. You could have a tax for the police. What does the value of my home have to do with what I pay for the police and fire? Why should I pay more or less than my neighbor because I've got a bigger or smaller house?
That has nothing to do with the cost of police protection. It's a dearth of common sense.
So I'm hearing that we reject the idea of a post-apocalyptic wasteland with no roads, police, or fire. No one's in favor of that? No. Right. That only leaves one choice, folks.
There's literally only one other door to walk through, door number three. And that is we cut spending. What spending, you ask? We cut the state budget, and we get our public schools back to basics because at the end of the day, most of property taxes goes to the state. When you hear your state reps and senators lying through their teeth saying that we collect no property tax, let me tell you something, folks.
60 to 70 percent of your property taxes, depending on the district you live in, goes to the state. Because under Article 6, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution, the state legislature and the state legislature alone is responsible for funding the quote unquote common schools, which is the old timey term for public schools.
So they are responsible for funding the state schools. That means most of our property taxes, wherever you live, is going to the state to fund the state's schools. And I want to be very clear. We don't have local control. We don't run those schools.
They operate under the Ohio Revised Code. And where I come from, the ORC is voted on by our state reps and state senators. They have the control. They have the power. But they also have the responsibility of funding the state schools.
So we've established that the state's the one taking the vast majority of the money.
So if we cut the state schools in ways that don't impact teachers and students by cutting the armies of administrators, the principal for every grade, the very woke positions that are designed to indoctrinate rather than teach, we not only save money, we improve our children's education. And if we consolidate school districts, we don't have to take away your football team or even the name of your school. We're just consolidating how many superintendents, how many principals, how many curricular directors we need. If anything, that improves the educational experience for students because it takes this army of administrators that separates them from their teachers, from their parents out the way, and we can get back to learning. but fundamentally even if you're not willing to cut the school budget even a dime with us with an all funds budget for the state of ohio of over 100 billion dollars ladies and gentlemen we could abolish property taxes with a corresponding cut of 20 percent to the state budget that holds harmless every metro park every library every school every police department every senior center, even though I believe we should find efficiencies at every layer of government, especially in the state schools.
It's important for us all to sit back and realize that we're not talking about something radical here, folks. We're saying that if the state went back to pre-COVID levels of spending, we can afford to abolish property taxes for everyone without a dime of local cuts, not even to the schools. And yet we have our state reps and senators say this is radical, irresponsible, dangerous, Irresponsible is the word they keep mentioning, Commissioner. They kill people. Also, playing off with what you're saying, though, that I mentioned previously I mentioned about the local government funds where that's the— What about the shadow governments like Nowaka?
Yeah, there's a lot of NGOs, but the libraries, the amount of money that the state is paying for libraries is more than what they've been paying for the local government funds. And and then another case in point was the marijuana tax. We just saw that they passed this. I mean, they sent it. Bill 56, I believe, was a number they were collecting.
I was over three billion dollars in the first year. They've got it in the legislation that only 36 percent of that goes back to the local communities.
So the state is keeping 64 percent. And that's the problem that we keep saying, that the state legislators are keeping this in their slush funds, and that gives them the power, the ability to spend money on the special interest groups. That is what our state legislators are.
Well, the people need to tax stupid. Can I jump in real quick? Because I agree with everything that was just said, and that was a lot of my main contention, is where do we get the money from? I know everyone asked the question. We made the joke about it, right?
Where do we get the money from? How do we make it up? We don't need to make it up. We have the money. I agree.
We do. Here's the here's the issue I have is and I've tried to do my research the best I could. Last year, I compiled the deficit from taxes, property taxes, and it came out to roughly 20 billion that's needed that they say we don't have that we do. And we've talked about some means. I 100 percent agree on schools.
I 100 percent agree on the cannabis tax. I 100 percent agree on dipping into the slush fund, especially administration cuts as well. 100% agree. My issue is, why is that not put into the legislation? Because I've watched your guys' town halls before, and I've watched your explanation when this question is asked before, and I've heard everything from— I've got to jump in.
