Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 11-19-25_WEDNESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

You will bew astounded at what those Obamacare tax subsidies really cost for some Oregonians, your calls and opinion and State Rep. Dwayne Yunker - Legislative Days...ooh, education probably not improving anytime soon, he explains why.

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausordrilling.com. Quarter after seven, happy to take your calls at 7705-633. Yeah, a little bit of open phone time on Wheels Up Wednesday. State Representative Dwayne Yunker is going to talk with me because this is going to be later about 735 after 730 news. Because it's legislative week right now, which means the state legislators are up there. they're trying to figure out how to deal with, well, federal money going away in many cases.

Or federal money that could be there as long as you're not being and behaving like a sanctuary state. In other words, as long as you're being good little boys and girls in the state of Oregon, rather than we're being the Trump resistance. The Trump resistance, resistance, you know, all that kind of thing. Anyway, we'll catch up with him about that, along with the science of reading. I had fun talking about that there with you yesterday. This whole thing about the science of reading. You know, there is something else I wanted to ask you this morning and just pose the question. Is there anyone listening, whether it's you, someone you know, who has actual catastrophic health insurance and not a standard insurance Obamacare kind of plan?

serious question now i have insurance provided through my through my employer you know marquee broadcasting west and so that's all fine i hardly use any of it i have you know one tiny pharmaceutical drug that i take for a little bit of a fib and that's about it everything's fine you know and so it hasn't been that big of a deal for me i haven't had a lot of health claims now linda of course had some problems but she's now uh older than me i'm her boy toy so she's on on Medicare now. And she doesn't have a lot going on with her either. Just pretty simple.

Just goes in for a checkup, and that's about it. But the Trump administration is really working hard to try to find a way to reduce the costs of medical insurance and the coverage and the care. And Obamacare isn't it, though. It just isn't. And this was what a big part of the government shutdown was all about, trying to keep the tax credits, those enhanced Obamacare tax credits going. that are still supposed to expire at the end of this year.

And it was kind of hard to find out actually how much money they were talking about because all the Republicans, I'm sorry, all the Democrats would do is just go out there and say, No Kings and... Don't take my health care away. Yeah. Don't take my health care away. Don't take my health care away. Obamacare is the only way that they were going to live without Obamacare.

They were all, everyone's going to die. And that was just all there was to it. And, well, I was doing a little research the last few days, and I saved some of this stuff. And, you know, those Obamacare tax care or tax credits that they were talking about that the Democrats wanted extended and Wyden and Merckley wanted extended, they are huge. I had no idea there was so much money being shoveled into the Affordable Care Act until I started breaking down some of the numbers here. and where this this tax credit came from was the American Rescue Plan four years ago, 2021. And then when there was a Biden's Inflation Reduction Act thing, they got rid of the income tax for these subsidies. So it meant that instead of poor people who literally had no money got these subsidies,

it was middle class and family people in Oregon that were getting these subsidies. In fact, according to Oregon's own numbers, a couple of years ago, in 2023, almost nine out of ten of the people on Obamacare got a subsidy. Now, if you were just a individual, now it depends on the county and the type of plan you were in, but it was the subsidy per month was like $400,000. to $450 a month. You know, all right, you know, we're talking five grand a year.

This is not a small amount of taxpayer money that everybody else was having to shovel in. And they got rid of the income taxes or the income caps, rather, the income cap. It was fascinating to look at some of these numbers. And so just follow along with me here. A household of four people, so you had a mom and dad, let's say, had a couple of kids making about $90,000. So, you know, just under $100,000, almost a six-figure income. A household of four with two kids would get up to $900 a month taxpayer credit subsidy from Obamacare.

Let's just even it up, just call it $12,000 a year. So a taxpayer gift of $12,000 given to a family, earning $90,000 a year. Now, I know $90,000 doesn't buy what it used to buy, okay? I will admit there. $90,000, though, that is just absolutely, I mean, several thousand dollars a year. And the challenge here is that the Democrats wanted that extended. And I understand now even more so why the Republicans were saying, hey, you know, we can't do this.

I think the Democrats, though, were really big on trying to preserve the image, or I guess maybe some would say the lie, that Obamacare was actually affordable because it's nothing of the sort. Now, President Trump has been floating ideas about bypassing the health care insurance companies and going with, well, one thing he's talking about is a direct payment of $2,000 for poorer people rather than have. having a subsidy that is paid to the insurance companies. This is what I'm looking at here in some of the latest stories. Which story is this here? I just want to make sure and get this. Yeah, from the Epic Times. It's an epic time story that I saved.

