Speaker 1: I want to be an American idiot got put on
Speaker 1: seven hundred WW.
Speaker 2: So what's the state of Ohio taking away from you today?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Yesterday it was THC drinks, you know, because that's killed
Speaker 1: in a lot of people share today. How about some
Speaker 1: higher taxes. Are you a fan of higher taxes. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of higher taxes. So the Ohio legislature,
Speaker 1: the General Assembly, is moving to tax you, mister and
Speaker 1: missus homeowner if you decide that you're going to rent
Speaker 1: out your home like Airbnb or Verbo for a few days.
Speaker 1: Seems to me like a raw deal, you know, new taxes.
Speaker 1: There's no protections in here. Local governments can still ban
Speaker 1: you from doing entirely. Doesn't feel like free enterprise to me.
Speaker 1: Joining the show from the Buckeye Institute in Columbus is
Speaker 1: Greg Laws and Greg.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: We have this, as you know, being in Ohio, you
Speaker 1: know we have this insane property tax burden going on
Speaker 1: right now, some people paying three hundred percent more property taxes.
Speaker 1: There's a move to eliminate property taxes entirely. And now
Speaker 1: this is this a good idea?
Speaker 3: Well, it's certainly not a good idea to just tax people.
Speaker 3: There's an argument that in some areas that don't have
Speaker 3: like as many hotels, especially some rural areas, that they
Speaker 3: still have what they call visitor and bureau visitor bureau
Speaker 3: conventions that with tourism, that they that there may be
Speaker 3: a need for something. But the concern we have is
Speaker 3: that there are several bills out there, and one of them,
Speaker 3: in particular, unfortunately, House Bill one sixty one, is just
Speaker 3: a tax bill. It just applies the logic tax to
Speaker 3: an airbnb or verbo or any of these short term rentals.
Speaker 3: But it does nothing about what is a growing problem
Speaker 3: in Ohio, which is that local governments are oftentimes preventing
Speaker 3: people from doing it. They're putting bands on airbnbs and verbos.
Speaker 3: That's something that is happening under the home rules stuff.
Speaker 3: I think we've talked about them earlier before, and and
Speaker 3: we think that's a terrible situation. Uh So, you know,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you this, You can't just flat tax on
Speaker 3: something and then just give keep government with the power
Speaker 3: to just continue to stand things. It really is violating
Speaker 3: people's personal property rights. And we think that's the bad idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess your local municipality.
Speaker 1: If you have a problem with the your HOA can
Speaker 1: ban people from doing that, and you sign your rights
Speaker 1: away when you do that. You buy property there. Here's
Speaker 1: the rules. You want to move there or not. Okay,
Speaker 1: I can't buy round. You know, I own rental property.
Speaker 1: There's someone's I own that that are part of an
Speaker 1: HOA where you can't rent them out. Okay, fine, great,
Speaker 1: but I knew that going ahead of time, coming back
Speaker 1: and then taxing people for something they're already paying taxes
Speaker 1: on seems criminal to me. You're already paying the property tax.
Speaker 1: I got to pay you more tax because I'm renting
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 3: Well, the argument is that you have hotels that already
Speaker 3: have these taxes that are applying to them, and I
Speaker 3: and the hotels have have for a long time made
Speaker 3: the case that with the advent of all these new
Speaker 3: things short term rentals, that they're being taxed and that's
Speaker 3: but that's essentially an unfair competition, and that it's making
Speaker 3: sure that they don't have the revenue to go back
Speaker 3: into again some of these various marketing things and stuff
Speaker 3: that happens in different counties for tourism. So that's the
Speaker 3: argument that's there. And you know, first of all, we
Speaker 3: don't like new taxes.
Speaker 2: Guys.
Speaker 3: It's always been against new taxes. But what I testified
Speaker 3: last week took committee on this in the Ohio House Representatives.
Speaker 3: The argument that we made is we certainly don't like
Speaker 3: taxes if you're not going to make sure that people
Speaker 3: are protecting And I think this is the thing that
Speaker 3: it's so to me, we just about what's happening across
Speaker 3: the high most governments is these bands. I get people
Speaker 3: are worried about having a party house in their neighborhoods
Speaker 3: that isn't under control. And there's several things that deal
Speaker 3: with this. First of all, you can still have and
Speaker 3: should still be able to have local loosen flaws and
Speaker 3: things that kind of people are doing crazy stuff or
Speaker 3: you know, having animal house happening and you know next
Speaker 3: door to you. You know, there's ways to address it.
Speaker 3: By the way, folks like Airbnb have policies for the
Speaker 3: platform where if you start doing things like that, you're
Speaker 3: renting it out and you maybe one time you can
Speaker 3: get away with it. But you know, it's like I
Speaker 3: think it's like a three times in you're out sort
Speaker 3: of thing where if this is a recurring pattern and
Speaker 3: you're not taking responsibility in your neighborhood with your property.