We've got someone that's been on hold for over 20 minutes. Let's go to Cheryl Wycliffe, and we'll come back, and you can answer that, John. Go ahead, Cheryl. You're in there. Hi, good evening, gentlemen.
Let me jump in just one minute.
So can we turn on the speakers in here without getting feedback? Can we do that? Not really. Okay. I thought I would give it a try.
But go ahead. I'm sorry, Cheryl. That's okay, Mr. Sanders. I do one praise report.
My husband and I are officially on our home. of this month. It's paid off. Congratulations, Cheryl. Thank you, John.
And we actually decided, do we pay the first half or shall we just pay up for the whole year?
So we're paid up for our property taxes till February of next year.
So that's a blessing. When we talk about school, 60 to roughly 70 percent property taxes our property taxes go to these indoctrination centers um children aren't learning anything over there but yet we also have let's not neglect to say we have the teachers union your school board members who really really school boards are mostly made up of women. You might have a couple men on that board. We need more men, and let's make it half and half. But they think they know it all, and they're running around, and we'll take Wycliffe for an example.
They're already crying, the school board of Wycliffe is already crying that they've lost over $570,000 in revenue due to the extra money in the piggyback and the homestead exemption. Shame on them. These schools, if people were to take the time to look in to your school district, start poking around in their board docs if they're available to look at, the amount of dollars they spend on outsourcing, care more about their athletics over academics. And let's put it this way. As far as academics go, what is it that these children are learning?
Nothing. They're being indoctrinated on how to go out and protest against ICE. My property tax, my property should not fund public schools period and yet the public schools scream and say but but the state of ohio cares more about uh giving more money in the vouchers and the ed choice parents have a choice so so cheryl i think it's really important for me to respond first to your your concern because you mentioned the piggyback. In HB 96, which was the state budget last year, every county in Ohio was given the power to double the homestead exemption for low-income seniors, basically doubling the average benefit from $500 to $1,000, and to double the owner occupancy credit for all homeowners from two and a half to a 5% rollback. And only a handful of counties voted to do one, the other, or both.
And I'm proud that Lake County unanimously, myself, Commissioner Rich Regovich, rest his soul, and Commissioner Morris Beverage III, we unanimously voted to double the homestead exemption for low-income seniors and to double the owner occupancy credit.
Now, in response to that, we had a few township trustees, but mostly school board members, come back very hard and say, you cut my budget, you cut my budget, squealing like a stuck pig, frankly. And we ran the numbers. The increase from the revaluation raised all of our taxes without a vote of the people by $51 million across all taxing authorities in Lake County. By passing the doubling, the piggyback, as you call it, we only gave $14 million or less than a third of that back.
So when the smoke clears, big government got a lot bigger. We exercised all the authority that the state gave us. I'm proud that we doubled those exemptions and credits, but I was the first to say, this is not enough. And yet we had school boards like Willoughby Eastlake, where I live, that was up over $8 million that had to give $2 million of it back. Say, oh my God, our budget's cut by $2 million.
How will we live without explaining to the people and being honest, you're up $6 million. I want to ask you, is there any person here whose personal budget went up $6 million that wouldn't thank God for the incredible beneficence and generosity that they've received? And yet we have school districts who have millions that weren't even voted, weren't even voted to go to them that are complaining as though their budgets were cut. That's the kind of greed and dishonesty that we're pushing back on as conservative Republicans who are trying to give a little bit of relief.
Now, I know this is a bipartisan issue, but I come at this from a Christian, conservative, Republican standpoint. And what I came up in is that we're supposed to be for smaller government and less taxes. We believe that people can spend their own money better than the meddling hands of Uncle Sam. And when I see a bunch of greedy, big government liberals saying, how dare you only give me $6 million more? How dare you only give me two of an unvoted increase How dare you give back crumbs to seniors who literally the threshold for the Homestead exemption is per household or less It unbelievable to me that we're begrudging impoverished seniors the smallest amount of relief.
