Philip is a great businessman, dad and husband. He is a friend of mine who I believe is the best choice for Kansas governor. We go far and deep into his plans. And we find out what he has uncovered about problems with the current administration and what he knows about fixing our state.

Check this episode out! Bookmark it and share with everyone it. And GET OUT AND

VOTE!! The Kansas Republican primary is August 4th!

Learn more about Philip: https://philipsarnecki.org/

This is season 22 episode 21 of America's Healthcare Advocate. I'm Cary Hall.

Have a question for me: Click "Contact Us"

As always, if you need help or have something to share, contact me using this form on my website and let me know what's on your mind, the issues you are dealing with, or any other health, healthcare, or health insurance questions or concerns.

Episode 2221 Transcript:

00;00;00;03 - 00;00;18;24

Cary Hall

Hello, this is Cary Hall, America's Healthcare Advocate. You know, I live in Kansas. Do you know that we have the highest tax rate of any of our neighboring states? The lowest growth rate, 1.4%. We have the highest property taxes, which seems to be on everybody's mind. You want change? Listen to today's show. Philip Sarnecki is running for governor.

00;00;18;29 - 00;00;32;05

Cary Hall

He will make changes, starting with auditing every branch of the Kansas government for fraud and waste. Stay tuned. Learn why you should vote for Philip Sarnecki.

00;00;32;08 - 00;00;35;09

Announcer

This is America's Healthcare Advocate.

00;00;35;11 - 00;00;38;01

Announcer

Your guide to protecting your personal health.

00;00;38;02 - 00;00;45;21

Announcer

Bringing you simplified answers to the complex questions surrounding health care. Empowering you to take control.

00;00;45;21 - 00;00;47;06

Announcer

Of your health and wellness.

00;00;47;06 - 00;00;49;21

Cary Hall

My very special guest today, Grace Marie Turner.

00;00;49;22 - 00;00;53;13

Grace Maria Turner

Cary, it's a pleasure to be with you. And I do have to say you are the most.

00;00;53;13 - 00;00;54;14

Grace Maria Turner

Knowledgeable about.

00;00;54;14 - 00;00;59;04

Grace Maria Turner

Health policy. Just superlative!

00;00;59;06 - 00;01;07;01

Cary Hall

Broadcasting Coast to Coast across the USA.

00;01;07;04 - 00;01;29;09

Cary Hall

Fact versus fiction. This is what we mean by separating fact and fiction on the subject of health care. Just walk me through this. That's kind of like drinking from a fire hose. You know, we do these shows for a reason.

00;01;29;12 - 00;01;33;16

Announcer

And now, America's Healthcare Advocate, Cary Hall.

00;01;33;17 - 00;02;01;00

Cary Hall

Hello, America. Welcome to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across USA. Here on the HIA Radio Network. You know, you can find out more about us by going up on our website. Also, all these shows are on our podcast YouTube platform. By the way, the new number for downloads 702,897. It is quite remarkable, that all of you out there keep downloading these shows and we just keep this number rolling along.

00;02;01;01 - 00;02;17;20

Cary Hall

Thanks to our producers, Mr. Dave Thiessen and Garner Cowdery, who put all this together and make it happen. Mr. Thiessen does all of the videos, the podcast and YouTube stuff, does a great job of it. And then Garner, obviously over here on the audio in the Cumulus studio. So thank you once again to all of you for listening.

00;02;17;22 - 00;02;24;20

Cary Hall

And to all of you who download these shows on podcast and YouTube. Joining me in studio is this our second and third show I can't wait. It's our third.

00;02;24;21 - 00;02;26;05

Philip Sarnecki

Third. We didn't want to say that.

00;02;26;06 - 00;02;31;20

Cary Hall

Yes, we did our third show. The next governor of the state of Kansas. Philip Sarnecki, our next. Welcome, governor.

00;02;31;21 - 00;02;33;07

Philip Sarnecki

Cary, great to be with you. Thank you.

00;02;33;07 - 00;02;51;00

Cary Hall

Great to be back. It is it's great to have you here. Yes, he is a candidate for governor. And we're going to be talking about the primaries coming up here. But, glad to have you back here. Have seen a couple of your ads. I like the issues. These are very issue oriented ads as opposed to some of the others that I'm seeing.

00;02;51;02 - 00;03;04;16

Cary Hall

And I think that's what people are going to be looking for. Philip. So how is this going? I mean, I, I know you're all over the place here in studio very early this morning because I know you've probably got five different stops to make today. So how is the campaign going?

00;03;04;19 - 00;03;11;29

Philip Sarnecki

Campaign's going great. There's amazing energy all over the state. I mean, we have been everywhere from Sharon Springs and Goodland.

00;03;11;29 - 00;03;15;13

Cary Hall

To where he shared that that's one of, you know, where is Shoron Springs?

00;03;15;16 - 00;03;21;29

Philip Sarnecki

That's mountain time zone. You're all most to Colorado. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. We had an event in Goodland. I think we had about.

00;03;21;29 - 00;03;22;26

Cary Hall

I’ve been to Goodland.

00;03;22;26 - 00;03;30;17

Philip Sarnecki

About 100 people that evening. Okay. We've been to Dodge City Liberal. Garden City. Wamego, Pratt.

00;03;30;20 - 00;03;36;04

Cary Hall

Liberal. Kansas people not liberal in Dodge. That's right. You know. That's right. Got folks out in western Kansas are not liberals.

00;03;36;04 - 00;03;56;00

Philip Sarnecki

Just so we're not that many. We've been to Wichita area a lot. I mean, my my treasurer is from the Wichita are my lieutenant governor candidates from the Wichita area. You know, I've owned businesses down there for 20 years, both on the financial services side and the Quick Lube side. My sister lives in Derby, so we, we've spent a lot of time down in the Wichita area.