So what they're looking to do is instead of subsidizing the existing insurance mafias, they want to just, it almost sounds like it's a block grant, like the old block grant program used to be, in which, you know, the states would get a bunch of money the state and the federal government would say, well, you just do with it what you think works best. And so let's say, okay, instead of us trying to figure out and run these exchanges in Oregon and all these other states and have these Obamacare kind of programs, we'll give you a bunch of money. And then you, as the recipient, I imagine there be an income cap on this, I guess, but you as the recipient, you figure it out, whether that means that you go with direct primary

care and you're just going to take care of yourself and risk that, or if you're going to buy a catastrophic insurance plan, which is the way it used to be. It wasn't all that long ago that people would not just go to the doctor for absolutely everything. I remember those days. I had that when I was a young kid. I never had insurance. I was never able to afford insurance when I was growing up. I don't know if it was like that for you. you, but I don't think I ended up getting health insurance until it was 27, and I was working in, no, no, maybe 25, but I was working in Seattle when I first moved up to Seattle in the mid-80s, and I was working for a big, big company at that point, and yeah, and it wasn't a great thing,

I think it was an HMO, and there were a lot of out-of-pockets and things like that, but I didn't need it that much. I mean, occasionally, you know, all right, I would cut myself, and I would need a shot or need something bandaged up, but that was about the extent of my health care experience. But now we've decided that everybody has to have the full-blown health care right from the beginning. And I don't know if this would work today or not because when they're talking about a $2,000 subsidy, maybe $3,000,

they're trying to negotiate this right now. I know Governor Rick Scott, or Senator Rick Scott, rather, former governor, but the Republican from Florida, he's coming up with legislation for a plan and how to send money to people's individual health savings accounts. In other words, here's the money, you figure it out. The question I have, though, are there still really good catastrophic insurance companies out there? Because I was under the impression that Obamacare,

and I still can't really get to the bottom of this, that Obamacare, I thought, killed the catastrophic insurance industry because a lot of people would have some of that, maybe a cobra-type insurance company and various other things. And do they still exist? Are they still working? Are they starting to come back maybe? Because just giving people a cash subsidy and then telling you to figure it out,

unless we can legally go get high-quality catastrophic insurance, I don't know if that's going to work. So I'm posing the question for you. It's, you know, you search out catastrophic companies, insurance companies, and you just come up with the same ones that are doing the Obamacare subsidies. But maybe there is. 7705633. That's something on my mind this morning.

And I don't know if you've given it some thought, but it is obvious that what the Democrats were asking for is totally unaffordable, the Unaffordable Care Act. But anyway, that's what I was thinking this morning. Hi, KMED, who's this? Welcome. Good morning. Good morning to you.

Yeah, Brad. What's up? So great talk. Yeah, the unaffordable Obamacare deal. Yeah. But, you know, and on top of that, you know, we know that people on the left do say great things with money when they do get it. For instance, in a recent capital article article, we learned that the Democrats

and Oregon have decided that since so many federal funds are getting cut from things like subsidies to plan parenthood, that they're going to fund it right out of the general. Fun. Yeah, I was going to talk with a Yunker about that here in the next few minutes. Yeah. Well, it certainly shows where the priority lies in the state legislature that, yep, we're not getting the money from the federal government for the abortions or for, I guess that would be called female health care or people identifying as female health care.

Is that how that goes these days, Brad? It's crazy. The semantics of, you know, the health care thing as they, as a use there, it's kind of crazy, but the governor says that housing, you know, this housing crisis in Oregon is a priority. So I don't know if that's a priority or backfunding plan parenthood to the June of, I guess, $14 million. That's, that. Now, funding abortion in Oregon is always a priority. You know that, right? Oh, that's the, oh, thank you for explaining that. I, because I was confused, Bill. I was trying to figure out what was really the product. They

They've already told all the different departments that they can't hire anybody to have got a cut back. I know, I know, but you have to understand. Governor Kotech presides over a state that is a culture of death, okay? If you're not killing someone, whether it's by physician-assisted suicide, of course, if you commit suicide with your own gun, that's a tragedy. But if you do it with a state-approved physician, you're fine. If you need a unborn child killed, Governor Kotech is more than happy to take it money out of the general fund, okay? I am so grateful you explain that to me. Okay, I was so confused.