We're begrudging them that and have the gall to say, well, now we're going to go back and try to raise taxes.
So Cheryl, I want to give you credit for fighting tax increases in your community. and I want to give credit to the few brave school board members, the folks who actually care about the children, who are standing up and saying that the more we spend, the worse results we get. If you actually gave a damn about the children, you would admit we need emergency surgery in our school districts. It's not enough to make a small change. You're absolutely, and she's absolutely right.
They're indoctrination centers, and I've been preaching on that for 50 years out there. Pastor Sanders, you did have a caller who was asking about a Georgia property tax. And we just looked it up. And yes, there is an active and prominent legislative movement in Georgia to abolish property taxes on primary residences, known as homesteads for homeowners.
So it appears that the state of Georgia is looking into it. And there's probably many more states that are looking into it. It's a national movement because we're all saying that private property ownership is important to us.
well yeah it is and again like i said we start out with biblical verses that you see uh out there you know that in fact some places in scripture the property god demanded that you keep the the property within the the lineage into your uh you passed it down from yeah yeah what also concerns me about the ohio legislators it's they they when they took office they swore an oath to support and defend the Ohio Constitution. The very first article of the Ohio Constitution talks about the protecting that citizens have the right to possess private property and it is incumbent upon the legislators to protect the citizens of Ohio and their property. All righty, we're going to a break and the phone number is 888-677-9673 That's 888-677-9673. We'll be back right after this. I feel so certain about this faith of mine.
I'm hanging in there, doing fine. King Jesus is a friend of mine. I'm blessed by you. Saving babies, teaching sinners Hell's for losers, heaven's for winners This work is not for begins I am blessed by you I'm coming home someday Heaven's my way I'm blessed by you Where the saints all stay and little children play, I'm blessed by you. Where the saints of old walk on streets of gold, I know that I will see.
That heavenly prize, it's no surprise how happy I'll be. I'm going to see my family again. I'm going to be with long lost friends. Maybe soon. I don't know when.
I'll bless my youth. Gave me treasures. Preaching sinners. Hells for losers. Heavens for winners.
This work does not ever begin. I'm blessed by you. I'm coming home someday. Heaven's my way. I'm blessed by you.
Where the saints all stay and little children play. I'm blessed by you. Where the saints of old Walk on streets of old I know that I will see My mansion on high Through glorified eyes How happy I'll be ¶¶ ¶ Where his glory shines ¶ There I'll abide ¶ On those golden shores ¶ I'll be satisfied ¶ Oh, some right day ¶ Gonna fly away It's there I'll stay. I'll be there with you because your words are dark. I'm blessed by you.
All righty, we're blessed by you. And we're talking about property tax tonight, which is an issue that's growing across the country. And if you have a question or a comment, the number is 888-677-9673. I've got all the experts in here tonight. That's 888-677-9673, folks.
Give us a call. Tell us what you think. And so the phone lines are ringing, right? Are they ringing? They're ringing.
All right. We're going to be taking some calls here. Sure. And so let me see what's happening here. Hello, hello.
Once again, Commissioner John Pletchnick here, a.k.a. Commissioner No, here with Brian Massey, Leonard Gilbert, and Pastor Sanders. We had a great question before the break. Why is it? What happened there?
Oh, okay. There you go. Why is it that the committee to abolish property taxes didn't include a comprehensive plan as part of their amendment? Because there are many ways, as we've just illustrated, that we can cut spending to cover the cost of abolishing or cutting property taxes.
So why didn't we include that as part of the amendment?
Well, it's really very simple. As Mr. Massey shared, he needed approvals from two groups to reach the point where we could collect signatures. Number one, he needed the attorney general to certify that the description of the amendment was in line with the amendment itself. And that was granted.
But number two, he had to go in front of the ballot board with the secretary of state, Frank Rose. And what a lot of folks don't understand, and frankly, what a lot of state legislatures like to talk about tongue in cheek, not quite honestly, is they say, well, why wouldn't you put a plan in with the amendment to abolish property taxes?
