While host Neal Asbury was traveling in China, co-host Dr. Rich Roffman assumed solo hosting responsibilities, continuing the mission of the nationally syndicated “Neal Asbury’s Made in America” show on Radio America (now on 48 stations).
Made in America welcomed return guest Andrea Bozek from the National Republican Committee, who characterized the White House pronouncement that the Republican Party was engaging in a war against women as an “act of desperation,” as Democrats face ongoing pressure from voters about the economy and Obamacare.
“Obama’s Equal Pay Day event turned into a major embarrassment when it was learned that women in the White House earn considerably less than men. Maybe the White House should have done some checking of its own flawed formula,” proposed Bozek.
She added that 3.7 million more women are in poverty after Obama was elected president, and that Obamacare hits women harder than men when it comes to jobs being eliminated to help employers pay for health insurance.
“Women shouldn’t be used political pawns – a lesson we learned during Romney’s election bid – when Republicans didn’t fight back when the Party was being accused of being anti-women,” noted Bozek, who suggested that they won’t make that mistake again and proposed that when we’re talking about jobs, women issues are American issues.
Joining the show was Sandy Botkin, from the Tax Reduction Institute, who acknowledged that the U.S. healthcare system needed to be fixed, but Obamacare isn’t the solution.
“The insurance industry is playing games and jacking up rates, and this poses challenges to small business. The big omission from Obamacare is that it failed to address tort reform. This would immediately really help reduce premiums,” predicted Botkin.
He reminded listeners that employer tax credits under Obamacare will expire, and rates will rise. This isn’t an issue for employers with fewer than 50 employees, but employers with 50 employees face a penalty if they don’t pay for health insurance. He also revealed that employers can gain a tax deduction if they pay for the expenses that hospitals don’t cover under the Obama plan.
Bob Powers, the former chairman of the Miami Bayside Foundation, joined Made in America to discuss his participation in this private/public enterprise that seeks to spur entrepreneurism, especially among minorities.
“We call it adaptive reuse, which means we give loans to minority businesses which normally wouldn’t have access to capital, to revitalize properties that would just be left vacant. Our initial priority is the Bayside community,” said Powers.
To continue the topic of urban redevelopment, Made in America welcomed Avra Jain; whose Vagabond Group is buying historic but rundown South Florida hotels in the MiMo district, to revitalize what was a dying community.
“I started as a Wall Street broker, but turned my hobby as a real estate investor into a second career. It requires courage and discipline, but I’ve found family and friends that share my passion to change the character of a neighborhood,” said Jain, who now has nine hotels under purchase and is currently opening her first property — The Vagabond–in a just a few weeks.
She’s created constructions jobs, hotel employee jobs and has encouraged redevelopment in a “reusable” neighborhood.
Dr. Roffman segued to his weekly segment identifying rampant cronyism, and returned to his favorite target: the Department of Energy, which has a propensity for lending taxpayer money to companies that are doomed to failure, such as Solyndra.
“You’d think after losing $1 billion in failed loans, that the Department of Energy would have been admonished. Instead, they actually have $16 billion in their budget to fund what will inevitably be losing enterprises at taxpayer expense,” suggested Dr. Roffman.
Dr. Roffman also returned to another favorite topic; the way that Obama plays fast and loose with data. This time he revealed that to help Obama reach his goal of 7 billion Obamacare enrollees, Obama crony George Soros funded a Chicago company to enroll prison inmates.
Dr. Roffman’s favorite crony of the week is the woman who received a $25,000 grant from the EPA to reward her for voting six times for Obama in the last election.
Each week Neal Asbury’s Made in America provides Neal’s insights into the week’s top news stories and their impact on the worlds of entrepreneurship, small business ownership and the overall economy. Neal’s analysis, together with co-host Dr. Richard Roffman, a veteran 30-year publisher with extensive domestic and international experience, takes a non-biased approach based on real life experience in business as an American manufacturer and exporter. Made in America airs nationally each Saturday from 7-8:00 PM on Radio America. Link to Made in America at http://www.nealasburysmadeinamerica.com.
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