Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Majority of this edition at the Power Hour likely will
be spent on a single topic. I posted something about
it on my Facebook page. Was it yesterday, either last
night or this morning? I get a good confew because
I'm old and stuff, but it was sometime in the
last twelve hours I had posted this. The governor has
(00:20):
put together a group, a commission, a or whatever to
basically come up with an idea of game plans, some
parameters for the use of the snap EBT food stamp program.
I'm not sure what the hell you're supposed to call
it these days and using it to buy They're focusing
(00:42):
you know, the headline's focused on sugary drinks, but I
believe a large number of products are probably going to
fall under this umbrella. Normally I have an immediate and
definitive reaction to everything. In this case, not so much
because I understand, and I understand the idealism of saying, look,
(01:04):
you shouldn't be using this taxpayer funded nutrition program to
buy crap for your kids. I get that. On the
other hand, crap is cheaper, and sometimes full bellies matter
more the nutritional value, especially if you've got a limited
number of dollars to get you from day one to
(01:27):
day thirty of each month, and you don't want to
run out because you went to Whole Foods and the
really you know, the the organic foods and all natural.
Every day, the money doesn't last and so the kids
end up hungry and you don't have food in the house.
And so I see that side too. I feel like
(01:49):
there's got to be some reasonable middle ground idea somewhere,
and you know, for that, I try to go to
reasonable middle ground own type of people within the Ohio legislature.
One of them is State Senator Steve Huffman, who's joining
us right now. And uh and Steve, first of all,
thanks for making time. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Always glad to be on great to be in Ohio.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Do you see my dilemma here? I mean, I'm not
sure where where I come down, and I'm not used
to that quite.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Frankly, well, I think here there's one other aspect that
you didn't mention. Is that that kid, that that young
person who gets the sugary drinks to get the candy,
the ho host the twinkies. You know, we're putting them
down a path to continue that, and they become a
(02:43):
diabetic and we're going to pay for them maybe later
in life if they're on Medicaid because of their poor,
poor eating habits, and so maybe if we get them earlier,
maybe they don't become the diabetic, maybe they don't get
high blood pressure. So there's another way that the government's
going to save money and be cost effective with this.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And before going into the political arena, you've got a
medical background, right.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, my medical degree, yep, So I.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Kind of I guess I'm not surprised you come at
at you know, thinking from that angle. Where have you
already thought about this? I mean, is there is there
a middle ground somewhere? Because obviously I agree with you.
We want to keep kids healthier. We don't want a
state full of diabetics, and lord knows their industries out
there that want everybody to be diabetic these days. By
(03:34):
the same token, I don't want them running out of
food because the good nutritional stuff costs so much more
than the potato chips in the soda pop.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
No, I don't disagree with you. I mean there's a
fine balance here. But first off, we're in this position
again by the absolute failure of the federal government is
that they need to step up and say here's the parameters.
You know, no sugary beverages or no cookies or what
(04:05):
percent of sugar. But they don't. But you know that
this Trump administration looks like they're going to allow for waivers,
allow for states to do this. But it would be
a lot easier for the states to say this is
good and this is bad, or here's the parameters to
give the states some direction.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Am I insane in thinking? And I know this is
completely out of the box, off the wall, and from
the other side of the moon. But just as for
so many years before they found out they could make
money letting retailers do it, we had state stores for liquor.
In the long run, if you look at the whole
ball of wax, the healthcare calls, the continue the potential
(04:47):
diabetes issues, all of that stuff, our state grocery locations
out of the question as a way to make sure
that people are getting good, wholesome, nutritious things. Could we
see something like that or is that just completely off
the wall?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah? I think you're kind of off the wall because
in uh my mind, there's nothing nothing the government can
do that private industry can't do a lot better. So
you know, there'd be a lot of costs and things
like that. We wouldn't be run efficiently because it's the government.
