Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown speaks at a roundtable in Columbus. (Photo: Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)
Ohio Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown met with several Columbus compact business owners on Wednesday for a roundtable on affordability. The former three-term senator has held similar events in other cities in the state as part of his bid to return to the U.S. Senate.
As a result of the Republican advantage in Ohio’s 2024 elections, Cleveland-area businessman Bernie Moreno unseated Brown and J.D. Vance left the chamber to serve as vice president, creating a vacancy. Gov. Mike DeWine has chosen Lt. Gov. Jon Husted to replace Vance, but he will need to win next November to serve the rest of his term.
Round table
Most of Columbus, Brown’s business owners have had experiences with operating restaurants. Letha Pugh is the owner of Bake Me Happy bakery and Prestons burger joint. She explained that they are feeling the effects of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. The cost of beef is “astronomical,” she said, essentially three times as high.
“What happens is the threat of a tariff, the price goes up, and then the price never goes down,” she said.
“It’s like the delivery guy filling out his own insurance policy,” interjected Harvest Pizza owner Chris Crader.
Pugh said the cost of goods has increased from 30% of revenue to 42%, “that’s above our margin, so none of us are paying ourselves.”
She also saw equipment costs rising, partly due to tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Brad Rocco of Bexley Pizza Plus echoed this point. “You think it might not affect you,” he said, “but if you really think about it, it does.”
“It may be equipment made in the United States, but a significant portion of the parts are not,” he continued. “When you start taxing components of this equipment, the price of this equipment becomes incredibly high.”
And that’s a risky proposition, he said, since restaurant equipment gets so much exploit that “it’s worth the metal it’s made of” in about a year.
Rocco and Crader, both pizza makers, lamented that purchasing something as straightforward as cheese is complicated. They explained that prices fluctuate like pork belly in the commodity market.
“You can buy similar futures contracts or you can hedge them,” Crader said. “Dude, I’m just trying to make pizza. I don’t have a bachelor’s degree in economics to figure out your contract.”
They all described a degenerating percentage of dine-in customers and an boost in shopping using food delivery apps. Rocco had to close his dining room for a year and a half due to Covid. “It changes people’s habits,” he said.
Pugh added that there is little they can do to avoid cost cuts for these applications. “If you put a percentage cap on what they can charge, they will add a new service fee to make up the difference.”
In addition to Harvest, Crader runs a bakery in Granville. He described setting up a coffee program for workers at a nearby Intel plant, but halfway through the two-year contract, Intel shortened the contract and cut costs. “They have better lawyers than me,” Crader said. He recently saw workers drilling test wells on a neighboring plot to supply water to data centers and Intel.
“We lost money there, now they are taking the water,” he said. “My energy costs have gone down and I feel like the whole thing has really gotten richer from it. And everyone we represent, the average person in America, it’s like a fight.”
Like the others, Tony Scartz, owner of Tony’s Ristorante, an Italian restaurant, said the costs of almost everything have gone up, but added that workers have been hit particularly strenuous by the Trump administration’s immigration restrictions. Scartz said he recently lost two Venezuelan employees who had worked with him for years.
“They didn’t really want to leave, but they were nervous about being in this country,” he said. “They had children and they didn’t want to raise them in that environment, they felt the door would be opened and they would be arrested and then what would happen to their children?”
US Senator from Ohio Jon Husted wants to “freeze” ACA insurance subsidies
Brown’s contribution
Speaking to reporters afterward, Brown did his best to pin those challenges on Ohio GOP Sen. Jon Husted. In particular, he highlighted the likely boost in health care costs for people insured through the Affordable Care Act platform.
“Jon Husted voted nine times to authorize doubling and tripling insurance rates,” Brown said. “He’s there to fix it. He didn’t fix it.”
“You’ve heard about the tariff problems here,” Brown added. “Jon Husted has not spoken out against these tariffs or done anything about them.”
The Ohio Capital Journal reached out to Husted’s campaign for comment, but has not heard back.
Earlier this month, Husted introduced a measure granting: two-year extension on increased health care subsidies that will expire at the end of the year. On social media he wrote“Democrats created a broken ACA system, but I’m working to be part of the solution that makes health care more affordable for Ohioans.”
But Husted’s proposal he didn’t go anywhere.
Asked about Husted’s proposal, Brown criticized his opponent for supporting the tax cut package known as the One Big Beautiful Bill. The measure made eternal tax cuts introduced by the first Trump administration and paid for them with deep cuts to health care programs.
“He didn’t do anything,” Brown said of Husted. “He made some speeches, he introduced some bills, but he had the chance nine times and he turned his back on the people of this state.”
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