IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Tune in to The Main Event this Saturday morning at 9:30 on AM590 with host Ed Hoffman as he discusses national current events and politics, with a few mortgage tips along the way. Ed delivers intelligent, entertaining radio that makes hard news easy to understand!
In the studio this week is guest Scott MacAfee of Don’s Bicycles in Rialto and Redlands. Ed and Scott start by following up on last week’s news before moving on to what’s happening now. It starts with the Amtrak derailment in Pennsylvania that killed eight and injured 200 on Tuesday. The black box tells us that the train was going 80 miles per hour before it rounded the curve where the derailment occurred, and that as the derailment occurred, the speed increased to 106 miles per hour. Right before the train derailed, the engineer applied the emergency brake.
Not surprisingly, Democrats are attempting to politicize the crash by linking it to the fact that the House Appropriations Committee rejected increased funding for Amtrak the same day. Ed plays audio of White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest blaming Republicans for reducing these subsidies to Amtrak, which appears to receive $340 million from the federal government in fiscal year 2015. Wow! Even after receiving that much money, Amtrak runs a deficit each year and has lost about $587 million. The rail service actually loses about $122 per passenger, because much of its government money goes into overpaying its employees. Ed points out that Amtrak food and beverage service workers make $106,000 per year and only need to work four hours per month to keep their benefits; taking this into consideration, Ed and Scott question why we subsidize Amtrak in the first place.
Next, it’s on to discussing the President and First Lady’s separate rants on poverty this week. President Obama’s took place at a poverty summit at Georgetown University, where he said he was concerned that kids are abandoning public schools and parks in favor of private institutions. If you see the hypocrisy in these comments (starting with the fact that the first daughters attend private school), tune into this week’s show to hear your opinions validated! Ed and Scott also discuss Michelle Obama’s angry commencement address at Tuskegee University, which are shocking to say the least because the life experience she describes sounds very little like what her actual life is. If you haven’t heard this yet – and, you believe that a commencement address should be positive, rather than angry – you need to tune in to The Main Event to hear this!
Moving on to the 2016 presidential race, and Jeb Bush’s interview that has everyone talking. He has not yet announced that he is running, yet he is being asked to clarify his positions on everything from religious freedom, to immigration, to the war in Iraq. If you are still curious about Jeb Bush’s positions and you’re forming your own list of candidates to watch this year and next, tune in to this week’s The Main Event!
Catch Ed Hoffman, host of The Main Event, on air this Saturday at 9:30 a.m. with encore presentations at 9 p.m., and Sunday at 4 p.m. Follow him on Twitter @EdHoffman, and like him on Facebook by searching The Main Event 590.