So you know, maybe we we limit it to certain
(05:26):
items or exclude certain items to make it efficient.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And I guess that's that's exactly where we are right now.
This this commission or task force, whatever they're calling it
that the governor is putting together. Is there an established timeline?
Is this still in its infancy and we're we're going
to decide what they're focusing on and when they'll be
focused and and that kind of thing, or do we
do we have kind of established timeline and what they
need to do and when it needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
They have a couple of months and that they're they're
gonna they're gonna meet and have recommendations to the General
Assembly on how to do this. And the governor has
said that he alone, through medicaid, can't asked for a
waiver ask the federal government to do this. But you know,
(06:11):
to me, there's the balance because you know, cookies, twinkies, hohs,
a lot of sugary stuff, but you look at some
of the stuff that's that's called a protein bar man
it sounds really good, but when you get down to it,
it's got twenty five grams of of sugar.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of stuff that's And I found
that out as you know, as somebody who was you know,
supposed to be diabetic. And thank the Lord, I changed
my diet and changed my weight and I got rid
of all that crap. But things that I was consuming
that I thought were good for me were I mean,
Va Jew, Steve, do you know the carbohydrates in Va Jews?
(06:53):
I should have just been drinking a coke. It was crazy,
the things that you think are good for you. And
I'm not an idiot. There are plenty of people out
here who are far less educated, far less attached to
reality than I. If I thought V eight was good
for me, I can't imagine what people left to their
own devices might consume thinking it's it's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, the the added sugar and stuff like that is
is is high, So you know, it's it's a balancing act.
And I think that uh uh, you know, we'll we'll
get someplace so that you know, you look at sugary drinks.
Coke should be should we not allow coke? Well? Coke
(07:36):
diet coke doesn't have any sugar in it, so should
we allow that?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
There you go, see, there's there's the conundrum. And I mean,
what about uh, I don't know, kool aid high See,
you're the things that your kids traditionally drank. Is that
going to be off limits too?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well? You know, I was thinking the other day, you know,
the kool aid that we grew up with, where it
had had a little bit of taste to it, and
then you put on three cups of pure sugar. Yeah,
and you mix that up. That couldn't have been good
for your for long health.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
And you had the option back then too. I don't
know if you remember, but my mom sometimes would buy
the sugar no sugar kool aid so she could mix
in her own sugar, thinking she was benefiting us more
than letting us get whatever they had put in it.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, so that uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I don't know that that worked out so well either,
because I love my sugar to this day. I still do.
And when you and I were conversing texting earlier, the
idea of you know, I guess i'd call it fraud
with the food stamp program, the SNAP program, that's something
else that hopefully this Commission's going to address because when
(08:46):
you what I've seen, you know, on my beloved West Side,
I've seen this habit. You'll go into the carry out
the corner store and you'll buy a frozen pizza, which
is allowed, it's frozen food. But then they've got the
microwave there at the corner store, so you have microwave
and you heat, and you bought that with food stamps,
(09:06):
which I don't know is such a great idea, and.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
People, yeah, you're right, I mean, I mean the medical
the snap benefits are you cannot prepared by prepared food.
You can't go to Kroger's or Giant Eagle and get
the roasted chicken that's all ready to go. But I think,
you know, the state is looking at other types of
rod in the sense that you know Senator Shay for
(09:31):
a number of times has introduced to Bill put your
picture on your food stamp card.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, you brought that earlier, and I thought about that too.
Now let's let's say a family is getting a food
stamp and uh do you call it an account whatever
you call it. Where so they've got a food stamp
account and and mom has the food stamp card, but
Dad has to stop and pick up groceries on the
way home that night from work. But mom's pictures on
(10:01):
would Dad have to have his own card? And is
it going to cost us more to print a card
with both of their pictures.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
There's some some provisions that Senator Schaffer had on those
things that your you know, your eighty year old, ninety
year old elderly mother, she does she never goes to
the store, she doesn't get out, and you're the caretaker.
