Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
For Secretary of State. Welcome back to the fifty five
KCY Morning Show, Robert Sprague. It's the pleasure to have
you on this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thanks Brian, and be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's pleasure. Sprague for Ohio, s p R A g
U E for Ohio, the word for not the number
four Ohio dot com where you can find Robert Spegg's website.
I'm sure you'd appreciate a campaign contribution. Let us start
off a treasure of Sprague on your campaign for Secretary
of State. What's your motivation for running and how's the
campaign going so far?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well? I think, Brian, that the cost of our freedom
is eternal vigilance, and the threats are constantly evolving. Our
enemies certainly would love to be able to control our elections,
at the very least be able to influence them. And
as your next Secretary of State, I want to make
sure that our elections are secure and I also want
to make sure that they're fair, and I have a
(00:49):
plan to make sure that our elections are both of those.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, what would you think, as it currently stands, what
is wrong with the current process in what way will
you fix it? When you are elected to be Secretary State.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, I'll tell you we do a very good job
with elections in the state of Ohio. But there are
a few things that I would make sure that we
are able to evolve and make sure that we build
upon the successes that we're already having and make our
election system even more secure. For one thing, I would
make sure that we have a front end citizenship check
(01:25):
to make sure that there are only Americans voting in
Ohio elections. You know, this idea of citizens being able
to vote in their government, having a social contract with
their government is so important to our constitutional republic. And
as a matter of fact, our current Secretary of State,
Frank LeRose, who's done a very good job. He led
(01:47):
the effort in twenty twenty two to make sure that
our constitution was amended to say that only American citizens
can vote in Ohio elections in a past with seventy
seven percent of the vote. So that's the first thing
I would do is I'd move to a front end
citizenship check. And we can do that if we work
(02:07):
with the federal government and the Trump administration make sure
that we have access to those databases.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Now that's so far. I saw this recent article and
I don't know if Ohio uses Dominion voting systems. A
lot of red flags being weighed about this big company.
I guess more than twenty states used Dominion. It just
got bought out by a Missouri tech entrepreneur, former Republican
director of Saint Louis City Board of Elections, a guy
named Scott Liendecker, And he announced this the other day.
(02:33):
As of today, Dominion is gone. Liberty Vote assumes full
ownership and operational control. He's a pro paper ballot kind
of guy. So does that transfer of dominion ownership mean
anything to Ohio? Do we use dominion? And this suggests
made me a movement in the right direction. A lot
of people are still still hankering to get their paper
ballots back because they have no faith in basically electronics,
(02:54):
and I understand that.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I do too, and I think that no matter who
owns the voting machines, at the end of the day,
you've got to be careful that they're not compromised. And
so that's why the second thing I would do as
your next Secretary of Status, I would make sure that
we move to all paper ballots in every county in
every election that we have in the state of Ohio.
And I used to work at Ernst and Young when
(03:18):
I when I first graduated from college. And what they
will tell you is that the paper ballot gives you
a beautiful audit trail. You can always go back and
you can count the paper. And as a matter of fact,
that's the requirement of the Ohio Constitution, is that we
vote by ballot, which is a secret piece of paper.
(03:38):
And being able to check on the paper and tabulate
the paper gives you a check on the machines. The
paper is never wrong. And so I want to move
to all paper ballots in the state of Ohio. Sixty
percent of the counties are already there. That's the way
they vote. You have a separate piece of paper. You
can see who you voted for, and then you submit
(03:59):
it in the ballot box and then it's tabulated. It's
the best way for us to vote in the state
of Ohio.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Scored some points in my listening audience for that one. Sir,
appreciate that got to have a paper trail, all right,
pivoting over in your role as our treasure. What is
the Buckeye Loan program? I saw this just announcing you
just launched this.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
This is a fabulous new program. We want to bring
production back to the state of Ohio. We want to
bring jobs back to the state of Ohio. Manufacturing has
always been the backbone of our state, and so we're
starting there with our brand new Buckeye Business Advantage. If
you're a listener right now and you happen to have
a small company under one hundred and fifty employees, you
(04:41):
will qualify. If you want to expand your balance sheet,
if you can take out with the financial institution, your
local financial institution, you can take out up to a
million dollar loan to expand your business. It could be
working capital. This is flexible capital. It could be it
could be you expanding your plant, it could be putting
(05:03):
in that new product line. And we will reduce the
interest rate on that million dollar loan by up to
three percent for up to two years for you. And
that's the big deal, because look, all the federal news
is about the lowering of interest rates, correct, And here
we are lowering interest rates with the state's twenty five
(05:25):
billion dollar balance sheet by three hundred basis points three percent,
front running the Fed just lowered by zero point two
five percent or twenty five basis points. So this is
a way that we can put our balance sheet to work.