00;03;56;02 - 00;04;16;18

Philip Sarnecki

Obviously, Heidi and I live up here in Bucyrus, so we've literally been all over the state and the energy that we're getting is amazing. We had an event last Wednesday night in Haysville. If you know where Haysville is. Yeah, just south of Wichita. Yeah. And I was told I didn't count, but we had 263 people, at that event.

00;04;16;18 - 00;04;30;20

Philip Sarnecki

And just amazing energy. People are tired of career politicians, they are tired of politics as usual. And of course, I'm telling people, well, if you're tired of politics as usual, let's stop voting for politicians.

00;04;30;23 - 00;04;32;09

Cary Hall

And that's really the message.

00;04;32;09 - 00;04;33;03

Philip Sarnecki

Yeah, 100%.

00;04;33;05 - 00;04;56;03

Cary Hall

And I think, I think you've tapped into something. I said just earlier when you opened up that, you know, I've seen your commercials and you're talking about issues. Not who endorsed you or this or that or something else. You're talking about issues and to me, I think there's a hunger for that right now. Especially in this state, you know, where we think we're in, you know, red state, Kansas.

00;04;56;03 - 00;05;15;14

Cary Hall

And that's questionable in some cases. Okay. We've got a Democrat governor who's done everything she can to increase the state's payroll and the number of employees in the state. And expand services that don't need to be expanded at the taxpayers expense. Meanwhile, raising taxes is a surplus sitting in the bank. But why are we continued to raise taxes?

00;05;15;14 - 00;05;20;10

Cary Hall

And why are we spending that money to add more layers of government when what we've got is not working?

00;05;20;12 - 00;05;42;17

Philip Sarnecki

Our state government is crushing people across the state of Kansas. We are you know, I we've talked about this before, but our income tax is the highest of every state in our region. Our corporate tax and sales tax are the second highest of every state in our region. Our property taxes are far, far, far and away. That is the number one issue I hear all over the state, really.

00;05;42;17 - 00;05;44;24

Cary Hall

Not just Johnson County, because we go.

00;05;44;26 - 00;05;45;16

Philip Sarnecki

Oh no, no, no.

00;05;45;17 - 00;05;46;24

Cary Hall

Ours is absolutely the worst.

00;05;47;00 - 00;06;13;06

Philip Sarnecki

It's all over the state. It's the number one issue. And if you take those same states around us and you average them out, our property taxes are about 50% higher than those states on average. So property taxes aren't a problem in every state, but they're a massive problem in the state of Kansas. And unfortunately, you know, Ty Masterson and the leadership in the legislature, they've promised property tax relief for at least three straight years to the people of the state of Kansas.

00;06;13;08 - 00;06;33;16

Philip Sarnecki

And they've delivered nothing. Just a lot of talk. They haven't delivered anything. Yet what they have delivered is they they've delivered property tax relief to green energy, wind farms, foreign companies. So there's property tax relief to go around. Just not for the people of the state of Kansas.

00;06;33;19 - 00;06;52;27

Cary Hall

Yeah, I guess I'm in Johnson County. I definitely because I live here okay. And and you know, we're in the Blue Valley School District. My grandchildren go to school there. It's a great school district, they do a wonderful job. But the property taxes are insane. I mean, they are absolutely insane here. And they keep going up. This went up again this year and just keep going up every year.

00;06;53;04 - 00;07;09;20

Cary Hall

And we're we're fortunate we're able to afford to pay it. That doesn't mean I like paying it. But there are a lot of people especially I'm 77 years old. There are a lot of people in my age bracket and below me in age bracket who this is a real burden for their on fixed income retirement. They aren't still working.

00;07;09;20 - 00;07;23;00

Cary Hall

I'm blessed by the fact that I can still do this, but some people are literally going to lose their homes because they can't afford to pay the property tax. So where is the senior property tax relief discussion that has been discussed? What about that?

00;07;23;01 - 00;07;43;25

Philip Sarnecki

Well, the the stories around the state that I hear for the last ten months while we've been on the campaign trail would break your heart. I mean, I had a woman come up to me. Her her husband died. She's been in her house for 36 years. The house is paid off, but she said she's going to have to sell it because she can't afford the property taxes that continue to increase.

00;07;43;27 - 00;08;08;28

Philip Sarnecki

And we hear stories like that all over the state. People are hurting. And they you know what I what I tell people is why has green energy? Why has why have wind farms? Why have foreign companies? Why are they gotten property tax relief? Because they have lobbyists. And unfortunately, the lobbyists are they have way too much influence in Topeka.

00;08;09;01 - 00;08;29;25

Philip Sarnecki

And the people of the state of Kansas don't have lobbyists. So in this sense, I'm running to be the lobbyist for the people of the state of Kansas, and we're running to help them. And that's what we have to deliver, for people that are out there because people are hurting. This is why CNBC ranked our economy 48th as a state and gave us an f, you know, mood.

00;08;29;28 - 00;08;33;09

Cary Hall

Does that surprise you folks out there listening this? We got an F.

00;08;33;12 - 00;08;46;20

Philip Sarnecki

We got an F. Yeah. And, so it's, we've been overspending, overtaxing and overregulating the people and the businesses in the state of Kansas to death. And we've got to turn it around.

00;08;46;23 - 00;09;00;28

Cary Hall

And I think he's going to turn it around. And that's why I am praying and voting for him. And I hope that you're going to listen to this and do the same thing, because we need change in this state. We're going to talk more about why that is. We're going to talk about the tax situation versus where we stand with other states.

