Join us in this enlightening episode of Rush to Reason as we dive into the revolutionary federal school choice tax credit being championed by Colorado Governor Jared Polis. Our guest, Norton Rainey, CEO of ACE Scholarships, elaborates on how this initiative is set to transform the educational landscape across America. We explore the historic nature of this tax credit, highlighting how it offers both private and public school support while giving parents the ability to choose the best educational settings for their children. Listen as we uncover the potential benefits of increased competition among schools and the unique stance
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This is Rush to Reason.
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With your host, John Rush.
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Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
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It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hour two, Rush to Reason. Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Norton Rainey joining us now. CEO of, is it ACE or ACE Scholarships, Norton?
SPEAKER 07 :
John, thanks for having me on. It is ACE Scholarships for the Alliance for Choice in Education.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, so talk to us about Governor Polis. He’s planning to opt Colorado into a new federal school choice tax credit. How does that work out for us, and is that a good thing?
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s a great thing. First of all, I want to commit to just saying how much we appreciate Governor Jared Polis and his leadership on this issue. The federal school choice tax credit, which will start in 2027… is really a game changer for America. It’s going to enable all 50 states potentially to participate. And every taxpayer in America has the ability now to claim the credit when they give to an organization like ACE. And that money will be used for programs that support kids going to good private K through 12 schools and also education programs for public schools. Historically, Republicans have been big supporters of school choice, and Democrats have historically been opposed to it. Governor Polis is very different. He’s actually bucked that trend, and he’s been a longtime supporter of ACE over 20 years, and he’s been a supporter of school choice. So we really commend him for his leadership. And also being a bold leader in the country when so many Democratic leaders are already saying that they likely will not opt into this really, truly transformative historic moment for our country and kids in America, that our governor is saying, yes, I want to be a part of it.
SPEAKER 12 :
Why do you feel that he’s doing something different than the majority of his colleagues are not doing? Because, by the way, you’re right. I agree with you 100%. And I have been a proponent, although I’ve had some debates on air of some folks that are even on our side of the fence against school choice, and I understand their reasons. Why? But I have been a proponent of I feel like it’s a way to build competition. Competition always builds excellence. That’s part of the problem we have with public schools right now is there is no competition. And I feel like the more we have, the better they will get as well. And everything rises, rises in the meantime. So that’s my thought process on it, Norton. But why is Governor Polis so different?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I don’t know exactly why Governor Pulse is different. I just know he’s been a longtime supporter of school choice. I think he’s smart enough to recognize that he personally grew up in a very affluent family and a family of privilege. He was able to go to very good schools, and he saw the difference that a good education made, and in particular for him. And so he’s always believed that everyone in America, regardless of who they are, where they come from, should have access to a good school. And if our public schools aren’t providing that education… Which is the case in America. For the last 40 years, we’ve seen our country go from being number four in the world in the late 70s to the 40s now as we compare America to other countries. So I think Jared Polis is rational and practical to see we have a major problem, and it’s not a money issue. We spend just under $1 trillion on public schools. Here in Colorado, approximately $16,000 per student. Yet less than 50 percent of our kids are proficient in math and reading. So he sees that very clearly. Now, sadly, it is way too partisan. We know that politics and the teachers union, they really do get into the way of elections.
SPEAKER 12 :
Sure do.
SPEAKER 07 :
Jared Polis is his own man. Jared Polis is a very wealthy man who can fund a lot of his campaigns. And I think once again, he just believes in the power of educational choice and what it can do for our state and also for our country. So, again, we are so grateful to him.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, so that’s a big change. What’s the timetable on this look like, Norton?
SPEAKER 07 :
2027 is when the program officially opens up. In late 2026, our organization, Ace Scholarships, will start collecting pledges from donors. And I want to walk your guests through how simple this is. A tax credit is different than a traditional tax deduction. You know, this holiday season, we talked about giving to charities, and people are so generous in America. As people know, you receive a deduction, a credit’s even better. You can give up to $1,700 per year in this program, and that means when you file your taxes the next year, the federal government will actually refund you $1,700. So it’s a dollar-for-dollar credit. So that’s how beautiful this is. And if we can scale this and we can recruit millions of donors around the country, we have the ability of filling seats across America and letting parents put their kids in high-quality schools, and change an America forever through our kids being educated and our parents choosing what’s the right place for their children.