Thank you for explaining that, Bill. Appreciate your sarcasm. Thank you very much, Brad. Okay. Yikes, I know. It's 728. Hi, KMED. Good morning.

This is Bill. Good morning, Bill. Larry from Grant's Pass. Hi, Larry. What's on your mind? Oh, just listen to you talk about the, first of all, as usual. You do a fine job on the radio there, Bill. We appreciate it.

Well, thank you. You're very kind. What are you thinking, now? I was thinking about the health care you're talking about. And what is the difference in what I believe they call marketplace and Obamacare? Right. What is the difference in those two things? Do you have an answer for that question?

I do not. I would have to look further into it. I wish I just knew it off the top of my head, but I am not a particularly huge expert on this. Do you have any experience in finding marketplace coverage? Oh, well, I don't quite understand it. Marketplace is a federal subsidized. I believe somebody... Oh, oh, okay. Oh, no, I guess it is the same. That is Obamacare. Yeah. Well, there's... From what I understand and what I see, there is, again, it's since the Obamacare Act has come into law, or the place that it's at, 2013, I can reflect back and make your ears bleed with the boring details of costs and

self-employment and listening to you talk about, you know, coming up 26, I'm about the same age you are, coming up to 26, 27, you believe, and that's when you first got insurance. Yeah. Because that's all you could afford. Well, I had it through the employer, but I didn't use it much because as someone in my mid-20s, I just didn't eat it that much, really. I think a catastrophic would have been fine in my particular case. So when I hear you say catastrophic, define that.

Oh, okay. There's a catastrophe from, I'll say, a generation like you and I versus a generation of what we're talking about when you play your little clips, memes, whatever they're called, of, you know, the young unappreciative, an American, unpatriotic person, And they, them, whatever they want to be called, that screaming, my health care, my health care, that little blurb that you played? Yeah, yeah. The difference between you and I's generation and theirs is that we've had to go through the experience of acquiring said today expectation.

I don't know about for you, I mean, for me back in 2012, 13, 14, I believe that's when Obamacare come into play. I was paying in the neighborhood of 300 a month for my wife and I, and that was with a large deductible. And again, I hear the term, and I hear you say, catastrophic, well, to me, in the financial position I'm in, catastrophic is defined much differently than from the individual we're talking about. Oh, well, when I'm talking about catastrophic, well, when I'm talking about catastrophic insurance, I'm thinking of major medical events and that, you know, if you need a broken bone set or something like that, okay, you just go and you pay for the broken bone, et cetera, et cetera. You get cancer, you get cancer, a major disease, something like that, major trauma. You know, you fall off the, you know, you fall off the, you know, you fall off what you're saying, Bill.

Yeah, that kind of thing. I understand. I understand what catastrophic is. Again, my question is a catastrophe to this generation that we're talking about that has this expectation, a catastrophe is cutting your finger and needing the emergency room. Oh, so you think that we have been conditioned then to redefine catastrophe as having to pay anything for a medical event? Well, what I'm looking for from you or anybody is what is define a catastrophe. I understand what a catastrophe is.

It's what we see in the mainstream media. It's the stuff that they do show us, you know. God's, you know, whether it's wrath on the world, whether it's just trying to get our attention, whatever it is. The simple fact is that it's, it's become a time where, again, we, we got to figure out what's going on here. There's got to be compassion, but there's got to be boundaries, and there's got to be consequences. There can't just be this, you know, this chaotic behavior with anybody that has any brain cell in their head to think that this is something we can keep doing. There's got to be rights and wrong, boys and girl. You know, I mean...

So you're almost alluding that even what we're experiencing the health care in the health care world. right now, which we've been talking about, is all connected to the catastrophe of culture decline. Exactly. Yeah. Well, well put, exactly. It's, you know, again, I said I live in Grant's Pass. We've got a, you know, a pretty big decision on this unhoused will be politically correct. Unhoused problem that Grant's past has really spearheaded, if you will.