00;09;00;28 - 00;09;20;25

Cary Hall

We're going to talk about our education system, which these high property taxes are supposed to be supporting. What's it really doing? We'll talk about that and we'll talk about why don't we seem to attract more people to the state of Kansas. We're going to talk about all that we come back from the break. Stay tuned. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate Broadcasting here on the HIA Radio Network.

00;09;21;02 - 00;09;36;24

Cary Hall

Coast to coast across USA. Got the decks cover sitting right here. Stay right there.

00;09;36;26 - 00;10;01;09

Cary Hall

Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across the USA here on the HIA Radio Network. And I am proud to announce we have two more new affiliates in Topeka, Kansas, KCMO 102.9, brand new affiliate, part of the Cumulus family. We are on the air there now. That gives us three radio stations in Topeka, thanks to the folks at Cumulus and a brand new one in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

00;10;01;09 - 00;10;21;05

Cary Hall

So all you mountain people in West Virginia were very happy to be on the air there at 106.5 WRNR in Martinsburgurg, West Virginia 106.5 FM. Thank you to Mike Hornsby and the whole crew up there for putting us on the air. Very happy to welcome you into the America's Healthcare Advocate family. By the way, in studio with me again today.

00;10;21;05 - 00;10;41;27

Cary Hall

Philip Sarnecki, he is running for the governor state of Kansas. The website is PhilipSarnecki.org. It's spelled Philip has one l just one L, PhilipSarnecki.org. You can go up on his website. There's a lot of information up there. All these issues that we're talking about, they're up there on the website okay. So you can actually see what he's got to do on what he's talking about.

00;10;41;29 - 00;11;02;02

Cary Hall

My opinion, he's the most issue oriented candidate that we've got running for this office. And we definitely need a change from where we are. So let's get into this. You before we started this morning, I ask you what was the first thing you were going to do? And you said an audit. And I was like, Holy cow, I, I can see I can see I'm running for the hills.

00;11;02;02 - 00;11;10;18

Cary Hall

The minute that you announce you're going to start a. So explain what you're doing here because I think it's fascinating. And I would just love to hear how this is going to proceed.

00;11;10;22 - 00;11;28;22

Philip Sarnecki

Well, well, I think one of the things that our state government needs a lot more of is transparency. And we need to deliver that to the people of the state. They deserve to know where their tax dollars are going or their tax dollars are being spent. And so, I heard about a couple of other states that brought in independent outside auditors.

00;11;28;25 - 00;11;57;16

Philip Sarnecki

To audit every department and every agency across the entire state. Now, obviously, that's a big job, $26 billion annual budget, tens of thousands of employees not going to happen overnight, but we're going to start it right away. And we've actually talked to a couple of the firms that do this. And so we think there is there are billions of dollars, you know, a couple billion dollars of waste, fraud, across the entire state government in the state of Kansas.

00;11;57;19 - 00;12;06;29

Philip Sarnecki

One thing a lot of people may not know is we have the third most state employees per capita of any state in the country. I knew that, by the way. I.

00;12;06;29 - 00;12;10;01

Cary Hall

Think that's why I mentioned Laura Kelly keeps adding. Yeah, yeah.

00;12;10;01 - 00;12;38;03

Philip Sarnecki

Well, and we, only Alaska and South Dakota have more state employees per capita than Kansas does. And those are small states, which makes sense on a per capita basis. But, in Kansas, you know, it's a problem. And that $26 billion budget, we've added 10.5 billion of that in the last seven years with Republicans in charge of the state House, in the state Senate, including Supermajorities here most recently.

00;12;38;05 - 00;13;01;29

Philip Sarnecki

And so, unfortunately, we have a lot of Republicans that unfortunately not. And by the way, not all of them. There are some wonderful people in the legislature. I've been been endorsed by some of them publicly. We have people there that are supporting us privately. They want change as well. They know that they need a leadership change in the Republican Party, in the state of Kansas and in the state of Kansas.

00;13;01;29 - 00;13;24;21

Philip Sarnecki

When people learn about all these economic issues that are going on, it's like intuitively people know it. But what we're doing is we're giving them the empirical evidence to back up what they're feeling. And it's everywhere you look. Whether you look at taxes, spending, we've run deficits now for four months in a row here in the state of Kansas.

00;13;24;21 - 00;13;25;15

Cary Hall

I did not know that.

00;13;25;15 - 00;13;45;08

Philip Sarnecki

Yeah. We are spending more money than we're bringing in now. Whether you're a family, a business or a state, you have to understand work that doesn't work. That's not a good thing. And at the state level, when we already have the highest income tax of every state in our region, our property taxes are already totally out of control.

00;13;45;11 - 00;14;06;23

Philip Sarnecki

We have the second highest corporate tax rate, as I talked about in the first segment. And yet we're still running deficits. That tells you we have a massive spending problem in the state of Kansas. And that's one of the big reasons we're going to do that audit to start and find the waste, find the fraud. And we're going to start cutting expenses.

00;14;06;23 - 00;14;09;25

Philip Sarnecki

And we can start with the number of state employees that we have.

00;14;09;27 - 00;14;23;04

Cary Hall

So I want to go back to this $26 billion total budget. Billion, as in “B”. 10 billion in the last seven years. Ten and a half. Yup. Okay. So who have been the governors for the last seven and a half years.

00;14;23;06 - 00;14;23;13

Philip Sarnecki

Yeah, Laura Kelly.

00;14;23;13 - 00;14;31;19

Cary Hall

Thank you very much. She's added almost a third. It is a third. More to this budget. And what do we have to show for it.

00;14;31;22 - 00;14;34;06

Philip Sarnecki

Higher taxes.