SPEAKER 12 :
And again, as I go back and say a moment ago, too, don’t forget everybody listening that with increased competition means those that are maybe not competing as well as they should be, Norton, they won’t have a choice but either to compete or they will fail. And I’m one, Norton, where I will tell you straight up that I think there’s some public schools in some areas where if there really was solid competition exactly what i just said would happen in fact i think it happened in every public school but there’s some especially whereby they’re probably hanging on by a thread right now and if people had a better choice they’d go somewhere else meaning that school would probably fail and frankly norton it’s just like business if they do they do it helps the industry out when it’s all said and done when the bad ones go away
SPEAKER 07 :
No question about it. I think every aspect of our lives, especially as children growing up, we compete in everything, whether it’s sports or business or college. When you compete and you’ve got someone who’s better than you, you have a choice you can make at that time. You can cower or you can actually advance your skills. When you’re surrounded by people who are mediocre or perhaps people who aren’t pushing you to your talent level and where you should be, you’ll continue being mediocre. Competition is a great equalizer. And America, listen, we live in the greatest country in the world, as we know, where we are super philanthropic. We’ve had tremendous advancements here. And I love telling this story that in the early 80s, you couldn’t ship a package overnight. And then came along FedEx. And all of a sudden, the United States Postal Service and other competitors started saying, you know what? We can probably figure it out. That’s what competition did for our service there. In every aspect of our lives, it does the same. I want to point out also, too, we support kids going to private K-12 schools. We are not anti-public schools. We are absolutely agnostic as to where a parent wants to put their kid. We just want them to have the choice to put their child in the environment that’s right for them. And we know in America, 80% plus of Americans who have kids, they want choice, and most parents are denied that.
SPEAKER 12 :
How do folks find you again?
SPEAKER 07 :
Go to acescholarships.org. We actually have a specific link where you can sign up your interest being involved in this program. Mostly spread the word. We care about kids. We want to literally transform all 50 states, not just the dirt team we’re in currently.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. Norton, thank you, by the way. I appreciate it greatly. We’ll watch how this progresses next year. And as things go, you know, as we get further down the road, please let me know. We’ll get you back on air. I’d love to chat with you as this thing continues down that path of success.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you very much. I’d also encourage you, let’s also get one of our mothers or a dad or a kid on the program. When you hear the stories of those who’ve been impacted, it is so special and powerful. I just say that 99% of our kids graduate. So we are a proven model to guaranteed investment. But get some of the families on your air. That is really special when you hear their stories.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. Well, you throw that back to you guys, and I’m more than willing to do that. We’d be happy to. Okay, we look forward to it. All right, Norton, appreciate you very much. Have a great rest of your evening. Norton Rainey, again, he is CEO of Ace Scholarships. And up next, Golden Eagle Financial. Al did a review, or sorry, an interview, not a review, but an interview of late. Listen in. If you need anything from Al directly, contact him by going to klzradio.com.
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Hi, I’m Al Smith from Golden Eagle Financial. You may have heard my radio show or one of my ads here on KLZ. I’ve had the show for over five years. I really enjoy providing information and I try to make it interesting. You have a lot of choices when it comes to selecting an advisor. A few things about me. I’m a fiduciary. I’ve been in the business over 30 years. And if you call my office, depending on the day and time, you might reach me. If my office manager takes the call or if it goes to voicemail, you’ll be contacted very quickly. When we sit down to discuss your financial concerns, before we go over any statements of your accounts, we’ll take a deep dive into what you want your future to look like. Not just the financial component, but a little bit about your family, how you plan to spend your time, where you plan to live, and any plans you have to give back. or to volunteer. I want to learn about what makes you happy, what brings you joy. We can then craft a plan together that takes all these things into consideration. To learn more, contact me through the KLZ website.
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Putting reason into your afternoon drive, this is John Rush.