and now we find ourselves in the middle of the, you know, of the dumpster fire that we've allowed, you know, the American Disability Act, which again, I have, we have to take care of folks that, you know, have some difficulties. And this and that, there's half-dozen, a dozen of these, a dozen at the most, a half-dozen ADA people that are unhoused or homeless and whether they're the group that, you know, And then ending up forcing taxpayers to accommodate this. Well, that's what it ultimately ends up. The city of grants passes ready to give $1.2 million to Elk Island for a piece of real estate

that they've acquired from supposedly or have some kind of, they have to have some kind of verification, proof, if you will, some kind of good faith letter. The bottom line, Bimard is selling a 0.48 acre parcel to them that lines up to our mint. And it's

going before the city council tonight. And it's just interesting. I'm saying this bill, because it's interesting. I listen to this Obamacare. I listen to this. You know, again, there's folks out there that need help. And I'll say those of us that have any kind of

heart are going to want to help those people that want to get helped out of the, you know, catastrophic. Well, yeah, yeah, but help is, but, but, you know, I think our challenge, though, is that the help is always assumed to come from, uh, from screwing anybody who's left productive, though. Well. And, of course, being productive is not a, uh, such a good thing here in Southern Oregon. Even as we talk about revitalizing the economy, are we talking about making real things?

No, we're talking about, uh, you know, we're talking about baseball stadiums and, you know, sustainable tourism industry, you know? So, again, productivity is something that, as I'm hearing you say, and I'll completely agree on, is something that has shifted with the culture, too, the definition of productivity. Yes, so we reduce productivity, whether it's to, whether, well, we eliminate or reduce productivity, whether it's to save the owl or to save the planet or save the climate, or something like that. And then there's nothing left to save the people who need saved then.

At what cost? Yeah. Okay. Great call. Thank you for making that. And I'll be curious to see what happens with that Grants Pass City Council meeting tonight, too. All right. Wow.

Hi, good morning. Who's this? This is Bill. Good morning, Bill, Steve, Sunny Valley. Hi, Steve. I worked for the airline and had what Obama considered Cadillac coverage. I paid $250 a month out of my check, and I had a $20 co-pay. Now, is this right now, Steve?

No, that was pre-Obomacare. Then I worked for the railroad and also had Cadillac coverage. And then Obamacare came along, and my deductible for the year went from $250 to $3,000. and two of my kids had a sore throat, so we took them into the clinic to get a strep test, and the cost of the strep test remained the same $36, but after Obamacare, there was a $400 each office visit attached to that. Now, I had a $3,000 deductible, so even though I was paying $872 for two strep tests, which before would cost me $40 with a $20 copay,

I still didn't meet the deductible for the year, so I didn't get a cent of what was taken out of my paycheck to help cover those costs, and I didn't get close to meeting my deductible for the year, which the next year I had to start all over again. So there is nothing affordable about Obamacare if you have any pride and you have any productivity. It's only good for the something for nothings who refuse to work, and then they get everything, including gym memberships. good point Steve thank you for making that another reason to just let it die but then of course we're always told

what do we replace it with thanks for the call state rep Dwayne Yonker is going to join me because they're running out of other people's money in Salem reportedly and he'll give us the latest on legislative days make hurry deadline for pickup is November

28th hi I'm Lisa with Kelly's automotive service and I'm on KMED 742 and state Representative Dwayne Yonker is, well, he's lost control of his life, and he's up at the state legislature for legislative days. Welcome back, Dwayne. What are you doing, huh? Oh, I was thinking about putting my hip waiters on and going into the building, but, you know, for the swamp. But it is, you know, we have Democrats crying, and what they're really crying about is they're overspending. if you look at the, you know, the amount of money they start spending just crazy during Obama, not bomb, but the COVID-19 time, and now they want to keep it. Well, there was not a state grant or a federal grant, rather, that was turned down. Anything that could be expanded during Governor Brown and COVID time, and Governor Kotech, for that matter, has been grabbed.

And now, unfortunately, the tide is, well, the tide. leaving, the tide's rolling out of Salem right now, from the federal government, at least. Yeah, you know, I spent 21 years in the military, and you kind of know in the military that you get bigger budgets during different cycles and stuff like. It's just how it works, you know what I'm saying? Sometimes you have more money for things. Sometimes you have less money for things. But not here in Oregon. Here in Oregon, it's just spin, spin, spin, spin.

And it's every pet project, every pet thing we like, and a lot of it's a drift. I mean, you know, I was looking at the SNAP thing here recently. I was in a – and I posted about this, and I'm trying to get the details more because Kotech gave $5 million to the Oregon Food Bank, okay? Mm-hmm. Good. Maybe we need a food. She gave a million dollars to the tribes. And I'm trying to figure out, I asked, well, how many tribe members are on?