The first thing we're doing is we're focusing on manufacturing
because that's our bread and butter as a state. October
(05:46):
is manufacturing month. And then we anticipate coming out with
some other focuses on small businesses. But this is a
great thing to help our state bring back jobs, bring
back production, bring back and know how. And I think
that this is going to be a big help to
a lot of these small businesses.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well, and you're still getting points on the loan too.
It's not like you're giving it away for free. They
have to pay back. It's just a lesser loan rate.
I mean, that's a great incentive for folks to go
out and borrow the money. Because million dollars borrowed at
what current bank rates, that's a sizable difference over a
three point drop.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, three point drop is actually real money for a
lot of these small businesses, and it could be the
difference between them being able to expand or not. Right,
And I love what you said, Brian, because it's not
as if we're stepping in as the government and giving
a grant. It's actually the private market, capitalism at work.
You've got to get the loan from a private institution.
(06:43):
But we'll do our part in the back office plumbing
of lowering the interest rate.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I think that's an important component. That you're still working
with a bank who does due diligence and evaluates the
nature of your business and your credit worthiness. So the
bank is actually doing the laboring or of work, or
the state the States is backing it up with its
own financial resources. I think this sounds like an excellent idea, and.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
There's no risk at the Treasure's office. I mean, ultimately,
the bank or the financial institution has to underwrite that.
From other words, back it up with their own money,
so there's no risk to us. So this is a
win win for everybody, and we hope that it'll help
us small businesses expand and help our state grow economically.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
All right, I will acknowledge my ignorance on the entire topic.
I regularly refer to cryptocurrency as like the peace of God,
it passes all human understanding, while I at least acknowledge
it passes Brian Thomas's understanding. Listen, my MENSA membership is
worthless when it comes to stuff like this. It doesn't
mean anything, and it never has. But what's the story
on the state of Ohio accepting crypto in connection with
(07:46):
certain transactions.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Well, i'll tell you what. We decided that the Treasure's Office,
we could either follow everybody else, all these other states
that are being able to accept cryptocurrency as payment, or
we could lead. And there are a few states out
there that are doing it already. But we have decided
that if we lead, we get to determine the process,
we get to make it secure, and so we've decided
(08:12):
that we are going to launch a brand new crypto
payment platform. The future is this digital currency. Everybody's going
to want to pay with their phone with Apple, pay
with PayPal, with stable coin, with bitcoin, with ethereum, and
pretty soon, I think what you're going to see is
it's not just people that are going to want to
pay with these digital currencies. It is also corporations because
(08:36):
it is instantaneous and in many ways it's cheaper and
it's more secure. So there are some valuable reasons to
do it. We're going to do it the right way.
We are going to develop a cryptocurrency payment platform for
the entire state. That way you can pay in cryptocurrency
(08:56):
will if you want to, and we are immediately It's
going to happen actually outside the Treasure's office, but we
are going to immediately make sure that it's transferred and
transformed into US dollars, and so we will only hold
the US dollars. We will not be holding cryptocurrency, but
it will facilitate the payment. And by the way, the
(09:19):
state is not paying that user fee. The user is
paying a user fee to be able to use that
new product. We think that we are going to have
the best and the safest product in the United States
of America. We just went through the RFP process and
the Board of Deposit approved it unanimously, and we're looking
forward to getting that up and running.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And briefly, don't want to hold you up because I
know we only have you this one segment. Sir Robert Spring,
Treasurer running for Secretary of State. How do you do again,
going back to my ignorance on the topic, how do
you deal with the volatility at crypto? I mean, one
day bitcoin's trading for twenty thousand dollars, the next thing
is trading for thirty thousand dollars. Then it's back to fifteen.
