News & Public Affairs

Obama touts stimulus plan while in Fort Myers listen

02/10/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Barack Obama, economy, enconomic stimulus, Wall Street bailout, recovery plan

President Barack Obama appeared in Fort Myers today for his second Town Hall Meeting regarding his economic stimulus plan in two days.

About an hour into the President’s Town Hall Meeting, he learned that his stimulus bill had passed the Senate, 61-37. Three Republican senators were able to get him over the 60 votes needed for passage. The bill now will go into conference between House and Senate leaders.

The fact that only three Republicans out of the entire 535 members of Congress bac...

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Castor, Meek come out fighting for Obama stimulus plan listen

02/09/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Economy, economic stimulus package, politics

As the economic stimulus bill is poised to be voted on in the Senate tomorrow, President Obama and Congressional Democrats today came out on the offensive in arguing for the merits of the bill. It comes after Republicans have controlled the tone of the debate, if not the actual votes, in the past week.

Obama makes a trip to Southwest Florida tomorrow, to Fort Myers, one of the hardest hit counties in the country when it comes to foreclosures.

And House Democrats, who have been missing...

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Local advocates for stimulus package make their case listen

02/09/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Economy, economic stimulus package, politics

This morning in front of a boarded up Wendy’s on Armenia Avenue in Tampa, City Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena and Florida Consumer Action Network Director Bill Newton used the dilapidated building as a backdrop to call on Sen. Mel Martinez and local members of Congress to support the economic stimulus bill being debate in Congress.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Florida’s economy is in bad shape. Last month’s unemployment rate was at the state was over 8 percent, and a report issued M...

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Vern Buchanan discusses economic stimulus bill listen

02/09/09 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Economy, economic stimulus package, Vern Buchanan, Sarasota County Commission

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan is a Republican who represents all or parts of Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, Hardee and DeSoto Counties.

This morning Buchanan briefed the Sarasota Board of County Commissioners on the federal economic stimulus bill making its way through Congress.

Buchanan told the Commission he is confident that the Senate’s version of the stimulus package will pass and then it will be rec...

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Career Fair participants on looking for a job in the current economy listen

02/06/09 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Economy, job market, unemployment

This morning CareerBuilder.com hosted a career fair at the DoubleTree Hotel on West Cypress St. in Tampa.

WMNF asked job seekers what it’s like to look for employment in the current economy.

“It kind of sucks."

"It doesn’t look very promising at the moment.”

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Hillsborough County cuts more jobs listen

02/04/09 Mitch E. Perrry
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Tags: Hillsborough County, economy, job cuts

For the third time in a year and a half, there have been staffing cuts at Hillsborough County’s Building Services Division.

Peter Aluotto with the County’s Planning and Growth Management Department said 36 people have to lose their jobs because the office is currently running at a deficit of nearly $2 million.

The jobs cuts are a reflection of the housing crisis which is battering the nation. He said it would require raising fees 21 percent on permit applications, but said that wasn’t ...

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Radioactivity: Fighting Foreclosure; and, Fish Farming in the Gulf?

01/27/09 Robert Lorei
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Tags: Fish farming, environment, Gulf of Mexico, aquaculture, foreclosure, mortgage crisis, economy

Good afternoon,

Welcome to Radioactivity. I’m Rob Lorei. Coming up today we’ll talk about the home foreclosure crisis and we’ll have two experts in the studio to talk about how to deal with foreclosure.

But first: The Gulf Of Mexico Fishery Advisory Council is poised today to approve the first offshore Aquaculture or “fish farming” plan in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s an idea that has some environmentalists, scientists and commercial fisherman up in arms. One of those is Marianne Cufone wh...

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Florida unemployment rate highest in 16 years listen

01/23/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Economy, unemployment rate

Florida's unemployment rate in December jumped to 8.1 percent, the highest it’s been September 1992. The Tampa Bay Area’s unemployment rate is now 8.3 percent.

Rebecca Rust with the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation says specific industries have been devastated in this downturn.

State legislators just completed a special session where they cut $2.8 billion in government spending to deal with a deficit. But they refused to consider raising taxes on cigarettes, despite a poll publi...

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Interview with Michael Kinsley on his new book

01/21/09 Robert Lorei
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Tags: Economy, Stimulus Package, economy

Good afternoon, welcome to WMNF's Radioactivity program. I'm Rob Lorei.

From the book's press release: "Capitalism is facing its biggest crisis since the Great Depression, it time for a clear-eyed reconsideration of capitalism’s strengths and weaknesses. Since the fall of Communism two decades ago, capitalism has been (almost) unchallenged as the world’s reigning ideology, and in Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Other Economic Leaders. Edited by M...

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Kendrick Meek on torture and federal bailout

01/15/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Kendrick Meek, Congress, economy

Earlier this week, Miami area Congressman Kendrick Meek became the first Democrat to officially enter the race for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez next year.

WMNF spoke with him today to talk about his candidacy, and asked about a couple of major issues pending in Congress such as what he made of the blockbuster revelations in Wednesday’s Washington Post. Susan Crawford, the senior official for the Pentagon’s military commissions, claimed that interrogators tortured a ...

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