Speaker 3: You can't use their platform anymore to rent it out.
Speaker 3: So we have protections for people. We shouldn't be banning them,
Speaker 3: but we certainly shouldn't be taxing people and then not
Speaker 3: guaranteeing that you still can have the right to do
Speaker 3: what you want to with your ro.
Speaker 1: From Yeah, I want to circle back on the zero
Speaker 1: protection argument that you made there, Greg Lawson, and I
Speaker 1: think that's true. You know, we have nuisance laws in
Speaker 1: Cincinnati and I could never figure this out. Is if
Speaker 1: you own property in Cincinnati and you rent it out
Speaker 1: and people are you know, either Airbnb or verbal or
Speaker 1: just rental just you know, regular rental, long term rail,
Speaker 1: short timroil, if those people are causing a problem and
Speaker 1: then you know, causing the neighborhood maybe racing up and
Speaker 1: down the street, or there's trash all over the place,
Speaker 1: or playing loud music right there, nuisance, the city of
Speaker 1: Cincinnati makes somehow the landlord eventually responsible for that. Like no,
Speaker 1: if you're an adult and you're running property and you
Speaker 1: are doing stuff like that, that that that that's on
Speaker 1: the city that's on law enforcement to cite that person
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be on the landlord. I mean, if they're
Speaker 1: in there dealing drugs and I know about it may
Speaker 1: be a different story. But if they're just a nuisance,
Speaker 1: that's the individual's responsibility. I you know, I don't get
Speaker 1: a ticket speeding ticket because you know my son uses
Speaker 1: my car, let's say. And that was the argument with
Speaker 1: speed cameras obviously, is you're citing me for something I
Speaker 1: can't control.
Speaker 2: That's that's on them. Give them the ticket.
Speaker 3: We should the people who are doing the offense of people.
Speaker 3: That should be right. Both that's the law and that's
Speaker 3: exactly right. That's what should happen. Now if you're if
Speaker 3: you're again doing this on an ongoing basis where you're
Speaker 3: not taking care of that the people that you have
Speaker 3: coming in and this is a an isolated incident that's
Speaker 3: happening all the time, I think there may be a
Speaker 3: little bit of a different argument there because at that
Speaker 3: point you are sort of not taking the responsibility with
Speaker 3: your own property at that point, and then you are
Speaker 3: having an effort impact from your neighbors and stuff. But
Speaker 3: the point that it is disturbing about this is when
Speaker 3: when you make these blank determinations by the local governments
Speaker 3: just not doing which is actually, I think really remarkable.
Speaker 3: We need to because you mentioned earlier we have this
Speaker 3: profit tax issue here, and we have local governments who
Speaker 3: should be scared quite a bit about the prospects of
Speaker 3: that making the ballot. Whether it does or not, nobody
Speaker 3: can say for sure at this point because they haven't
Speaker 3: submitted signatures for this constitucial mekema. But if that happens,
Speaker 3: you never believe they're going to want to have some revenue.
Speaker 3: But you're gonna have a hard time having revenue by
Speaker 3: the time you start fanning everybody from being able to
Speaker 3: do those things. It just makes no sense from so
Speaker 3: many different perspectives.
Speaker 2: Well, what is it great?
Speaker 3: Great?
Speaker 2: Where does it end?
Speaker 1: I mean, like, if I'm I use my house, let's say,
Speaker 1: for my small business, do I have to pay an
Speaker 1: extra tax there?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: My my spouse is really good, makes sour dough bread,
Speaker 1: and she's them some soured oat bread.
Speaker 2: Do I have to?
Speaker 1: I mean, where do win with the taxation here? I'm
Speaker 1: already paying the damn property taxes, We're you're too damn high.
Speaker 1: And now if I rent it out, I've got to
Speaker 1: pay even more. You mentioned to zero protections for the
Speaker 1: whole What does that mean the zero protection area.
Speaker 3: Well, we're basically saying that people have the right to
Speaker 3: be able to make decisions with what they want to
Speaker 3: do with their property. Obviously with the reason you know,
Speaker 3: you know, there are certain things where you can't let
Speaker 3: your property go to the hell and a hand askt
Speaker 3: and stuff of that nature. But this whole notion, and
Speaker 3: it's happening in jurisdiction after jurisdiction where they can come
Speaker 3: in and stop it. And I harp on this point
Speaker 3: because this is not isolating. What this isn't one or
Speaker 3: two jurisdictions, and it isn't just one or two places
Speaker 3: in the state. Really, it's all over the state the proportion,
Speaker 3: So it's not it's not just a regional phenomenon. And
Speaker 3: this is the problem that I see, which is local government,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of running them off with these things. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a it's actually a much bigger issue. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's there's a whole bunch of problems frankly with local
Speaker 3: government Inhia, and I think I've molmented some of those
Speaker 3: in the past your show and probably will again we're
Speaker 3: on the same page, and this is just one more
Speaker 3: example of it. So you know, again, UH, there's some
Speaker 3: bills that are out there, by the way, UH that
Speaker 3: would have some degree, would would maybe do the tax,
Speaker 3: but would include prohibitions and preempt local governments from being
Speaker 3: able to do the banning of the short term rentals.