I know I'm overstating the volatility of it, and trust me,
I have no faith in the FIO currency, but the
(10:01):
American dollar does not struggle with that level of volatility
on a day to day basis. I guess if i
got one hundred dollars bill and I'm paying with crypto,
crypto's worth x amount one day and maybe less than
next tomorrow, how does that translate into something that you
can use? Or real briefly with Robert S.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Bragg, that's a great question, Brian, and just real briefly. Bitcoin,
because there's a limited amount of it, which is what
makes it valuable, it goes up and down huge volatility
every day. You could pay in bitcoin, and the transaction
obviously digitally, is almost instantaneous, and so I guess that's
(10:38):
how you deal with the volatility. But there's also stable coin,
and stable coin is a digital coin, but it's basically
a money market account. It's a share in a money
market account, and so it's backed up. For every stable coin,
it's backed up by a United States dollar and then
that dollar is in the money market account. It's invested
(11:00):
in United States Treasury short term treasury, so it basically
operates just like a money market account. Of those stable
coins are pegged one to one to the United States dollar.
So you can see now the difference between the bitcoin
and the stable coin, and you can see where corporations
would you know, maybe one of transact more and more
(11:21):
transactions in the stable coin type of a digital currency,
which will be instantaneous, safer. And the other advantage from
the Treasure's office standpoint that people don't think about. When
you write a check to the Treasure's office, it does
not cost you anything, but it costs the treasure in
the state of Ohio a lot because those checks are
(11:44):
pieces of paper, and it costs us actually a great
deal to process all that paper. Understand So, there definitely
are advantages of moving into digital currency direction, but we
have to be very careful. We're being cautious, we're being prouded.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I appreciate the prudence and the caution if we enter
into the great unknown. Robert Sprague's running for a Secretary
of State. He's currently our treasurer. Help him out on
his campaign. Sprague for Ohio dot Com. Robertspregg, I appreciate
your willingness to come on the Morning show. Over the
over the over the years, and I wish you the
best in the future and I look forward to having
you as Ohiose Secretary of State and further conversations down
(12:17):
the road, Sir
For Secretary of State. Welcome back to the fifty five
KCY Morning Show, Robert Sprague. It's the pleasure to have
you on this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thanks Brian, and be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's pleasure. Sprague for Ohio, s p R A g
U E for Ohio, the word for not the number
four Ohio dot com where you can find Robert Spegg's website.
I'm sure you'd appreciate a campaign contribution. Let us start
off a treasure of Sprague on your campaign for Secretary
of State. What's your motivation for running and how's the
campaign going so far?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well? I think, Brian, that the cost of our freedom
is eternal vigilance, and the threats are constantly evolving. Our
enemies certainly would love to be able to control our elections,
at the very least be able to influence them. And
as your next Secretary of State, I want to make
sure that our elections are secure and I also want
to make sure that they're fair, and I have a
(00:49):
plan to make sure that our elections are both of those.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, what would you think, as it currently stands, what
is wrong with the current process in what way will
you fix it? When you are elected to be Secretary State.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, I'll tell you we do a very good job
with elections in the state of Ohio. But there are
a few things that I would make sure that we
are able to evolve and make sure that we build
upon the successes that we're already having and make our
election system even more secure. For one thing, I would
make sure that we have a front end citizenship check
(01:25):
to make sure that there are only Americans voting in
Ohio elections. You know, this idea of citizens being able
to vote in their government, having a social contract with
their government is so important to our constitutional republic. And
as a matter of fact, our current Secretary of State,
Frank LeRose, who's done a very good job. He led
(01:47):
the effort in twenty twenty two to make sure that
our constitution was amended to say that only American citizens
can vote in Ohio elections in a past with seventy
seven percent of the vote. So that's the first thing
I would do is I'd move to a front end
citizenship check. And we can do that if we work
(02:07):
with the federal government and the Trump administration make sure
that we have access to those databases.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Now that's so far. I saw this recent article and
I don't know if Ohio uses Dominion voting systems. A
lot of red flags being weighed about this big company.
I guess more than twenty states used Dominion. It just
got bought out by a Missouri tech entrepreneur, former Republican
director of Saint Louis City Board of Elections, a guy
named Scott Liendecker, And he announced this the other day.
