Brian talks to Senator Jon Husted

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Five k the Talk station.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's seven thirty here fifty five KRC the Talk Station.
Happy Tuesday, Brian Thomas, Please as I can be to
welcome the former Lieutenant cover of the State of Ohio
and currently Centator from the State of Ohio, John Houston.
Welcome back man. It's a pleasure to have you on
the program today.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Ian, great to be with you. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
And last time I checked, there was another vote last
night of the Republican Continuing Resolution continuing Joe Biden era
funding levels without any any cuts in government, which we'd expected.
We were hoping that we get some cuts. No, but
the CR passed. It was clean. This was a Democrat
era funding level, and yet it isn't satisfying the Democrats.
They're saying no because they want to continue to allow

(00:43):
these pandemic era subsidies to continue. Now, my recollection, John Houston,
is that because of COVID, they use that as a
justification to provide these these tax benefits, making Obamacare appear
to be free for people making north of four h
percent of the poverty level. The previous cutoff was sixty
two to five, so they get rid of that, and

(01:05):
it was unfunded. There were no taxes raised to cover
the nut on this, and of course our federal deficit
grew what five point seven trillion dollars in one calendar year.
It just was an amazing expenditure. But never have they
decided how they're going to pay for it. And these
The CBO is estimating that continuing these these freebies will

(01:25):
cost three hundred and fifty billion dollars over the next decade.
But they were temporary and they were set to expire
at the end of the year under the Democrat's own
hand of the inflation reduction, and they knew this was
coming a mile away. They wrote the law Senator Houston, well,
here's the deal.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
We just needed to keep the government open. We have
passed a clean CR. Democrats of Chuck Schumer votes for
clean CR thirteen times over the previous four years under
Joe Biden. No indifference is Donald Trump as president. But
now they want to shut down the government because they're
getting pressured from their left flank to show that they're
being tough and standing up. Well, you know what they're
being tough in standing up costing the American taxpayer four

(02:06):
one hundred million dollars a day to pay furloughed federal workers,
and they get no productivity out of them. You get
nothing in return for your four hundred million dollars a
day that Chuck Schumer is wasting by shutting down the government.
There's number one, number two what they keep offering. And
by the way, I voted for the fifth time last
night to keep the government open with a clean CR,

(02:27):
just current funding levels. Keep debating the unresolved issues. But
their proposal would allow for health care under Medicaid, those
costs for illegal aliens to be paid for by you,
the American taxpayer. That's one of the things in their provision.
They also want to continue to allow people who are healthy,

(02:48):
able by adults to receive free health care without doing
anything in return for it. These this this is the
nonsense that dug us into this hole. We're not going
to capitulate to that. But what we will do is
have a clean cr keep government open, and then negotiate
on all the other issues that they want to talk about.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, I suppose you, as my understanding is Obamacare succeeded
in doubling the number of people enrolled in the program
because they gave away these basically free premiums. Everybody was
eligible for free insurance, so a whole bunch of people
went to Obamacare rather than choosing their own. To expand this,
ultimately the conclusion one can easily reach, this is what
they've wanted all along, one size fits all, government paid

(03:33):
for health care for everyone. That's why they don't want
to pull back these subsidies.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Well, but by the way, look, we all want working people,
people who are working, doing their best, trying hard. We
want them to be able to afford healthcare. But this
is not the way to go about it. Because I
want to go through a few of the things that
happened under this program that they're advocating for, is that
insurance brokers just sign people up. It's very easy to

(04:00):
sign people up. They've signed up thousands, it's not millions
of people over time, but many of them aren't real
because the individual doesn't receive a subsidy from the center
of government. The insurance company does. So these brokers sign
people up, they don't even know they have the insurance
in some cases, and boom, the federal government sends a

(04:23):
payment to the insurance company and the broker gets a
commission off of it. There is at least a billion.
There may be as much as thirty billion in fraud
that's come from that failure. And you know this Frian
because we've talked about all the pandemic failures. Two hundred
billion of fraud under the PPP, one hundred and thirty
billion of fraud under the unemployment compensation system, and now

(04:46):
this what they call enhanced Pandemic Premium subsidy, there's billions
of dollars of fraud under that. Well, this is a
non starter to have a negotiation over a program that's
that full of and then secondly, it does nothing to
drive down the cost of health care. Oheah. Does this

(05:06):
say for one person that's making one hundred thousand dollars
a year for that family, it says you have to
subsidize the other family who doesn't have the insurance program
that you do, and they have one under Obamacare, they
want you to subsidize their insurance via the government. That
is not containing health care costs, That is using one
taxpayer to subsidize the health care cost of another taxpayer.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Senator John Houston, let's pause, I'm it and have a few
questions relating to this. If the government opens for example,
or is there still a possibility of continuing these subsidies,
because I know that's what the Democrats want to continue.
Talking about seven thirty six.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
More talk station.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Coming up on seven forty fifty bough K City Talk Station.
Brian Thomas enjoying this conversation. I hope you're enjoying it
as well. Senator John Houston talking about the government shutdown.
Democrats said no last night to another vote on the
cr the clean one. Do you sense any cracks in
the dam of obstructionism? Houston? Do you think you're going
to get a couple more centators from the Democrats to
wake up to reality and reopen the government.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
I'm not optimistic that it's going to happen this week.
They have a big rally plan, one of those note
kings rallies, you know that they have. They have one
plan for the eighteenth of October here in Washington, d C.
And so I don't think that they they're going to
end the shutdown until they get to have their big rally.