Well, they know full well why, because under Ohio law, you can only have one issue per constitutional amendment. If Mr. Massey had attempted to include a plan, a second issue, it would have been rejected by the ballot board.
So we hear these crocodile tears from state senators and reps going, if only you'd included a plan, we could have supported it. Knowing full well, if they included a plan, it would have been rejected and we couldn't even be collecting signatures right now.
So much as I wish we could have a comprehensive plan along with the baseline amendment, that's not legally possible and they know it. If I may clarify real quick, because that's a little different than what I was asking. I completely agree. I understand why it's not part of the amendment. I don't think it should be because of that very reason.
my concern was when I'd listened to your panels in the past when you were presented with this question the answer was either the answer that Gilbert or I'm sorry Mr. Gilbert had given of trusting in God and not having enough faith in it that we can do this and it will be taken care of which I agree, I agree with that statement but that's not what the issue on my end is it's how the legislators will perceive it and I've heard you in the past say well let the legislators figure it out because they ruined it that's like trusting the Department of Justice to indict the Department of Justice. I'm not saying there should be a plan in the amendment. I was just concerned about the lack of plan I heard in response to the questions. And that's exactly why we've emphasized now more than ever that the true answer to the question of how you can afford to cut or even abolish property taxes is to cut spending.
There is more than enough money in the budget. See, that's the problem with our thinking, too, because, see, when you put a budget together in your home, okay, you sit down and you lay out what's needed. That's all we're saying. And what I have found is this. My grandmother told me a long time ago, she said, Leonard, I can't change your attitude, but I can modify your behavior.
I said, how are you going to do that? She said, I'll cut the spending. And all of a sudden, the world changed. And I survived. You know why?
Because I had to decide what was important and I had to prioritize.
Now, when you do that, now a plan develops. But if I don't pull the strings on you and force you to do something, guess what? You're going to continue your behavior. There's a couple of different budgeting processes. One is that where you start from the very beginning, you're going to justify from the very first dollar.
That's zero based budgeting. Or you've got incremental budgeting. That's where you start, where you stopped with the last year, and then you go up from there. Guess which one we do primarily in the state. They don't go back to the zero-based budgeting and justify every dollar.
It's always more and more and more.
So that is another process. Every time that we come up with a suggestion, somebody asked me about paying for police and fire. I said, well, how many dollars are you spending?
Well, we're spending a million dollars. How many people are in your community? We've got X number of people.
Well, you divide the number of people into the cost for that service.
Well, you can't really do that. I said, well, why not? They don't have a justification.
So no matter what we come up with, if you want another way to charge for the service, and that's really what we're saying. We want to charge us for the service just like it's an insurance policy or something like that, but just don't tie it to our home. That's what we are objecting to, where our home should not be available to be pulled back, pulled away from us by the government, period. Absolutely. Right now what we have to do is tell the folks out there how we can win this thing.
How do we get those signatures? We get more than we need. Let's get it on the ballot. Leonard, mention about our website, Leonard. Yeah, our website.
You can go to our website, The Volunteer. It's A-X-O-H-O-H, not O-H-I-O-O-H, X-O-H-T-A-X.com. And what you're able to do there, you can find tons of information about the initiative itself and some of the things we've been involved in. Right now, we're in need of circulators.
So if you go there and you volunteer, I'll get back into you. I'll get back to you ASAP because you'll actually talk to a real person if you call me.
So that's one of the nice things about it.
Now, I could tell you right now that this is a real live situation happening. I'm getting phone calls every day where people are losing their homes and they're up against the wall. And if we think it's going to get better by tweaking it, it's not going to happen.
So one of the things I'm concerned about is that if we don't do anything now, then all I'm saying is we're transferring the problem to the next generation. And he thinks about what we're going to do now. I mean, it's going to be the devastation. And then it's going to be far worse than what they're seeing now. We've got signing locations in virtually all 88 counties.