(02:33):
As of today, Dominion is gone. Liberty Vote assumes full
ownership and operational control. He's a pro paper ballot kind
of guy. So does that transfer of dominion ownership mean
anything to Ohio? Do we use dominion? And this suggests
made me a movement in the right direction. A lot
of people are still still hankering to get their paper
ballots back because they have no faith in basically electronics,
(02:54):
and I understand that.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I do too, and I think that no matter who
owns the voting machines, at the end of the day,
you've got to be careful that they're not compromised. And
so that's why the second thing I would do as
your next Secretary of Status, I would make sure that
we move to all paper ballots in every county in
every election that we have in the state of Ohio.
And I used to work at Ernst and Young when
(03:18):
I when I first graduated from college. And what they
will tell you is that the paper ballot gives you
a beautiful audit trail. You can always go back and
you can count the paper. And as a matter of fact,
that's the requirement of the Ohio Constitution, is that we
vote by ballot, which is a secret piece of paper.
(03:38):
And being able to check on the paper and tabulate
the paper gives you a check on the machines. The
paper is never wrong. And so I want to move
to all paper ballots in the state of Ohio. Sixty
percent of the counties are already there. That's the way
they vote. You have a separate piece of paper. You
can see who you voted for, and then you submit
(03:59):
it in the ballot box and then it's tabulated. It's
the best way for us to vote in the state
of Ohio.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Scored some points in my listening audience for that one. Sir,
appreciate that got to have a paper trail, all right,
pivoting over in your role as our treasure. What is
the Buckeye Loan program? I saw this just announcing you
just launched this.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
This is a fabulous new program. We want to bring
production back to the state of Ohio. We want to
bring jobs back to the state of Ohio. Manufacturing has
always been the backbone of our state, and so we're
starting there with our brand new Buckeye Business Advantage. If
you're a listener right now and you happen to have
a small company under one hundred and fifty employees, you
(04:41):
will qualify. If you want to expand your balance sheet,
if you can take out with the financial institution, your
local financial institution, you can take out up to a
million dollar loan to expand your business. It could be
working capital. This is flexible capital. It could be it
could be you expanding your plant, it could be putting
(05:03):
in that new product line. And we will reduce the
interest rate on that million dollar loan by up to
three percent for up to two years for you. And
that's the big deal, because look, all the federal news
is about the lowering of interest rates, correct, And here
we are lowering interest rates with the state's twenty five
(05:25):
billion dollar balance sheet by three hundred basis points three percent,
front running the Fed just lowered by zero point two
five percent or twenty five basis points. So this is
a way that we can put our balance sheet to work.
The first thing we're doing is we're focusing on manufacturing
because that's our bread and butter as a state. October
(05:46):
is manufacturing month. And then we anticipate coming out with
some other focuses on small businesses. But this is a
great thing to help our state bring back jobs, bring
back production, bring back and know how. And I think
that this is going to be a big help to
a lot of these small businesses.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well, and you're still getting points on the loan too.
It's not like you're giving it away for free. They
have to pay back. It's just a lesser loan rate.
I mean, that's a great incentive for folks to go
out and borrow the money. Because million dollars borrowed at
what current bank rates, that's a sizable difference over a
three point drop.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, three point drop is actually real money for a
lot of these small businesses, and it could be the
difference between them being able to expand or not. Right,
And I love what you said, Brian, because it's not
as if we're stepping in as the government and giving
a grant. It's actually the private market, capitalism at work.
You've got to get the loan from a private institution.
(06:43):
But we'll do our part in the back office plumbing
of lowering the interest rate.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I think that's an important component. That you're still working
with a bank who does due diligence and evaluates the
nature of your business and your credit worthiness. So the
bank is actually doing the laboring or of work, or
the state the States is backing it up with its
own financial resources. I think this sounds like an excellent idea, and.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
There's no risk at the Treasure's office. I mean, ultimately,
the bank or the financial institution has to underwrite that.
From other words, back it up with their own money,
so there's no risk to us. So this is a
win win for everybody, and we hope that it'll help
us small businesses expand and help our state grow economically.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
All right, I will acknowledge my ignorance on the entire topic.