(06:28):
I mean, frankly, because most of this is political anyway.
It's not about it's not about being serious. It's about,
you know, them being able to show their base that
they're standing up to Donald Trump well.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
And moving more towards socialized medicine for all too.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, well, there's no doubt about that. But as you know,
that march has been on for quite a while.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yes, go back to Hillary Clinton on that one, can't
we But this the cr is is I guess, has
been presented for the purpose of keeping the government op
until sometime, you know, nomber, so you can finish the
twelve appropriations bills, a project that hasn't been done since
nineteen ninety seven, even though it's really like the ultimate
point of the jobs of elected officials get us a

(07:11):
budget twelve appropriations bills. So is work being done on
those right now while the government's shut down?

Speaker 2 (07:17):
I mean, yeah, four of them. Four of them have
been already passed, so you could we could put the
four of them in one of the resolutions been done
on a bipartisan basis. They need to get the other
eight done. But I mean informal conversations are going on.
But you know, I'm not on the Appropriations committee, but

(07:38):
for the most part of both sides have walked away
from that discussion until you get the continuing resolution accomplished.
And I mean really, all we're asking for is to say, hey,
pass this, give us until November the twenty first. They're
not giving up any leverage because November twenty first, we
can do this all over it right. If we don't
get our job done, it's just a question of whether
the government's going to operate and serve the American tax

(08:00):
payers or the government's going to be closed to me,
continue to negotiate. Think about this. America is paying four
hundred million dollars a day for furloughed workers. They'll ultimately
receive this back pay, but we're getting no production out
of them. They're not processing your permits, they're not issuing
your licenses, they're not doing any of that eventually. But

(08:24):
they will get paid eventually, and you will have received
no service. Sports. This is how silly this all is.
It's bad for America. It's selfish and political b tructamer.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, doesn't this provide a opportunity for Donald Trump to
fire people? I mean, you have non essential government workers
like men and women in uniform that continue to perform
their task without a paycheck. We need them. There are
other non essential well, the whole idea of essential versus
non essential sort of demands, asking the question, well, if
they're non essential, why do we need them in the

(08:56):
first place. Isn't there a lot of fat we could
cut out of this in sanely large government we have.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Well, I think that they're already doing that. They're they're
ending projects that they've deemed is you know, not vital
or essential or maybe even wasteful in rest vote. The
ob director is going is taking a scalpel right now,
going through the budget and eliminating and furloughed workers. I

(09:23):
think you'll continue to see more of that as this
goes on, because President Trump's not going to just sit there.
By the way, he offered yesterday to say, hey, open
the government backup, I'm happy to talk with you about
all of the issues related to the the the premium
sudies for healthcare. He said he would be willing to
talk about it, but he's not gonna He's not gonna

(09:44):
do it until they reopen the government. And that's clear.
And so I imagine that we'll continue to see cuts.
I hope they'll do them in a targeted way, because
let's get rid of the things we don't need. Let's
not eliminate things that we're going to then have to
bring back but then President said he'd be willing to
negotiate with them if they stop holding the American people
hastage in this particular case.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
And I'm glad you brought up that point because one
of the things I hear from Democrats has been widely reported.
They want to continue talking about this, but they want
some guarantees that there will be a discussion, which when
I hear that, hey, you can talk all day long,
but these are politicians. They can say one thing and
do another. It happens every day, but that they want
an actual guarantee up front that there will be some
extension of these subsidies along some level, which I would

(10:28):
say also as a non starter. So what's Donald Trump
really truly willing to entertain and talk about.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Senator, Well, here's the deal. What we would be what
we're asking for us to keep talking until November the
twenty first. It's a government open talk till that. The
enhanced premium subsidies don't end until the end of the year.
I understand there's notifications going out with the last side,
but this doesn't end till the end of the year.

(10:54):
And by the way, if you wait until November the
twenty First, what harm do you have then you can
if you're if you're the Democratic qubecs, we'll see they
didn't they didn't do anything. But frankly, this is this
is just for political theater for Chuck Schumer to prove
that he's being tough. It has nothing to do with

(11:14):
the negotiation right now, because there are negotiating. There are
no negotiations as long as the government shut down, and
there shouldn't be.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Senator Houston, one more question. We were missing my obligations
as a curious person and viewing the announcement yesterday that
the FBI spied on eight senators and one Republican minor
of Congress, all Republicans, this operation Arctic Frost and connection
with the January sixth riots. Were you at the press
conference on this, I'm just going to gauge your reaction
to the whole idea that some elected officials were spied

(11:44):
on between January fourth and January seventh, twenty twenty one.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Well, I was not at the news conference, but I
did talk to some of my colleagues who were spied on,
and you know, they really have been a hard time
believing that their own government spied on them, surveiled their phones,
checked who they called. Really it was it was an
out of control, out of control effort under the Biden administration. Uh,

(12:12):
to go back and reltigate January sixth and then try
to implicate members of the of the US Senate by
spying on them. And this is this is you're going
to see. Many of my colleagues who are spied on
are are just outraged by the fact that the executive
branch spied on them without their you know, without any knowledge,

(12:35):
without you know, if they wanted to talk with them,
they could have come talk with them. They needed to
spy on them, for goodness sakes, And uh, this is
there's going to be huge ramifications. I think. I think
you'll see litigation, lawsuits. I think you'll see criminal prosecutions.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Over it, criminal prosecutions, perhaps the civil rights lawsuits since
their constitutional rights were violated and where's the probable cause
that would allow them to get records of elected officials
phones and who they called.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
I think that basically that anybody who received a phone
call from Rudy Giuliani was were the people that got surveilled.
I think that's exactly what happened, but more information will
come out on that.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
I look forward to that popcorns out on that one.
Senator John Houston. I can't thank you enough for your
time today. Keep up the great work, and we're all waiting,
looking forward to seeing what happens. You're always welcome here
in the fifty five CASCEN Morning Show. Sir, thank you
very much