SNAP. And it kind of gave me this 7,000 number, but we have to check with the tribes, blah, blah, blah. Well, there's only 171,000 tribe members in the state, and there's like 760,000 people or something on SNAP. Well, that formula doesn't make sense. So did you buy something from the tribes? You know, why did you give them a million dollars? Would you like me to venture a guess? I have many guesses, Bill, but go ahead and tell them what you think. Okay, my guess is that the tribes are very politically active and politically powerful. Kind of, I don't know if it's quite up there with the public employee unions,

but when a tribe burps, usually there's a Democrat in the state legislature or in the governor's office that is willing to, you know, provide a napkin or a bib or something for the tribes. How about that? Yeah, that's pretty well. That's pretty good. That's kind of where I'm getting at is, well, what are you getting? Governor Kotech at a Democratic Party for giving a million dollars. You know, just like yesterday, they spent $7.5 million to help their friend plan

parenthood from emergency funds, emergency funds. Emergency funds, because nothing says an emergency like a planned parenthood that might not be able to provide an abortion that day. Yes, I mean, because the federal government is cutting off planners. that we're going to lose resources for people for medical, which we know that is a lie. You can go anywhere in Oregon, and you can get your, you can still get your abortion stuff. You can get your pills. You can get all this stuff care you need.

You don't have to go to Planned Parenthood, and the state taxpayers don't have to bell it out. If Planned Parenthood is a good business, I'm not trying to change the abortion thing, just leave that to the side, then it should be able to function on its own. why do taxpayers have to pay it? Yeah, it's no different than any other clinic, any private clinic, any other clinic that we see around here in Southern Oregon. It's a clinic, that's all it is, but it is politically connected, as you well know. I wanted to ask about another group that is politically well connected up until the Trump administration came in, and that would be public broadcasting.

Now, this is a serious question. I don't know because since the state of Oregon is willing to bail out, Planned Parenthood, because federal funding is not there to that extent any longer. Is there a talk about bailing out public television and public radio? A serious question here for you, you know? Yeah, I have not heard anyway bring that up at all. Okay, all right. Maybe it's a different committee or, you know, because we are assigned at different committees and stuff,

but it hasn't been a talk in the caucus or anything about public broadcasting. Yeah, because I was reading a story in, I forget which newspaper was a while back, but there was talk about, you know, these subsidies going into, you know, public subsidies going into the Warm Springs Reservation on the radio station in which they were getting $50,000 a month subsidies from federal funding to keep, you know, public broadcasting going on there. And, you know, as someone who works on, you know, a station here in Southern Oregon, you know, Medford and Grants Pass, I'm thinking, boy, $50,000 a month.

If I had a check like a hot check like that coming, that pays for a lot of broadcast equipment and pays for a lot of people, right? I'm thinking, man, you know, it might be nice, but I was just wondering if maybe given the politically powerful conditions that the tribes operate in Oregon, if they were going to, you know, go down that road next, is curious. Just be on the lookout for it, though, okay? Yeah, you know, the only thing that is pretty a hot topic I'm hearing is that disconnect the federal, you know, I'm not in the tax thing of committees up here, but we align

our stuff with the federal government when we do taxes. So are they talking about disconnecting that way, you know, the federal rules don't apply? Talk about that. We don't, yeah, we don't know how the political, I mean, the Republicans don't want to disconnect. And the reason we don't want to disconnect is because we want the Oregonians to get their money back from the federal government. And if we disconnect from the federal tax code, as the state of Oregon does that, if they do something like that, then Oregonians' taxes go up on the state level, right? That's what happens. Exactly.

Yeah. So when they talk about all this money, it's like this is not your money. This is taxpayer money. This is money you can put back in people's pocket that are having a hard time paying for food or rent or electrical, all these bad decisions that came from the Democrats that are costing the cost of living to go up. We want, the Republicans wanted to go back in your pocket so you can use it. wisely for your needs. The Democrats want to take it and use it for their, you know, pet projects and DEI and all

those other stuff. Now, you're on the Education Committee, correct? We talked about that yesterday. I'm not on the committee tomorrow. I'm on the ways and means of it. Oh, on ways and means. Okay. They remove me off the education.