If the individual in their individual county wants to know where the signing location or signing locations are, they can go to O-H-Tax.com and they can click on their county and it will give the signing locations. And I just want to let everybody know that we going to have a sign rally down at the statehouse is going to be on Tax Day April 15th on the North Plaza And we going to find out if we can get some legislators to sign our petition And for those that decline, we're going to call them out, and we're going to let people know, just like we were just talking about, we'll probably have a map, a district map of the Senate positions and also the legislators, a district map, and we'll let you know who signed a petition, who hasn't.
So who's really for the people and who's not?
Well, you guys have an open invitation to come back here and do exactly that. Let's go out to Chardon, Ohio, with Anna. Anna, you're in the air. Hi, there. I just want to thank the panel for John and Leonard and Brian for being here tonight and for moving this movement to abolish property taxes here in Ohio.
I have to say my parents late or my mother and my father in their late now they're in their early age. They were living in Cuyahoga County, and in their late 70s, they were faced with a $2,500 biannual tax obligation, which ultimately forced them to have to sell their home.
So it was, you know, it's just I agree that it's immoral that it's come to this where our legislature would not act to alleviate especially our elders.
So thank you for, I think, Brian, maybe six years ago out at Auburn. And that's when this issue kind of, you know, I saw it playing out in mother and father's life, but it didn't really actualize or realize until I heard Brian Massey talking about it six years ago.
So my question, so thank you, gentlemen, to all the circulators out there and the couple of state reps that Brian said did sign the petition. But I wanted to ask, I noticed up in Mentor with the city council race that one of the issues that arose or subjects that came up was there was some sort of $77 million rainy day fund that the city is sitting. And so is that something? And I recall when the Lake County commissioners were looking to raise the sales tax in Lake County, And thank God, I don't know if it's thank God, but John Pletchnick was adamantly against raising the sales tax in Lake County, where it would have brought the county to the number one spot in the highest tax sales rate in the state.
So they pulled that back. The city of Mentor was not happy with that, and they worked together to rescind the sales tax.
So when that was going on, I went to one of the Lake County commissioners meetings, and there was a woman there from one of the accounting firms giving a broad summary of finances. And there again, there were like huge, multi, multi-million dollar rainy day funds and millions in different securities. And, you know, so when, you know, we're posed with this question, where do we get them? Would those rainy days, like, you know, be... Yeah, that's a real good question.
Again, I can address Lake County because I've received – I asked for records requests, public records requests from virtually all the taxing authorities in Lake County because I want to see – because of my background, county background, I want to see what are the numbers telling me when I look at three to five years' worth of financial statements. And what I found, really to my surprise, was the accumulation of cash from many of these taxing authorities, be they the Deepwood Industries or the Crime Lab, Lake Metro Parks were $30 million. And Lake Tran, even though they're not property taxes, they're sales taxes. Lake Tran was sitting on $50 million. dollars.
And that's what led me to say that the public sector is outgrowing the private sector's ability to pay for services. They keep, and I've told the commissioners, I said, you can't keep sucking the lifeblood out of the community, that money has got to be in the hands of the taxpayers so they can spend it in the local economy to keep it going. Unfortunately, the state legislators did not provide any checks and balances. We give credit to Auditor Galloway in Lake County. He got with the county commissioners or the county auditors association, talked to the legislators, and they just got some legislation passed that provides a measure of checks and balances.
When a taxing authority submits their tax budget to the auditor's office, the auditor has the right, if they're accumulating cash, they have the right to reduce those property taxes.
Now, that's a small step, but at least it was a step where Auditor Galloway and Commissioner Pleschnick recognized what was happening with the accumulation of cash, and they tried to do something about it. we're Leonard and I are taking one step and we're just eliminating that property tax altogether. And I have to say, I think it's very important that Leonard and I and John were operating on under the biblical concept of love thy neighbor is a commandment, not a suggestion. That has been motivating us when people say, well, why are you doing this? You know, I'm not running for office or trying to make money, but I do not think it is appropriate that we can sit by here and see people lose their homes.