SPEAKER 12 :
Welcome back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 5CC. Okay, going back to this really quick. I want to go back to Governor Polis and some of you are even texting in saying he’s done something right. Well, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again. Now, one thing Charlie reminded me of during the break that I should remind all of you of is Polis started his political career, if you would, on a school board. So he does have some history in, you know, that end of things. And again, he’s not dumb. I’ve said that numerous times, not dumb. In fact, he wants to be president someday. Now, the whole school education end of things is always a hot button when it comes to being on the campaign trail. And if he had a feather in his cap about how he implemented a scholarship-type program, tax credit in Colorado, whereby people had an option or more of an option than they currently do to send their kids to whatever school they want, really promoting school choice. School choice in a lot of areas, especially in red states, is a big deal. Not so much in blue states, but it is in red states. Now, keep in mind, he’s not dumb. He knows… If he were to ever run for president, he’s already got the blue vote. He’s got the Democrats on his side no matter what. So frankly, this particular situation doesn’t change anything on that side of the aisle for him at all. And he knows that. Now, where it does change things for him is not anybody on the right, because they’re not going to vote for him either, which he knows. But those folks that are in the middle, especially those that are in the middle that lean right, this helps him in that area greatly. Again, I’ve said this many times. Governor Polis is not dumb. I don’t like what he does, and I don’t like where he stands, and I really do believe he’s a Marxist. But at the end of the day, he’s a smart one, and he understands how to win. Frankly, something our side could learn from. And again, I’ll give him credit there. You guys all know me. I will give credit where credit’s due, no matter what side of the aisle it’s on. In this case, it’s our own governor. And, yeah, he does some things very well. I mean, he’s a politician. He knows exactly what needs to be done to win and get the football moving forward, something our side here in this state struggles with extremely. You hear Andy and I talk about that all the time. For me personally, it’s the most frustrating thing ever because our side can’t figure it out. He’s got it figured out. And in this particular case, and I can answer the question as to, you know, why is he on board with this? Because down the road, it gets him votes. Now, I’m not saying that he doesn’t truly believe in school choice and that he doesn’t really – he’s not somebody that understands the value in and the fact that kids have a choice to go to – parents have a choice where to send their kids. And in turn, those kids end up having a better education and, and, and. I’m not saying he doesn’t understand that. I believe he does. He is a Democrat through and through. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget for one second that he is. But he is different in this area than most Democrats are because most Democrats are so much in bed with the teachers’ unions, and the teachers’ unions hate school choice, absolutely hate school choice, because it’s competition, as I said earlier with our last guest, with Norton. And they hate that. They don’t want any competition. They want to eliminate all their competition. That’s why they’re so against charter schools and private schools and so on. They hate them. So this is out of the box for somebody like Governor Polis to come along and really kind of slap the face of the teachers union because that’s what he’s doing. And in that, I will give him credit. And it’s not a regularity, not something that happens regular for a governor like Governor Polis to do something like this. So, yeah, I’ll give credit where credit’s due. I still believe that the ulterior motive here is that he wants to be president someday. I don’t think I’m wrong in that, by the way. All right, several of you, actually probably a dozen or so of you, asked, is my power back on? Because you all know that I lost power where I’m at on the west side of town, and I lost power in the mandatory shutdown from Xcel Energy, which, by the way, this is a side note, and I said this yesterday, I mean it. Huge poke in the eye of customers because of the lawsuit they had and the payout they had. They decided, you know, we’re going to take about, you know, 60,000 to 90,000 customers out of the loop. And in my opinion, they’re not even being strategic about it. Now, I don’t understand their sides of things, and I’m not on their side, and I don’t understand where some of their lines are and when they shut one line down, what that actually does to other sections of town and so on. So maybe I’m speaking out of line, but it sure seems to me like it’s willy-nilly on how they decided who to shut down. Just my own opinion. Could be wrong. I’m not them. Maybe somebody can call in and correct me on that, but it sure seems willy-nilly. Like there’s really not a plan. It’s more of, okay, we’re going to just blanket this area. Whether a downed power line would really have a negative effect or not, we’re going to go ahead and shut it down. And we’re going to do that because we’re proving a point. Sue us. We’re taking your power away. Sorry, folks, that’s exactly what’s happening, and I said that yesterday. Now, everybody’s asking, you know, how did I do? Well, I got a notice because I