Oh, in other words, you were being too smart about education in bringing up all of their failed programs, hence you needed to go, is what you're telling me. right yes the the chair of the um of hudson he's not a he's not a fan he doesn't like me because you know i'm not a trans person lover um i questioned de i and all these bad policies that have no performance measures that show anything that's working and so they figured that i was too much for a problem i figured this is my opinion and removed me off of education july so better to be replaced to what better to be replaced to what better to be replaced with a Republican that is more pliable?

Is that the deal, or does it... Yeah, it goes back to what we talked about yesterday. I'm not using the right words. It's, you know, it's phonics. It's not the science of reading. Oh, so since you're not willing to say the science of reading, obviously, okay. Boy. I'm not following in life.

I am not a good follower. Yeah, I've noticed that. I've noticed that. Okay. State representative of Dwayne Yonker. So, anyway, I want to get... Let me take it back to what is actually going on in legislative days. So no legislation gets passed right now.

Is this where the plan for the plundering of next year starts? Is that what this is all about? Yeah, they're laying the groundwork for, obviously, in Oregon right now, for cuts. So because they have a spending problem, so they have to, you know, what does say, a billion dollars. It's easier than $900, but a billion dollars of cuts somewhere. Now, is most of that due to federal government grant stream funding being reduced or something else going on? Well, between the grant stream funding and the tax disconnect of money putting back in Oregon's pockets.

Oh, because of the big beautiful bill. They had not planned for the big beautiful bill getting passed then. Is that right? Well, yeah, it hadn't been passed when we did a long session this year. So when there's not more taxes coming into for the government to spend, then they have to make cuts, which our spending is so out of control, we should always be making cuts. You know, we should be living within our means and looking at ways to make – you know, I wasn't in the education subcommittee on yesterday because I was at the Oregon State penitentiary, but I have my chief of staff sitting in there and take notes. and all these cuts they want is nothing that's going to help. It's all, you know, the only, okay, I'll give you one good reason.

Yeah, please give me an example of a cut that you think doesn't make sense. Go ahead. No, I'll give you one that I agree with them. Oh, okay. I'm getting rid of menstrual products in boy's bathrooms. Oh, tampons in the boys' rooms. So they are talking about cutting that, really? They're kind of cutting that.

And it's funny because I brought this up to the chair of the vice chair, I said, what cut do you think that I agree upon? He said, the menstrual cycle. So he knew what I was going to say. Now, has anyone told Senator Drazen about this? Because remember, everybody except a handful of Republicans, were all in on tampons in the boys' room a few years ago. Okay.

Well, and we've been some more this year. So, I mean, I haven't talked to Senator Drazen about it, but she might be upset, but I think this is a good cut. You know, and I'm not saying that maybe some people need some emergency, you know, grow in the bathroom or something. I'm just saying we shouldn't be put in a boys' bathrooms, and it shouldn't be a major issue. You know what I'm saying? That shouldn't be – we create laws that shouldn't be law. Well, it's just pure nonsense is what that one was.

And this is with, you know, the Republicans trying to reach across the aisle and get along with people that they shouldn't be trying to get along with when such nonsense comes forward. Isn't that really what we're talking about, Dwayne? Yeah, I mean, you've got to remember. time they do, I wish these people look back to the old bills and go, oh, we pass this. What is the cause and effect now today? They never do that. They never go back and go, well, we passed this three years ago. Now health insurance has gotten, you know, more expensive. Oh, we passed a bill that nurses must get this pay. How does that change the market on, you know, the free capitalism system? They don't want to do that. And I'm going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

this is not government's responsibility. This is the industry's responsibility to figure this out. That's not how Democrats look. That's not how Democrats think, though. They think they want to have to have their fingers in every pot. And I'm a believer that the government doesn't do a lot of great things. Maybe the military, but, you know, law enforcement, do things like that. But when they start getting into things that should be free market or, you know, things,

they start to make it worse. What I'm really curious about, you know, and since you've been removed from the education committee here, is there any real conversation that you're aware of since you had your staff member in on the meeting? Is there any real talk about truly getting to the bottom of why the kids can't read and why our math scores are just absolutely miserable at the same time? And yet, this is like the main bill that the Oregon State Legislature is paying for public education. What say you?