Speaker 2: How does how does local How does the home rule
Speaker 2: apply there?
Speaker 3: Though, well, I'm sure they'll sue uh and make an
Speaker 3: argument that that's violation. But if it's written the right way,
Speaker 3: the legislature does have the ability to write laws that
Speaker 3: are of statewide applicability. Now that's a will. Sometimes it's
Speaker 3: been in the eye of beholder, and there's been a
Speaker 3: lot of push and pull, frankly between the General Assembly
Speaker 3: and local governments, especially in recent years, over many different things.
Speaker 3: There's been Second Amendment issues, there's been issues like plastic bags, UH,
Speaker 3: some jurisdictions way into band cracking, and so there's all
Speaker 3: these various things that have happened.
Speaker 2: We've made the.
Speaker 3: Case of the buck I speak, that the general simply
Speaker 3: had the right to be able to do preemption because
Speaker 3: if you allow all these locals to prevent all sorts
Speaker 3: of different activity. Short term rentals, it's certainly one of them.
Speaker 3: But you know, we're seeing this with data centers too
Speaker 3: now coming out, so we're seeing a lot of these things,
Speaker 3: and the general simply has acted in the past to
Speaker 3: say no, you can't do that. They and we think
Speaker 3: that under certain circumstances that is an appropriate thing, because
Speaker 3: what you end up with is you end up with
Speaker 3: a you know, it's sort of a little bit of
Speaker 3: a joke to say it this way, but it's a
Speaker 3: crazy patchwork of different regulations and US terurisdictions. But that
Speaker 3: makes it hard to do different things. And it's one
Speaker 3: of the problems Ohio has, and it's a mid Western
Speaker 3: state issue in general because of sort of the history there.
Speaker 3: But when you look at southern states and you look
Speaker 3: at Western states, and you look at things that are
Speaker 3: really growing with populations that are really expanding. You know,
Speaker 3: you can talk about the weather and stuff, and I'm
Speaker 3: sure that has some degree of influence, but it's taxes.
Speaker 3: It's regulations and kind of taxes and regulations now are
Speaker 3: worse at the local level than they are at the
Speaker 3: state level. Well, that is something that she needs to
Speaker 3: deal with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look at it this way.
Speaker 1: Kathy Hochele, governor in New York State, she went on
Speaker 1: Camp Patriot said, hey, listen, you know, if you're if
Speaker 1: you're a billionaire, if you've got all this money, uh,
Speaker 1: we don't want you here unless you're gonna pay your
Speaker 1: fair share. Well, guess what I just saw a study
Speaker 1: where a huge number of them have moved to Texas,
Speaker 1: cal I think Arizona, California, some some of California, don't
Speaker 1: know why, but to Texas primarily. And now she's she's
Speaker 1: begging those people to come back because they you know,
Speaker 1: she guys said, I'm gonna screw you when it comes
Speaker 1: to Texas.
Speaker 2: You should be paying your fair share.
Speaker 1: Well guess what liberal Democrat or conservative Republican aside, they
Speaker 1: all moved out of the state and now they don't
Speaker 1: have enough money to pay for their what it is
Speaker 1: they want to do. The same thing would apply here.
Speaker 1: I mean Indiana, Florida and Arizona also do this as well,
Speaker 1: where they blocked local short term rental bands in Ohio
Speaker 1: wants to be next by the way, Greg law since
Speaker 1: here from Buckeye Institute in Columbus, as the state of
Speaker 1: Ohio yesterday took the THG drinks away. Today higher taxes
Speaker 1: at the top of the insane property tax were paying. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to rent out your home of a
Speaker 1: weekend as someone, they want to tax you and there's
Speaker 1: no protections there for you, basically meaning they're going to
Speaker 1: tax the activity and not protect your right to do it.
Speaker 1: And you know you could pay taxes today and face
Speaker 1: a local band tomorrow in your state or in your
Speaker 1: township municipality. HOA is different because that's part of the
Speaker 1: deal when you buy something in an HOA. But Greg Lawson,
Speaker 1: I can't help but think back to all of these
Speaker 1: seismic shifts, these change agents that happened in the world
Speaker 1: back in the day when Uber and Lyft came along.