wasn’t home because I was in a meeting and not far from the station at that time. One o’clock is when mine finally came back on. So from 10 o’clock a.m. on Wednesday to 1 o’clock p.m. on Thursday. So I went over 24 hours without power. And some of you are asking, did I go to a hotel? Did I have the ability to handle things at home? Well, you guys listening to Ready Radio, as much as some of you do from 2 or 3 o’clock on Friday, should know that I’m not leaving my house. I’ll be fine. And we were. We managed. Some of you are asking, how did I heat the house? Well, fortunately, it wasn’t super cold last night. My house does a pretty good job of staying warm, even on its own, and it wasn’t that cold. And we just made it work. Now, I did have the ability because I’ve got some things, again, from Ready Radio and things that I’ve kind of prepared for whereby I don’t have a full backup generator, something that Bill Anderson and I are working on together, so at some point I probably will have. But quite frankly, I don’t have this happen very often. I rarely lose power. It’s just not an issue for me. So it is something, though, that I’m looking at and will probably get to at some point here probably in the next few months. But I’ve got enough devices, backup this, backup that, to whereby I can run the refrigerator and the things that really matter. And, no, I didn’t really need to worry about running the heat, and the water still ran. And I’ve got a gas burner stove whereby you can even generate some heat out of that. And I was able to still make my coffee this morning and do some things along those lines. So, yeah, again, at the end of the day, was I dead in the water? No. I mean, realistically, for me, work-wise? The biggest thing about being dead in the water is not being able to work on a computer and have Internet and all of that. That’s a bigger factor for me, working, than anything else. I can get by with everything else. I’ve got enough other things in place to survive no problem. But working and doing the things that I need to do here for the program and so on, yeah, that’s hard to do without power. So this morning I had to leave and find other places to work and do some things with because it’s extremely difficult to work from home with no power and no Internet. Again, look at what I do. In fact, when the power went down, I was recording some things for this program in my home studio, and I was almost done. I was about 95% done, and Excel decided to shut the power off 10 minutes sooner than they said, and I was dead in the water. So it’s hard for me to work and do the things that I do without having internet. So truthfully, for me… That was a bigger thing than working without power and heat and all of that for everything else. I’ve camped and lived out, been hunting and lived outdoors and done enough things along those lines where that’s a non-issue for me. I can handle that no problem. It’s the being able to work part of things when the power is out that’s so difficult for me. So how did I make it work? We just did. Again, we’re resourceful. I’m resourceful. It’s really not a big issue. I’ve got enough flashlights and little lanterns and different things along those lines where all that was fine, no issues there whatsoever. And I’m supposed to go out again tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. So I will more than likely be doing the same thing I did today, tomorrow, and finding other ways to get my work done and so on. So I’m ready to go. And hopefully we’re out of the woods at that point. And, again, I still think Xcel Energy is a bunch of knuckleheads. I’ll just say that straight up. I think it’s willy-nilly on how they’re actually shutting things off. Again, they shut things off and they’ve got to recheck all the lines before they actually energize things back up for fear that something might have – broken in the wind and so on and i get it we had really really strong winds on the west side of town but folks we’ve had them before and the problem is we had them before and then they got sued and had to settle for 40 million bucks that’s why they’re shutting power off now the question is how much time energy labor and so on does it take them to shut down bring back up and keep in mind when that meter is off they’re not making any money So you would think there’d be incentive for them to keep some of these things up and running, but there’s a guaranteed return on a public utility, so it’s not quite like a regular business, nor do they look at it in the same way. But anyways, a lot of you have asked, how did I make it through? What did I do? So on and so forth. I’m resourceful. I made it. No, I didn’t go to a hotel. Wasn’t any reason to. I was fine with what was going on. We made it through. It wasn’t that big of a deal. I will say this. You turn off all the lights in a particular area of town, and holy cow, is it dark. Really dark. I mean, like, can’t see your hand in front of your face dark last night because there wasn’t hardly any moon or anything. It was dark. And the wind blowing just makes it even that much more strenuous, I guess you could say, or your stress level goes up. And I’m one of those when I’ve lived in Colorado my entire life. I’m a native here, as you guys all know. And to this day, I still utterly despise the wind. There isn’t anything about it that I like. So we’ll take a break. We’ll come right back. Don’t go anywhere. Mile High Coins coming up next. 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SPEAKER 12 :
And we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. John, you are next. Go ahead, John.