00;14;34;08 - 00;15;01;15

Philip Sarnecki

Yeah. Higher taxes and an economy that's not growing. We our economy last year grew at about 1.4%. It was the worst in our region. It's actually one of the worst in the country. Just to give you a comparison, like Utah's similar size population as Kansas. They grew at almost 8%. Tennessee's another state that's just crushing it, which, by the way, Tennessee has a governor, Bill Lee, who's finishing up his second term, very successful.

00;15;01;16 - 00;15;01;28

Cary Hall

Oh, yeah.

00;15;02;02 - 00;15;17;19

Philip Sarnecki

He had never run for office prior to running for governor. He had come out of the business world, when I, you know, when Heidi and I started looking at this several years ago, there were a dozen governors around the country who had never run for office prior to running for governor. They all came out of the business world.

00;15;17;21 - 00;15;34;24

Philip Sarnecki

And several of them are, you know, right around us, governor Palin in Nebraska, Doug Burgum at the time, Kevin Stitt down in Oklahoma, governor Lee Glenn Youngkin in Virginia. There's a lot of governors who came out of the business world because functionally, I think it's a different job. You know, it's and it's called the executive branch.

00;15;34;25 - 00;15;42;13

Cary Hall

You when you first did this, you talked about being the CEO of Kansas. Yeah. It's a business. Yeah. Running it like a business.

00;15;42;16 - 00;16;00;17

Philip Sarnecki

Well in a lot of ways. Yeah I mean obviously there there are key differences. Well you're dealing with the legislature etc.. But you know I can't run a deficit in my business and just go back to the people of the state and say, hey, give me more money, I'm running my business poorly and we shouldn't be able to do that in the state of Kansas either.

00;16;00;17 - 00;16;25;03

Philip Sarnecki

We should run it with fiscal discipline and we should make some, decisions that are favorable for the people of the state of Kansas. And the other problem is we're just we can't compete as a state. You brought up, you know, population growth, we're dead last in our region from 2020 to 2026 in population growth and, well, why would people move here when, we don't have the jobs that we need?

00;16;25;03 - 00;16;37;18

Philip Sarnecki

Our economy is not growing. You know, we have the highest income tax in the region. Our property taxes, where they are people are not going to come to the state of Kansas. I mean, Missouri has a constitutional amendment on their ballot this fall.

00;16;37;19 - 00;17;00;28

Philip Sarnecki

To reduce. Income tax to zero. Yeah. Kevin Stitt wants to do that in Oklahoma. Sarah Huckabee Sanders wants to do it in Arkansas. We are already are struggling to compete. And as the states around us continue to lower their income tax, we are just getting crushed and we're going to have a even more difficult time competing for population growth, for economic growth, for businesses.

00;17;01;01 - 00;17;05;15

Philip Sarnecki

It's not a good situation, and we need some transformational change in the state of Kansas.

00;17;05;18 - 00;17;22;24

Cary Hall

Now, I know you did Kevin Ketzman’s show recently. Okay. Yes. And Ketzman’s talked about this issue a couple months ago when Keyhoe put this on the ballot in Missouri. And it was very interesting. He said, you know, my in-laws live in Lee's Summit. They said, I'm going to make a prediction. If Missouri passes the no income tax, it's gradual.

00;17;22;24 - 00;17;42;01

Cary Hall

It's not all at one time, but if they pass it, you're going to see a mass migration out of Overland Park. I mean, now maybe it won't be mass, but ask yourself a question. You know, if you're making a, you know, fairly decent income, you and your wife, your family, and you could put 6% of that back in your pocket, you could live in Lees Summit versus Overland Park.

00;17;42;03 - 00;18;05;29

Cary Hall

Maybe you'd take a look at the real estate in Lees Summit. So the point to what you said is if we're we're behind the eight ball now, if this passes in Missouri. Right, which, I know there's the unions are against it. I know Governor, mayor Q was against it, which was not surprising. You know, these people, but if this passes in Missouri, it's going to be a real problem for the state of Kansas.

00;18;05;29 - 00;18;23;17

Cary Hall

And, you know, we're coming up on the break here. When we come back, I want to hear what your reaction is to that and what you think will happen if this passes in Missouri. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA Radio Network. If you're a concerned voter, you know this primary.

00;18;23;17 - 00;18;42;12

Cary Hall

We need to have somebody who's going to make a difference. Go to the website PhilipSarnecki.org. Philip is one L PhilipSarnecki.org. All these issues that we're talking about are up there. Tell your friends. Tell the people in your church. Tell the people in your Kiwanis club. Whatever the case may be, we need change in this state.

00;18;42;12 - 00;19;00;09

Cary Hall

And it's sitting right here. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate. Stay right there.

00;19;00;11 - 00;19;21;08

Cary Hall

Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate show, Broadcasting coast to coast across USA here on the HIA Radio Network, in studio with me today Philip Sarnecki running for governor. The website PhilipSarnecki.org, one L in Philip you want to look them up? There's a lot of good information up there. I'm 100% behind this man, and I hope he wins because I think we need change in the state.

00;19;21;11 - 00;19;37;00

Cary Hall

I love Kansas, I moved here from Kansas City to get out of Kansas City to escape the crime. And all the rest. What was going on? I lived in Brookside. Beautiful neighborhood, but it got to be too much. And I left on purpose to come to Johnson County because it's a much better place to live. I'd like to see that continue.

00;19;37;03 - 00;19;54;03

Cary Hall

The property taxes to hide the state taxes are too high. We're not doing what we need to do to cause growth in this, in this state. And we've got somebody here who's a businessman who put it all on the line and is willing to do it. Go to the website PhilipSarnecki.org. Let's go back to this because there's a trend now okay.