Speaker 1: I remember tax I remember the cab drivers Like at
Speaker 1: CBG at the airport, we're up an arms saying wait, well,
Speaker 1: hold on just a second. If you have these independent
Speaker 1: people coming in not panting tax they're not paying all
Speaker 1: these fees and fares, what about they wanted to protect
Speaker 1: their industry. I think the same thing is happening here
Speaker 1: with the rentals. This has got to be the hotel
Speaker 1: motel industry that pays an exorbitant amount of taxes, Like
Speaker 1: every time we raise a tax, well, we'll just add
Speaker 1: to the luxury check. We'll just add to the hotel
Speaker 1: motel tax on this. And when you get a hotel
Speaker 1: night for I don't know, one hundred and fifty bucks,
Speaker 1: you get the bill and it's like, you know, almost
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars are probably more than two hundred because
Speaker 1: of the taxes added on here. I feel for the
Speaker 1: established businesses like hotels motels in this case taxes, I
Speaker 1: mean New York City alone, the price of a hack medallion,
Speaker 1: which basically is a transferable physical license plate that's a
Speaker 1: round circle to medallion and they attach it to the
Speaker 1: hood of a yellow cab in New York the cost
Speaker 1: of one of those medallions is now over a million dollars.
Speaker 1: So from a business perspective, it doesn't seem fair that
Speaker 1: they're competing with uber and left drivers who don't have
Speaker 1: to pay that exorbitant tax.
Speaker 2: I think this is the same model.
Speaker 3: Well, I think this is a broad that's a big
Speaker 3: question about taxation and what's a fair tax where everybody
Speaker 3: is and when you're nailing certain people, they're going to
Speaker 3: get very upset about the new entrance into the marketplace,
Speaker 3: and so they're gonna you know, they prefer them to
Speaker 3: you know, not enter the marketplanes, but they certainly want
Speaker 3: them to do that. And that's just where you start
Speaker 3: hearing about the level playing field argument, which on one
Speaker 3: hand is correct. That's an economic theory. It says it
Speaker 3: it's a right thing to do is to make sure
Speaker 3: that people that are similar kinds of businesses aren't being
Speaker 3: disproportionately impacted one versus another because of a specific rule
Speaker 3: or in taxation. You want it to be fair across
Speaker 3: the board. And so that's certainly the argument they're using.
Speaker 3: And I think you have to look at what are
Speaker 3: we doing with these revenues. I mean, we've had lodging
Speaker 3: tetch for a while, and unfortunately it's a sort of
Speaker 3: scene that the Sophiallo counters like kind of right, because
Speaker 3: what you're essentially saying is we're going to raise the
Speaker 3: revenue on the backs of people who don't necessarily live
Speaker 3: so that we can do that. Now, you know, I
Speaker 3: mean they that is, I mean, Florida certainly does do
Speaker 3: that with some of their taxes and stuff, because they
Speaker 3: have a lot of tourism and stuff. That comes through there. Uh,
Speaker 3: and so I get what the rationale is, but we
Speaker 3: need to be really careful how we think about this.
Speaker 3: And when we're doing this, and you occasionally see bills
Speaker 3: and or things and budget builds and stuff, they'll had
Speaker 3: an additional thing for one visitor Beuera overs another visitors bureau.
Speaker 3: And I'm not trying to just brag on them. They
Speaker 3: can't help to raise awareness, to get it, do certain
Speaker 3: things to build the infrastructure to bring in concert or
Speaker 3: conferences or what are sporting events and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: and so there may be sum rationale for some of that,
Speaker 3: but we need to be very careful when we're applying
Speaker 3: this and then when we start ap playing it to
Speaker 3: new people, we need to really think about what we're
Speaker 3: doing and how we're spending the existing resources that we have.
Speaker 1: Greg Laws and Buckeye and watch out for it. It's
Speaker 1: House Bill one sixty one, come in for more property taxes.
Speaker 1: Basically what this is all the best, Thanks again, Budd, appreciate.
Speaker 3: You, Thank you.
Speaker 1: We'll get a news update in here momentarily on the
Speaker 1: big one seven hundred w Ody. This is why I
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning and to see how we're
Speaker 1: going to get screwed the next day and then talk
Speaker 1: to you about it. Coming up next, Andy Schaeffer, we'll
Speaker 1: look at the other side of this thing. If you're
Speaker 1: hearing this, go oh, it's too much. Hold on just
Speaker 1: a second. I got some information for it. It's going
Speaker 1: to make you a little bit happier today, despite all
Speaker 1: the craziness in the world.
Speaker 2: Simply money. Next seven hundred ww