SPEAKER 06 :
So, John, I’m on an REA, and I got an email from them today, and what they said is that due to the wind, if the power goes out, it’s going to take longer to restore because we’ve got to get the crews out. What that tells me is they just put all the reclosures into one shot. If it trips, they’re sending somebody out before they close it back in. Makes sense. Excel could have done that. I think you’re right. I think this is a punishment more than anything else.
SPEAKER 12 :
I agree. I agree. Because to me, John, I mean, and again, I don’t know Excel’s side of things. And those of you that are out there, you Lyman and so on, it’s not you. You’re doing exactly what you’ve been told to do. So I’m not against you at all. This is more of the upper management end of things with Excel Energy. And I feel like maybe some of you Lyman do too. I feel like this is really kind of a, you know, half a willy-nilly, let’s do this, let’s do that, John. In other words, truthfully looking at the maps and so on, I don’t see much methodology in this whatsoever. It’s totally willy-nilly, if you ask me.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Age of the lines could come into play when they were deciding what’s going to go and what’s going to stay. How old the lines are, when was the last time they worked on a renewed line, Those things are probably being taken into account. But you know who’s running this whole thing, right, is the lawyers. Exactly. The corporation. They’re saying if you don’t want to lose another whatever, $40 million, whatever it was that they got fined, you’ve got to be proactive in turning it on. I mean, how does it get to this? It’s the lawyers.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah. No, you’re right. It’s the lawyers that are minimizing risk. And then, of course, you’ve got upper management saying, okay, well, you know, we had this issue before. This is what our insurance company or the lawyers or whatever, I don’t know if they’re self-insured probably, but, you know, here’s what it cost us before. Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen again. And, in fact, you know, realistically, to make sure that we don’t have any issues whatsoever every time we have this type of a forecast issue, You know, we’ll call in some extra folk, which I know they’ve done. We’ll make sure that we’re prepared in that manner. But we’re just going to shut everything down so that we don’t have any issues whatsoever, meaning all of you listening that are in some of these areas, which, by the way, could be anywhere, maybe not the middle of town, John, but if you’re on the outskirts of town anywhere, north, south, east, west, this could easily happen to you. And again, Xcel Energy isn’t everywhere across the area. In some cases, you’ve got United Power, REI, or other things along those lines, other power companies.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
If you’re in an Xcel Energy area and you’re on the outskirts of town like I am, yeah, I think you’ve got a bigger exposure, John, when it comes to having power shut off.
SPEAKER 06 :
But here’s the other thing. How do you know that your REAs, your smaller core United Power, aren’t going to do the same thing because of what happened to Xcel?
SPEAKER 12 :
They could. They very well could, John. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. So like in my case. The REA being prudent, let’s put the reclosures in one shot, and then we’ll just have Cruz on standby. That’s what’s going to happen. Other thing, I don’t know if you heard this, but the storm left Wyoming and went into South Dakota, and they have massive energy problems up around the Rapid City area right now because the difference between their… is they have so many more trees in that area. From what I understand, they got power lines down all over the place with trees on top of them because they had 80 to 100 mile an hour winds.
SPEAKER 12 :
I did not hear that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, it’s… If you look online, you could see it. If you just look up like Rapid City Power, it’s everywhere. And it’s pretty bad. And they’re talking two or three days to get the power restored. So the reason I’m calling, the main thing… is be prepared, and you’ll probably talk about this tomorrow, to be without power for 72 hours. You should be able to survive for 72 hours without power.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, and the one thing that I learned, even without having power for even over 24 hours, is for those of you that worry about your refrigeration, your freezers, and so on, here’s the thing. Just don’t open the door. I did a little test this morning just to see how cold things would be, John, this morning after being without power from 10 o’clock yesterday a.m. until 6 o’clock this morning. I got up about 5 and finally thought, well, let me at least see how cool things are and so on. And then I rigged up something to go ahead and keep in my main fridge tonight. you know, running cause it was starting to get a little bit warmer, but realistically could I have let that go until the one o’clock when the power came back on and not have any food spoilage? Yeah, I’d have been fine. The key there is don’t open the door.
SPEAKER 06 :
No. And if you do got to get something reaching real fast and close.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Don’t, don’t stand there with the door open, but it’s the same thing.