No, look, I have a post that yesterday I put out with the head of the Department of Education, Charlene Williams, and her comment was, my goal is to make a more diverse workforce. Oh, what the hell? Sorry, you shouldn't say that. I just want to that what does a more diverse listen I just want a competent workforce I think everybody else listening wants a competent workforce their job yes can you do your job oh my gosh I can't believe so in other words they're still stuck on stupid even now they're still stuck on stupid with reading at number 50 they're still stuck on stupid you're telling me exactly You know, that that posted on my social media, that posted right away, and just for people to be educated, what is being said in these meetings from these department heads? And I'm like, that's our problem?

That is not my problem. My problem is people can read and write and do math and be able to get a job and support themselves. Maybe get into college and if you need higher education, you know, you have to turn out people that are competent. and they're not. So, okay. Bill, you and I are thinking two common sense. Okay, all right. Thank you.

I'm sorry to be a little emphatic about this, but I cannot believe that the main thing is to have a diverse workforce. Listen, I would love to have us, you know, public teachers be nothing but Norwegians, if that's what it took to be, you know, to competently educate our children. But I would agree. I don't care what skin color are, what national you are. I want the best teacher in there teaching phonics. No, no, no.

That's the science of reading. You better get it right, Representative Younger, science of reading. Come on. Repeat after me. Otherwise, you're going to get your two minutes of hate. It's all politically correct. But you've got to remember, a lot of these people that are agencies came from other states. like the ODOT guy that just left or resigning.

He came from Michigan to go back to Michigan. We don't know, we don't even see what he looks like. I'm sure you can figure it out. All these people came from the Obama administration or the Biden administration and Kotech brought a bit to make a more diverse workforce in Oregon. Not the best people to run these agencies to make it more diverse. Yeah. And that's our problem.

Okay. Final question I have for you. Now, once again, they're not passing any laws. this week right now, folks, during a legislative week. It is the conversation. What kind of money are they talking about bailing out the I-5 Bridge project? Do you know? Have you heard anything? I have not heard any money bailing out yet.

There is so much talk, and though we continue to talk, like I have another meeting just like this. It's probably in another committee, but mine is on Friday with about more cuts because they have to make cuts. um and they know that and i guarantee and i know the democrats know that this tax thing's going to fail yeah they not i think people people are signing up like crazy and by the way these are not just republicans signing up for this i have no doubt no i was on a zoom um not a zoom but an x thing last night was representative of osborne and we're thinking that we'll have the numbers by this week in the 22nd with this big push. And now I think we're going to continue to keep going, collecting signatures, but we'll have

the numbers. You know, we just don't have them all turned in yet. We have a base number, like I said, $50,000 in a day. It's pretty close, but we just, not everybody's turned the numbers and we have so many people collecting. We're thinking we're going to have those numbers less than two weeks. Oh, I love it. I love it.

And this is not just coming from Republicans. That's for sure. All right. No. All right. State Rep. Dwayne Yonker, keep us in the room here, and I'm sorry you have lost control of your life and you have to be there, but just report back what you see in here, okay? We'll keep you in. All right, Bill. Thank you, everyone. All right.

State Representative Dwayne Yonker, by the way, very active social media on Facebook and other channels, I believe. And anyway, wow. With the total failure of the government school system in Oregon, and they're talking about the main priority is a diverse workforce. By the way, a quick reminder, you do know who is the state superintendent of public instruction in the state of Oregon, right? You do know, right? Governor Kotech. Governor Kotech. Yeah, Governor Kotech just ends up appointing the director,

but the director who wants to just be concerned about having a diverse workforce in the educational system rather than a competent, well-run workforce. It's Governor Kotech. Just remember that, okay? All right. Now then, let me get back to and get away from that nonsense and then there's the reality of what is going on in your world when you get a renewal for your insurance, whether it's home insurance, whether it's car insurance,

whether it's for your rentals or business or whatever the case might be. You open it up and pass out. And then you're thinking, oh, woe or woe is me, what do I do about this? Because, yeah, the inflation and service, and insurance still continues to war. Fortunately, there is Steve Hansi at Skypark Insurance. Steve, great friend of the program, been a sponsor of my show for a long time.

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I think you'll enjoy talking with Steve, good guy, good people. Of course, Lynn's over there working on the Medicare side of the practice there, too. Skypark insurance. At Skypark, we make insurance easy. This hour of the Bill Myers Show is sponsored by Fontana Roofing. For roofing gutters and sheet metal services, visit Fontana Roofing Services.com. Furnace on the fritz.