There was going to be a process that the daughter,
the son would be able to use that card. But
(10:29):
you know, the part of the problem is, you know,
but for you know, online there's communities out there where
you know, you offer your your your food stamps for
one hundred dollars for only fifty dollars and then you
can go buy cigarettes or alcohol or other other things.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
People do that all the time. I see it all
the time. It's disgusting that they will sell up and
then then two weeks later they're popping up on some
Facebook page or next door page or whatever, somebody donate
us some food we had. Really, you sold your food
stamps to get your your weed or whatever you bought
with the cash now you want to get on here
and get people to donate so you can have goties
(11:10):
for your family. That's that's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Well, in the same too too is you know in
your wallets you get a number of credit cards and
there's a chip in there. We need to start putting
the chip into the snap cards so that it's validated
and we know who it is and where it is.
You know, there's a lot of fraud out there to
duplicate those things. And you know when we looked at
(11:36):
that in the budget, there was it would be about
five million dollars to over time, you know, they the
cards turn over about every eighteen months. To not to
do it all at once, you know, certainly would cut
down on a lot of frauds in the system of
the chip.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
The also and you see, this is another one of
those conundrums, the reality versus idealists thing. But I was
looking at the parameters this year for the sales tax
holiday and where you were talking about, you know, prohibiting
some things from being about with a food stamp card.
Sales tax holiday this year applies to restaurants, which is
coming out of the same legislative mind that is going
(12:15):
to bring. You see why I'm frowning right now, don't you?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeh, yep.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
How does going out to dinner at a restaurant come
under school supplies and tax freeze?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Steve, Come on, that's a tough one. That's a tough one.
I mean, you know so much clothing, you need clothing,
some school supplies and stuff, but you know, things up
to five hundred dollars. But I certainly it was a
way to get the money backs to the to the taxpayers,
especially in lower incomes, because they're going to go out
(12:47):
and you know, when school starts, they need these things,
and it's a way to put it back into their pocket.
Majority of this edition at the Power Hour likely will
be spent on a single topic. I posted something about
it on my Facebook page. Was it yesterday, either last
night or this morning? I get a good confew because
I'm old and stuff, but it was sometime in the
last twelve hours I had posted this. The governor has
(00:20):
put together a group, a commission, a or whatever to
basically come up with an idea of game plans, some
parameters for the use of the snap EBT food stamp program.
I'm not sure what the hell you're supposed to call
it these days and using it to buy They're focusing
(00:42):
you know, the headline's focused on sugary drinks, but I
believe a large number of products are probably going to
fall under this umbrella. Normally I have an immediate and
definitive reaction to everything. In this case, not so much
because I understand, and I understand the idealism of saying, look,
(01:04):
you shouldn't be using this taxpayer funded nutrition program to
buy crap for your kids. I get that. On the
other hand, crap is cheaper, and sometimes full bellies matter
more the nutritional value, especially if you've got a limited
number of dollars to get you from day one to
(01:27):
day thirty of each month, and you don't want to
run out because you went to Whole Foods and the
really you know, the the organic foods and all natural.
Every day, the money doesn't last and so the kids
end up hungry and you don't have food in the house.
And so I see that side too. I feel like
(01:49):
there's got to be some reasonable middle ground idea somewhere,
and you know, for that, I try to go to
reasonable middle ground own type of people within the Ohio legislature.
One of them is State Senator Steve Huffman, who's joining
us right now. And uh and Steve, first of all,
thanks for making time. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Always glad to be on great to be in Ohio.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Do you see my dilemma here? I mean, I'm not
sure where where I come down, and I'm not used
to that quite.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Frankly, well, I think here there's one other aspect that
you didn't mention. Is that that kid, that that young
person who gets the sugary drinks to get the candy,
the ho host the twinkies. You know, we're putting them
down a path to continue that, and they become a
(02:43):
diabetic and we're going to pay for them maybe later
in life if they're on Medicaid because of their poor,
poor eating habits, and so maybe if we get them earlier,
maybe they don't become the diabetic, maybe they don't get
high blood pressure. So there's another way that the government's
going to save money and be cost effective with this.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And before going into the political arena, you've got a
medical background, right.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, my medical degree, yep, So I.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Kind of I guess I'm not surprised you come at
at you know, thinking from that angle. Where have you
already thought about this? I mean, is there is there
a middle ground somewhere? Because obviously I agree with you.