I regularly refer to cryptocurrency as like the peace of God,
it passes all human understanding, while I at least acknowledge
it passes Brian Thomas's understanding. Listen, my MENSA membership is
worthless when it comes to stuff like this. It doesn't
mean anything, and it never has. But what's the story
on the state of Ohio accepting crypto in connection with
(07:46):
certain transactions.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Well, i'll tell you what. We decided that the Treasure's Office,
we could either follow everybody else, all these other states
that are being able to accept cryptocurrency as payment, or
we could lead. And there are a few states out
there that are doing it already. But we have decided
that if we lead, we get to determine the process,
we get to make it secure, and so we've decided
(08:12):
that we are going to launch a brand new crypto
payment platform. The future is this digital currency. Everybody's going
to want to pay with their phone with Apple, pay
with PayPal, with stable coin, with bitcoin, with ethereum, and
pretty soon, I think what you're going to see is
it's not just people that are going to want to
pay with these digital currencies. It is also corporations because
(08:36):
it is instantaneous and in many ways it's cheaper and
it's more secure. So there are some valuable reasons to
do it. We're going to do it the right way.
We are going to develop a cryptocurrency payment platform for
the entire state. That way you can pay in cryptocurrency
(08:56):
will if you want to, and we are immediately It's
going to happen actually outside the Treasure's office, but we
are going to immediately make sure that it's transferred and
transformed into US dollars, and so we will only hold
the US dollars. We will not be holding cryptocurrency, but
it will facilitate the payment. And by the way, the
(09:19):
state is not paying that user fee. The user is
paying a user fee to be able to use that
new product. We think that we are going to have
the best and the safest product in the United States
of America. We just went through the RFP process and
the Board of Deposit approved it unanimously, and we're looking
forward to getting that up and running.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And briefly, don't want to hold you up because I
know we only have you this one segment. Sir Robert Spring,
Treasurer running for Secretary of State. How do you do again,
going back to my ignorance on the topic, how do
you deal with the volatility at crypto? I mean, one
day bitcoin's trading for twenty thousand dollars, the next thing
is trading for thirty thousand dollars. Then it's back to fifteen.
I know I'm overstating the volatility of it, and trust me,
I have no faith in the FIO currency, but the
(10:01):
American dollar does not struggle with that level of volatility
on a day to day basis. I guess if i
got one hundred dollars bill and I'm paying with crypto,
crypto's worth x amount one day and maybe less than
next tomorrow, how does that translate into something that you
can use? Or real briefly with Robert S.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Bragg, that's a great question, Brian, and just real briefly. Bitcoin,
because there's a limited amount of it, which is what
makes it valuable, it goes up and down huge volatility
every day. You could pay in bitcoin, and the transaction
obviously digitally, is almost instantaneous, and so I guess that's
(10:38):
how you deal with the volatility. But there's also stable coin,
and stable coin is a digital coin, but it's basically
a money market account. It's a share in a money
market account, and so it's backed up. For every stable coin,
it's backed up by a United States dollar and then
that dollar is in the money market account. It's invested
(11:00):
in United States Treasury short term treasury, so it basically
operates just like a money market account. Of those stable
coins are pegged one to one to the United States dollar.
So you can see now the difference between the bitcoin
and the stable coin, and you can see where corporations
would you know, maybe one of transact more and more
(11:21):
transactions in the stable coin type of a digital currency,
which will be instantaneous, safer. And the other advantage from
the Treasure's office standpoint that people don't think about. When
you write a check to the Treasure's office, it does
not cost you anything, but it costs the treasure in
the state of Ohio a lot because those checks are
(11:44):
pieces of paper, and it costs us actually a great
deal to process all that paper. Understand So, there definitely
are advantages of moving into digital currency direction, but we
have to be very careful. We're being cautious, we're being prouded.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I appreciate the prudence and the caution if we enter
into the great unknown. Robert Sprague's running for a Secretary
of State. He's currently our treasurer. Help him out on
his campaign. Sprague for Ohio dot Com. Robertspregg, I appreciate
your willingness to come on the Morning show. Over the
over the over the years, and I wish you the
best in the future and I look forward to having
you as Ohiose Secretary of State and further conversations down
(12:17):
the road, Sir
Brian Thomas News
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