00;19;54;06 - 00;20;14;08

Cary Hall

You just name these states Missouri. Now this was a surprise. I don't think people expected Kehoe to do this. And he is determined to make this happen. He's behind it. He's got the all the government unions are against him on it. The AfL-CIO, they're all against him on it. Mayor Q is listening to him explain why he's against it.

00;20;14;08 - 00;20;32;27

Cary Hall

It's like word salad, but he's against it. But I think it's going to pass. I think people are going to go, oh, yeah, I don't care if you're a liberal or conservative tax dollars are tax dollars. Say you look at all these states around us, there are no tax states or in the process of becoming no tax states.

00;20;33;02 - 00;20;54;24

Cary Hall

And then you go and you look at places are going to the next level Florida now Florida. And I've got good friends in Florida. No property tax. Wait a minute, wait a minute. How did they do that? Why can't we, become a no tax state at some point and get our house in order? And maybe when you finish these audits, who knows what you're going to find?

00;20;54;24 - 00;21;15;19

Philip Sarnecki

Philip, we've got to reduce the size of government in the state of Kansas. We got to make it more efficient. We've got to return dollars to the people of the state of Kansas. And, we we think we can have a significant impact on that. People are just they're spending money and and I can blame it all on Laura Kelly and certainly she deserves a big, big part of the blame.

00;21;15;19 - 00;21;32;02

Philip Sarnecki

But the reality is, as I mentioned earlier, the Republicans have super majorities in the state House and Senate right now. And from a leadership standpoint, you know, we have people that have been there for two decades, and they they are not helping this issue, unfortunately.

00;21;32;02 - 00;21;32;12

Cary Hall

00;21;32;13 - 00;21;53;10

Philip Sarnecki

They’re complicit. They, too, like we said earlier, there's too many lobbyists. They're in their back pockets. There's too many people. I mean, one of the things I want to do is I want to have term limits as well, for the state House and the state Senate. And we're kind of kicking around what might be, you know, 12 years to me, seems like plenty of time and then go back.

00;21;53;10 - 00;21;56;06

Philip Sarnecki

You know, I think that's how our, our framers.

00;21;56;08 - 00;21;58;02

Cary Hall

The citizen legislator.

00;21;58;04 - 00;21;58;29

Philip Sarnecki

Yeah, that's.

00;21;59;02 - 00;21;59;23

Cary Hall

Supposed to be.

00;21;59;23 - 00;22;23;07

Philip Sarnecki

And I think the other thing, it would reduce the influence of lobbyists and the special interest because people wouldn't be trying to get reelected all the time. Right. And and that's where the impact comes in, is because people constantly trying to get reelected. And so again, we need we need transformational change. We can't just kind of, you know, nibble around the edges of what's going on because we are getting left behind as a state.

00;22;23;07 - 00;22;46;23

Philip Sarnecki

There's no question about it. That data is overwhelming. Let me give you one more. We rank 42nd as a state and new business startups per capita. So we don't start near enough new businesses. Obviously, that has to do with the tax burden and the regulations. We have to take the shackles off our, our entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs here in the state of Kansas.

00;22;46;23 - 00;23;11;23

Philip Sarnecki

But it actually gets worse because we're 48th in five year new business survival rate as a state. So not only do we not start enough businesses, but the ones we start, we don't keep them even five years comparatively to the other states. Well, obviously then that impacts the number of jobs we have that impacts the population growth. It impacts our GDP and our economic growth, which we're we're lagging way, way behind.

00;23;11;29 - 00;23;37;03

Philip Sarnecki

So there's just so much opportunity here. Economically from a tax standpoint, from a regulation standpoint, here's an idea that I got and I, I believe I can do this with an executive order to try to to speed up how quickly we can start businesses that if somebody is applying for a permit through the state, if they don't get it approved within 30 days, they get it for free.

00;23;37;05 - 00;23;38;07

Cary Hall

Wow. Yeah.

00;23;38;14 - 00;23;55;14

Philip Sarnecki

And I can do that with the with an executive order. And it's just things like that that I think we can do to make government, more efficient, you know, deliver things more quickly to the people of the state of Kansas and I just, I think it needs it has to be somebody from the outside coming in.

00;23;55;14 - 00;24;00;09

Philip Sarnecki

Oh, who who's not who hasn't been part of the problem and part of the system for two decades.

00;24;00;09 - 00;24;02;00

Cary Hall

And who's not worrying about lobbyist paying?

00;24;02;00 - 00;24;04;11

Philip Sarnecki

Who's not worrying about lobbyists. Thank you. Exactly right. Yeah.

00;24;04;13 - 00;24;10;11

Cary Hall

That's right. That's a little different deal. Yeah. Yeah. You know that that's that's actually a little scary when you think about it.

00;24;10;11 - 00;24;16;21

Philip Sarnecki

42nd 42nd in new business startups per capita and 48th in five year new business survival rate.

00;24;16;24 - 00;24;34;23

Cary Hall

How do you how do you expect to grow across the state when and that. And you know, we're sitting here in Johnson County Johnson County has growth and and a certain amount of and the rest of it, we still have the tax issue to deal with all the rest. But then you get out to Hays, you get out Scott City, you get out to Dodge City, you know, you get out to to the other rural communities.

00;24;34;23 - 00;24;49;14

Cary Hall

You start looking and there's opportunity there. If somebody would take advantage of it, people will come and put businesses there. If if there's a reason for them to do it. And if there's a structure within the state that says, hey, we're going to help you start this business up here.

00;24;49;17 - 00;25;08;25

Philip Sarnecki

Well, I mentioned, we were out in Goodland, Sharon Springs, a few weeks ago, and in Goodland there there's a number of, folks, entrepreneurs, business leaders that have started a wheat processing plant out there. And they're going to it's a it's a wonderful concept. They're going to employ about 150 to 200 people in Goodland. That's significant, impactful.