We want to keep kids healthier. We don't want a
state full of diabetics, and lord knows their industries out
there that want everybody to be diabetic these days. By
(03:34):
the same token, I don't want them running out of
food because the good nutritional stuff costs so much more
than the potato chips in the soda pop.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
No, I don't disagree with you. I mean there's a
fine balance here. But first off, we're in this position
again by the absolute failure of the federal government is
that they need to step up and say here's the parameters.
You know, no sugary beverages or no cookies or what
(04:05):
percent of sugar. But they don't. But you know that
this Trump administration looks like they're going to allow for waivers,
allow for states to do this. But it would be
a lot easier for the states to say this is
good and this is bad, or here's the parameters to
give the states some direction.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Am I insane in thinking? And I know this is
completely out of the box, off the wall, and from
the other side of the moon. But just as for
so many years before they found out they could make
money letting retailers do it, we had state stores for liquor.
In the long run, if you look at the whole
ball of wax, the healthcare calls, the continue the potential
(04:47):
diabetes issues, all of that stuff, our state grocery locations
out of the question as a way to make sure
that people are getting good, wholesome, nutritious things. Could we
see something like that or is that just completely off
the wall?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah? I think you're kind of off the wall because
in uh my mind, there's nothing nothing the government can
do that private industry can't do a lot better. So
you know, there'd be a lot of costs and things
like that. We wouldn't be run efficiently because it's the government.
So you know, maybe we we limit it to certain
(05:26):
items or exclude certain items to make it efficient.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And I guess that's that's exactly where we are right now.
This this commission or task force, whatever they're calling it
that the governor is putting together. Is there an established timeline?
Is this still in its infancy and we're we're going
to decide what they're focusing on and when they'll be
focused and and that kind of thing, or do we
do we have kind of established timeline and what they
need to do and when it needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
They have a couple of months and that they're they're
gonna they're gonna meet and have recommendations to the General
Assembly on how to do this. And the governor has
said that he alone, through medicaid, can't asked for a
waiver ask the federal government to do this. But you know,
(06:11):
to me, there's the balance because you know, cookies, twinkies, hohs,
a lot of sugary stuff, but you look at some
of the stuff that's that's called a protein bar man
it sounds really good, but when you get down to it,
it's got twenty five grams of of sugar.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of stuff that's And I found
that out as you know, as somebody who was you know,
supposed to be diabetic. And thank the Lord, I changed
my diet and changed my weight and I got rid
of all that crap. But things that I was consuming
that I thought were good for me were I mean,
Va Jew, Steve, do you know the carbohydrates in Va Jews?
(06:53):
I should have just been drinking a coke. It was crazy,
the things that you think are good for you. And
I'm not an idiot. There are plenty of people out
here who are far less educated, far less attached to
reality than I. If I thought V eight was good
for me, I can't imagine what people left to their
own devices might consume thinking it's it's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, the the added sugar and stuff like that is
is is high, So you know, it's it's a balancing act.
And I think that uh uh, you know, we'll we'll
get someplace so that you know, you look at sugary drinks.