We're just, Leonard and I are just not going to stand it. And that's the biblical principle that we're following. Brian, I think there are two points that haven't been made yet tonight that pastor sanders listeners really want to hear and the first point is if our goal fundamentally is to cut spending and cut taxes which is the goal of conservatives and limited government which comes first the chicken or the egg i think that's a big part of this debate do you cut spending so that you can afford to cut taxes or do you cut taxes which forces government to cut spending. It's the latter, folks. Government never saw a dollar it didn't want to spend.
So if you politely ask them, could you please cut spending so that we can afford to cut property taxes? They'll say, oh, no, we tried. It can't be done. On the other hand, if you cut property taxes, which means they don't have any more money to spend, lo and behold, how they make things work.
So if we want to cut spending and cut taxes, We got to cut the taxes first. We got to starve the beast. That's number one. The second major point that we haven't had a chance to talk about enough in this movement, Pastor, is that you have to do it very quickly because we're running out of time. Cutting property taxes does so much good for the economy.
We're talking about all the downsides and the difficult work of replacing the revenue and making government work more efficiently, do more with the less. But let's be real here for a second. You cut property taxes, you pump $20 billion in Ohio's economy. You put that money back into people's hands. A very conservative multiplier effect would be that $20 billion goes through our economy five times a year.
John, I've got to cut you off right here because we're running out of time now. Here's the good news. The good news is that there's a time coming where we won't be discussing property taxes. We'll have no property tax.
Now, we'll have a place to live. It's called heaven. It's called a mansion. And that's if you're saved. You see, if you're saved, those of us that know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, this is the most important thing that anyone that has ever done.
You couldn't do anything more important that wouldn't matter as much to you as receiving Christ as your Savior. There's people out there listening to us now, some driving in their cars, some in California, some in Texas. but folks the time is coming and it could happen it could happen tonight you don't know the Lord is returning but every one of us out there every one of you if you're listening to me tonight it's because you're alive and every single one of you at one point won't be the last act of living is to die and then it's appointed to all men once to die and then the judgment is to listen you need to be prepared because I can tell you I'm not going to worry about property taxes. I'm not going to worry about maintenance on anything. I'm not going to worry about any of the things that we have to think about here today.
I'm not going to have to worry about medical bills. All of that will be taken care of for those of us that have repented of our sin, called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and received eternal life. If you haven't done that, well, things are not going to end so well. In fact, they're not going to end at all. You're going to end up with eternal torment.
And that's the reality. It's not because God is not a loving God. God is a loving God, but he's a holy God. And a holy God, folks, must punish sin. A holy God must punish sin.
Now, he's given every one of us out there a way out. God is more than just. He's did it. He put his own son upon the cross. He died in your place, a substitutionary death.
He did for you what you could never, ever do for yourself. He did that. You have to be smart enough to claim that. He's telling you. All you have to do, very simple, is acknowledge the fact that you're a sinner, and according to God's holy word, you deserve hellfire.
But if you repent, if you pray to the Father, ask for forgiveness of your sins, then he will honor that. And then call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, and you'll be saved. You'll become a new creature, a born-again believer, an heir of the kingdom, and you'll be indwelt with the Holy Spirit. You have got God's word upon that, and there's nothing as sure as God's word. Nothing.
Never has been. The universe was created, spoken into being by God's word.
Well, we're at that time every night that we come to where we want to say, I want to thank all you fellows for being here. We'll do it again. We're going to keep it out in front of the people. We're not going to let this go away. We're going to keep going.
Amen. So we want to say good night. We want to say God bless. And we want to say, and always, always, always remember, keep fighting the, ready, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. Thanks for listening to the voice of the Christian resistance.
What's right. What's left. Hosted by Pastor Ernie Sanders. To learn more about our ministry, please visit us online at www.wrwl.org. Please tune in next time for another edition of What's Right.
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