00;25;08;28 - 00;25;28;12

Philip Sarnecki

And there's things like that that we can scale across the state. One of the things, you know, as a business person and the business people that are listening to this will understand, is you do a lot of what I call pilots, right? You test things, you know, when McDonald's wants to, roll out a new hamburger, they don't do it all over the world right away.

00;25;28;13 - 00;25;46;20

Philip Sarnecki

So they pick different areas and segments, and obviously they're very strategic about it, but they're they test it to see how it'll work. And if it does work, then they scale it. And I think we can do a lot more of that as a state to I think we can do a lot more testing, piloting and then scale things that are working across the state.

00;25;46;27 - 00;25;52;11

Cary Hall

Can you do the audit with an executive order or can you just do it, or do you have to have a piece of legislation to do that?

00;25;52;16 - 00;25;53;20

Philip Sarnecki

Know I believe we can just do it.

00;25;53;22 - 00;26;10;09

Cary Hall

Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Oh that'll be interesting to say the least. All right. Let's switch gears for a minute. As we close out the segment. You talked about a faith office. Now this is interesting because you're a man of faith. And I'll tell a story about Philip. I didn't tell him I was going to do this, but I'm going to do it.

00;26;10;11 - 00;26;31;12

Cary Hall

We had a meeting a couple of years ago with some executives from one of the biggest insurance companies. He was in his home office. In his home office, there's a painting. It's a painting of a lion and Jesus Christ. It's a pretty powerful painting. And, the people after the meeting was over with, I had lunch with them a little later and they said, just does Philip realize he's got that painting there?

00;26;31;12 - 00;26;48;00

Cary Hall

And, and and he's telling people he's a Christian. And I laughed and I said, yeah, he does. He doesn't wear it on his sleeve, but he believes what he believes. Now, I'm impressed with the fact that you're thinking of starting a faith office, and you've seen it done in other states. Tell me why you're doing that.

00;26;48;02 - 00;27;02;15

Philip Sarnecki

Well, I can't take the credit for it. It's actually something governor Lee in Tennessee did. They started a faith office there, and it's and it's really, I mean, unfortunately, Laura Kelly has been, very antagonistic, towards people of faith.

00;27;02;20 - 00;27;03;16

Cary Hall

And there's probably.

00;27;03;16 - 00;27;28;14

Philip Sarnecki

More there that I've learned in the last ten months than most people even know. But, it's really pragmatic as well, because the faith office is partnering with with churches and, and the faith community across the state to help solve problems like poverty, feeding, you know, the homelessness, foster care. And it's really had a significant impact.

00;27;28;14 - 00;27;50;08

Philip Sarnecki

And so there's really a pragmatic reason for doing this, because by partnering with the faith community across the state, we can actually reduce the size of government. Let me let me give an example. I'm involved. You know, I have a movie production company who's one of our, businesses. I'm a partner. We do Faith and family, movies and one of our movies that hopefully will be out soon in the theaters.

00;27;50;08 - 00;28;21;05

Philip Sarnecki

A movie called One Heart. Well, it's a true story about a, high school football team, Grapevine Faith down in Texas that played a game against a group of kids from a maximum security state high school penitentiary. And it was transformative in these kids lives, this game. And I won't go into that now here on the show, but what we did, and my partner Steve, who lives in Texas, gets, gets the credit for this, but I believe we're in seven states now, including Kansas is we have the one heart.

00;28;21;10 - 00;28;40;25

Philip Sarnecki

It's called the One Heart Project. And the One Heart project works with kids in the justice system. And so, for example, in the state of Kansas, it cost approximately $120,000 a year to incarcerate one kid that, you know, that is the that's what the taxpayers are paying with about an 80% recidivism.

00;28;40;25 - 00;28;42;24

Cary Hall

Oh, yeah. It's terrible. It's terrible. Yeah.

00;28;42;27 - 00;29;07;26

Philip Sarnecki

And our One Heart project costs about $20,000 a year and has a 9% recidivism rate. So whether you're a person of faith or not, from a pragmatic standpoint, would you like to save $100,000 a year per incarcerated kid in the state of Kansas that the taxpayers are paying, and dramatically reduce the recidivism rate and introduce these folks back into the community?

00;29;07;29 - 00;29;39;08

Philip Sarnecki

And we had last fall, for example, we had a graduation down in Wichita, and we had three kids graduate, from the program just in Wichita. So that's going on in seven states. And that's the kind of thing that I, that the faith office can be involved in. That's the kind of thing that we can test and pilot and then scale across the state and really have not only a life changing impact on these kids in this example, but we can we can also have a very pragmatic effect for the taxpayers, for the people of the state of Kansas.

00;29;39;11 - 00;29;57;07

Cary Hall

And, you know, I've served on boards of directors for a number of these Sheffield place, over in Missouri, I was on the board of directors there for some period of time where we took homeless women who were addicts and their children off the street. Our success ratio over there was 90% very intensive program. They were in it for years once they got into it.

00;29;57;07 - 00;30;11;18

Cary Hall

And it made a big difference. Yeah. And I'm on the board of directors for the Little sisters of the Poor right now who run a nursing home that takes in people who don't have any money and have no place to go, and they provide a wonderful lifestyle for them. And they do a great job. So there's a place for this.

00;30;11;19 - 00;30;31;17

Cary Hall

We're not telling everybody that that, you know, you we're going to shove religion down your throat. That's not what this is about. This is about is common sense. Yeah. And providing an alternative for people that actually works with people who are dedicated enough to do it. But that's what you're taught that the One Heart program. That's exactly. Do you want the kids?