Coke should be should we not allow coke? Well? Coke
(07:36):
diet coke doesn't have any sugar in it, so should
we allow that?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
There you go, see, there's there's the conundrum. And I mean,
what about uh, I don't know, kool aid high See,
you're the things that your kids traditionally drank. Is that
going to be off limits too?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well? You know, I was thinking the other day, you know,
the kool aid that we grew up with, where it
had had a little bit of taste to it, and
then you put on three cups of pure sugar. Yeah,
and you mix that up. That couldn't have been good
for your for long health.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
And you had the option back then too. I don't
know if you remember, but my mom sometimes would buy
the sugar no sugar kool aid so she could mix
in her own sugar, thinking she was benefiting us more
than letting us get whatever they had put in it.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, so that uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I don't know that that worked out so well either,
because I love my sugar to this day. I still do.
And when you and I were conversing texting earlier, the
idea of you know, I guess i'd call it fraud
with the food stamp program, the SNAP program, that's something
else that hopefully this Commission's going to address because when
(08:46):
you what I've seen, you know, on my beloved West Side,
I've seen this habit. You'll go into the carry out
the corner store and you'll buy a frozen pizza, which
is allowed, it's frozen food. But then they've got the
microwave there at the corner store, so you have microwave
and you heat, and you bought that with food stamps,
(09:06):
which I don't know is such a great idea, and.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
People, yeah, you're right, I mean, I mean the medical
the snap benefits are you cannot prepared by prepared food.
You can't go to Kroger's or Giant Eagle and get
the roasted chicken that's all ready to go. But I think,
you know, the state is looking at other types of
rod in the sense that you know Senator Shay for
(09:31):
a number of times has introduced to Bill put your
picture on your food stamp card.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, you brought that earlier, and I thought about that too.
Now let's let's say a family is getting a food
stamp and uh do you call it an account whatever
you call it. Where so they've got a food stamp
account and and mom has the food stamp card, but
Dad has to stop and pick up groceries on the
way home that night from work. But mom's pictures on
(10:01):
would Dad have to have his own card? And is
it going to cost us more to print a card
with both of their pictures.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
There's some some provisions that Senator Schaffer had on those
things that your you know, your eighty year old, ninety
year old elderly mother, she does she never goes to
the store, she doesn't get out, and you're the caretaker.
There was going to be a process that the daughter,
the son would be able to use that card. But
(10:29):
you know, the part of the problem is, you know,
but for you know, online there's communities out there where
you know, you offer your your your food stamps for
one hundred dollars for only fifty dollars and then you
can go buy cigarettes or alcohol or other other things.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
People do that all the time. I see it all
the time. It's disgusting that they will sell up and
then then two weeks later they're popping up on some
Facebook page or next door page or whatever, somebody donate
us some food we had. Really, you sold your food
stamps to get your your weed or whatever you bought
with the cash now you want to get on here
and get people to donate so you can have goties
(11:10):
for your family. That's that's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Well, in the same too too is you know in
your wallets you get a number of credit cards and
there's a chip in there. We need to start putting
the chip into the snap cards so that it's validated
and we know who it is and where it is.
You know, there's a lot of fraud out there to
duplicate those things. And you know when we looked at
(11:36):
that in the budget, there was it would be about
five million dollars to over time, you know, they the
cards turn over about every eighteen months. To not to
do it all at once, you know, certainly would cut
down on a lot of frauds in the system of
the chip.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
The also and you see, this is another one of
those conundrums, the reality versus idealists thing. But I was
looking at the parameters this year for the sales tax
holiday and where you were talking about, you know, prohibiting
some things from being about with a food stamp card.
Sales tax holiday this year applies to restaurants, which is
coming out of the same legislative mind that is going
(12:15):
to bring. You see why I'm frowning right now, don't you?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeh, yep.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
How does going out to dinner at a restaurant come
under school supplies and tax freeze?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Steve, Come on, that's a tough one. That's a tough one.
I mean, you know so much clothing, you need clothing,
some school supplies and stuff, but you know, things up
to five hundred dollars. But I certainly it was a
way to get the money backs to the to the taxpayers,
especially in lower incomes, because they're going to go out
(12:47):
and you know, when school starts, they need these things,
and it's a way to put it back into their pocket.
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