00;30;31;19 - 00;30;45;29

Cary Hall

You're training the kid to be a criminal. When you put him in that system, that's what you're doing. That's why you have an 80% recidivism rate. Okay, I was a police officer when I was a young man. Believe me, I know. Okay, if you can turn that around and you've got people there willing to dedicated to do it, why wouldn't you do it?

00;30;46;02 - 00;30;47;11

Cary Hall

So it makes a lot of sense.

00;30;47;11 - 00;31;03;03

Philip Sarnecki

Yeah, it's well, it from a very pragmatic stance, standpoint, it reduces the size of government. It by partnering with the faith community, you can reduce the size of government. So even if you're not a person of faith, I think you can look at it and go, yeah, that, you know, there's a lot of common sense there.

00;31;03;04 - 00;31;21;24

Cary Hall

Common sense makes sense. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate, the website PhilipSarnecki.org 1 L in Philip PhilipSarnecki.org. All this information is up there. We'll be right back. Stay tuned.

00;31;21;26 - 00;31;41;09

Cary Hall

Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across the USA. All of these shows are posted on our podcast YouTube website. Go up there. There's 702,000 of, you know, downloading these shows, which is quite remarkable. And we appreciate all of you. But this show across Kansas is really important if you live here.

00;31;41;11 - 00;31;56;03

Cary Hall

These are very serious issues. The state needs help. We've been stuck in the mud for a long time. It's about time to get out of it. This is the man that can do it. Philip Sarnecki. He's running for governor. I hope you will take a moment to vote for him and go look at what he's actually saying.

00;31;56;08 - 00;32;20;06

Cary Hall

He's going to do audits, taxes, education, faith programs that are going to help people out of poverty and other situations. Those are all things we need. Nobody's talking about this. He's talking about a website PhilipSarnecki.org, with one L. All right. Let's shift gears and talk about how we spend a lot of money on education in this state. Johnson County in particular.

00;32;20;09 - 00;32;36;22

Cary Hall

As I mentioned earlier in the show, my grandchildren go to Blue Valley. It's a great school district. They're getting your great education. There's some fabulous programs here. My grandson's a wrestler at Blue Valley North. You know, my granddaughter goes to I can't remember the name of the elementary school, but it's part of the blue college system. And and they have great programs.

00;32;36;22 - 00;32;46;20

Cary Hall

They do a really good job. But when you look at overall in the state, let's just talk about fourth grade reading levels, because they're not all Blue Valley. Okay? And that's what I mean when I say that.

00;32;46;20 - 00;32;53;04

Philip Sarnecki

Well, and even if you dig into a Blue Valley's, their results and test scores have dropped pretty dramatically.

00;32;53;05 - 00;32;54;28

Cary Hall

Oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting. Yeah. Okay.

00;32;54;29 - 00;33;12;08

Philip Sarnecki

And, so, but if you look across the state, let me give you a few numbers here just to kind of lay the groundwork for people so they understand. So we lead the nation in ACT test score declines as a state. We lead the nation A.C.T. test score declines. Declines. That is correct.

00;33;12;14 - 00;33;13;07

Cary Hall

Okay.

00;33;13;09 - 00;33;32;09

Philip Sarnecki

Number two, last year we spent more money educating students in the state of Kansas than we have ever spent in the history of the state of Kansas. And we got the worst outcomes that we have ever got in the state of Kansas. For the first time ever, we fell below the national average in test scores. You mentioned fourth graders.

00;33;32;09 - 00;33;58;06

Philip Sarnecki

It's a little over 70% of our fourth graders cannot read or do math proficiently at a fourth grade level. And so we are I think we rank, i believe it’s 15th in spending as a state. But our NAEP outcomes are 40th. So we are. And listen, I don't want to throw everybody under the bus. Obviously, like you said, there are some good schools out there.

00;33;58;06 - 00;34;21;13

Philip Sarnecki

There's some phenomenal teachers. Of course, we've talked to a lot of them on the campaign trail in the last ten months, but there are dramatic opportunity here, and we are failing the kids in the state of Kansas. When you look at this, you know, on a broad scale. And if we don't, I mean, this may be the most important thing that we have to tackle when we get in there.

00;34;21;15 - 00;34;32;15

Philip Sarnecki

And the other thing I would encourage people strongly to do. So there is a constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall in the state of Kansas that we would now elect our Supreme Court justices.

00;34;32;15 - 00;34;33;03

Cary Hall

Yes.

00;34;33;06 - 00;34;33;24

Philip Sarnecki

Right now.

00;34;33;26 - 00;34;37;14

Cary Hall

I want to take the time to explain, but we have a convoluted system. I know we go to Kansas.

00;34;37;14 - 00;34;39;02

Philip Sarnecki

We're the only state that uses it.

00;34;39;05 - 00;34;39;12

Cary Hall

Yeah.

00;34;39;14 - 00;34;55;27

Philip Sarnecki

At the end of the day, it's essentially attorneys that are presenting three people to the governor. The governor has to pick one of those three people. Well, for the first 100 years of the state of Kansas, we voted on our Supreme Court justices. The people elected them. That's what we did. And back in, I believe it was 1958.

00;34;55;29 - 00;35;12;05

Philip Sarnecki

There's a long story on how this happened, but they kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater and came up with this convoluted system. There's 22 other states right now that already vote for their state Supreme Court justices. And, do I think it's perfect? No. But do I think it's dramatically better than what we have now?

00;35;12;05 - 00;35;33;15

Philip Sarnecki

Yes, I do, and part of the problem we have is we have an unelected, unaccountable, judicial branch who's telling the legislature how much money has to be spent on education. And so it's way outside of the purview of what they should be doing as a judicial branch. They're really doing another job, a legislative branch.

00;35;33;15 - 00;35;42;26

Philip Sarnecki

So I strongly encourage people to go out and vote yes on that constitutional amendment that we would elect our Supreme Court, Justice.

00;35;42;26 - 00;36;03;01

Cary Hall

Tell me a little story. So I get a cardboard flier in my mailbox that tells me to vote no on this thing. And if this is a month or two ago and I'm like, what are we doing here? So I go look it up and I read the thing, and then I take the flier and I turn it over on the back side and in small print it tells me who paid for that.

00;36;03;03 - 00;36;09;23

Cary Hall

Would you like to know who paid for it? Paid for Planned Parenthood? Oh, there you go. Yeah. Does that tell you anything that tells you? Well, we have tells you a lot.

00;36;09;24 - 00;36;33;17

Philip Sarnecki

We have seven Supreme Court justices in the state of Kansas. We have one great conservative, and we have six liberal Supreme Court justices. So that's the system that this has got us here in Kansas. And obviously, that's not in alignment with a state that President Trump won three times by overwhelming margins. It's not in alignment with the state that has the longest running state in the country without a Democratic senator.

00;36;33;24 - 00;36;42;22

Philip Sarnecki

You know, we haven't had a Democratic U.S. senator in almost 100 years. And, so it's just not in alignment with the people. And this is part of the part of the reason for that. Yeah.

00;36;42;22 - 00;37;04;20

Cary Hall

I have to go back to this because this this just floors me when we look at where we're at, 70% of these kids can't read at a fourth grade level. Do math. We look at our test scores are down, all the rest of it. Yet this Republican legislature and this Democrat governor have increased spending by one third by $10 billion.

00;37;04;22 - 00;37;18;13

Cary Hall

Which begs the question, where the hell is the money going if you're spending more money than you ever spent on education and and you've raised the budget by a third, and where's the money going, Philip?

00;37;18;16 - 00;37;40;21

Philip Sarnecki

Well, a lot of it does go to education. The problem is we're not getting the outcomes, that we need. And a big part of that is so we actually have a state law in the state of Kansas, and I believe it's 60% of the education dollars are supposed to go to the classroom. Right. But it doesn't. I, I believe it's about 50 to 53% of the money that actually gets into the classroom, but nobody enforces that.

00;37;40;24 - 00;37;55;21

Philip Sarnecki

So it's not being enforced. So what's happened is this massive administrative bloat, where you've got, you know, assistant principals to the assistant principal to the vice president of the superintendent. And I'm being a little facetious. No, no, no, no, not dramatically.

00;37;55;23 - 00;37;57;11

Cary Hall

You're right. You're not.

00;37;57;14 - 00;38;19;26

Philip Sarnecki

So that's a lot of what's happening is you have this massive bureaucracy, really, that's happened in the education system. So it's not this isn't the the teachers fault. You know, this, we're not getting the money to the teachers in the classrooms where it needs to go. And so we have to change that. I'm really excited about my lieutenant governor, Joy Akins.

00;38;20;04 - 00;38;30;22

Philip Sarnecki

Joy was running for governor. Now she's a very successful business owner down in Wichita. She's been the president of the chamber in Wichita, the largest, chamber in the state. She was on the school board in Wichita.

00;38;30;23 - 00;38;31;24

Cary Hall

So she knows the.

00;38;31;26 - 00;38;50;19

Philip Sarnecki

She knows them well for about about five years. And, she was the only conservative on that school board, and she. Boy, I tell you, she was threatened. She's been followed. I mean, the stuff that you hear about that's going on. And so, yeah, this is an unofficial role, but I really she has a passion for this.

00;38;50;19 - 00;38;55;27

Philip Sarnecki

She has an expertise about this. And I want to make her kind of the unofficial education czar.

00;38;56;00 - 00;38;56;22

Cary Hall

00;38;56;22 - 00;39;01;16

Philip Sarnecki

Kansas as the lieutenant governor. And she's really, really going to focus on getting this turned around.

00;39;01;16 - 00;39;18;24

Cary Hall

When's the primary election? August 4th. Well, thank you for coming here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time you're a busy man. You've got a lot going on. You know, the show's called America's Healthcare Advocate, and I focus on health care 90% the time, but sometimes I step out of the box, and when I see something, I think it's going to be impactful.

00;39;18;24 - 00;39;37;04

Cary Hall

That's when I step out. I stepped out on this on purpose because I really I know Philip, I've known for ten years. Okay? I know who he is. He's an honest businessman. And I know what he's going to do. I'm urging you to, if you want to see change, if you're tired of you complaining about the taxes, you know, we're not doing well in education.

00;39;37;08 - 00;39;57;04

Cary Hall

We can't get businesses to Kansas. We're stuck in the mud. If you want to see change, you really want to make a difference. Let's make a difference in the primary. Go to the website PhilipSarnecki.org. One L in Philip. Go to the website PhilipSarnecki.org, vote for him. We will have change. It's happened in other states. It just happened in Nebraska.

00;39;57;10 - 00;40;12;26

Cary Hall

It's happened with Bob Lee in Tennessee. We've talked about a number of the other governors. This has happened Glenn Youngkin in Virginia. It can happen here. And he can make one hell of a difference. If you'll make the difference and you'll vote for somebody that's going to make a difference in our lives, our children's lives and our grandchildren's life.

00;40;13;02 - 00;40;25;13

Cary Hall

I'm Cary Hall, thank you for listening to America's Health Care Advocate. Goodbye America.

00;40;25;16 - 00;40;27;21

Cary Hall