SPEAKER 06 :
You, you said you had gas, you have natural gas. I have propane. Same thing though. If, the power’s out, you can still use your cooktop, no problem.
SPEAKER 12 :
You just got to light it manually. For all of you listening, when you go to flip it on, the PZO lighter doesn’t work. That’s because there’s no power, so you’ve got to get some sort of a match or a lighter or something to light the gas. You’ll hear the gas running, and be careful. Don’t let it run too long, but all you do is light it manually, which, by the way, John, back in the day, that’s how you lit a gas-burning cooktop anyway, so it’s not that big a deal.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, that’s Well, I grew up with that, you know. Me too. When I was a kid, we had an older stove, and my mother had a box of wooden kitchen mats.
SPEAKER 12 :
You just lit it on your own, and it wasn’t a big deal.
SPEAKER 06 :
Here’s the thing. Light the match or the lighter first, and then turn the gas on.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it’ll light right up for you. Right. And then you can do anything. The other thing I bought just years ago, we had an outage, and I said, and I like my coffee like you, I bought a French press. Yeah, that’s what I used this morning.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, that’s what I used this morning. Sometimes I make that anyways just because I like the taste of it a little bit better. But, yeah, this morning I didn’t have any choice, so I boiled water in my tea kettle and, you know, made my French press and, you know, did what I needed to do and wasn’t that big of an issue and even heated my cream up in a little, you know, container. So, I mean, at the end of the day, John, not a big issue. Pretty easy.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, but what I’m saying is there’s people out there who went into panic mode yesterday. You could see it all over the Internet. And they’re in panic mode again because of tomorrow instead of being prepared. Like a prime example, you said it didn’t get too cold. But if you think you’re going to get too cold, have an extra blanket handy.
SPEAKER 12 :
Exactly. Or a sleeping bag or whatever else you need.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. Throw a sleeping bag on your bed and get in that and then throw a blanket over it. You’ll be plenty warm all night. Right. And if you can’t sleep with, if you don’t have a sleeping bag, get a knit cap like a lot of backpackers do. They don’t use sleeping bags. They use quilts. And just put that on while you sleep. It’ll keep you warm. You know, little things like that make so much of a difference. But I don’t know, John, maybe we’re old. and the next generations are softer than we were raised.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, I think that’s a lot of it. And I just got a text message in a moment ago that, by the way, is agreeing with me and that, you know, in a lot of ways, you know, Jared Polis of Democrats are in cahoots with the PUC, that a lot of what just happened is literally a punishment upon, you know, us as citizenry and so on. And I’ve said that. And by the way, you know, whoever this is that’s texting, I can’t argue with you at all. I think you’re spot on and you agree with what I’ve said along these lines. I mean— Basically what this person said is, I’ve been in Colorado for 77, almost 78 years now. They’ve never shut the power off for high winds. Why now? Well, because of the lawsuit and other things that have happened and the ability to go ahead and do so right now.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right, and we mentioned yesterday when I was talking to you, if one judge had a little bit of guts and threw that case out, it wouldn’t be happening right now. It wouldn’t be going through this. Right. I mean, maybe they’d put, like I said, put the reclosures at one shot. So if the power does go out, they’re going to go check it before they re-energize. You know what I mean? But other than that, I mean, it’s scary because when we talk about it on Friday, what if the power’s out for a month?
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, man, John, there’s going to be some people that would be, let’s just say this, there would be some people that would be in a world of hurt.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, it’s, you know, one of the things that we do, and I don’t know if you’ve With us backpacking, we have found at the end of the season, places like Sierra Trading Post put the freeze-dried meals on special, and most of those have an expiration date of 2050. We’ll buy extra for next summer now and store them. And if you do lose power for a couple of days… All you got to do is be able to boil water, and you got a hot meal, and they’re not.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, again, not that, you know, given the circumstances we’re in now, it’s not even an end-of-the-world type scenario. I mean, there’s still plenty of places where, you know, even eating out, and you go to the inner part of the city, there’s lights on, and there’s, you know, people serving food and so on. I mean, John, at the end of the day, this by no means did I even look at as, it wasn’t an emergency. Maybe I’m saying it, you know, maybe that’s what I should start to say is it was an inconvenience, not an emergency. Inconvenience.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. Like I said, if you are prepared for 72 hours without power, you need to start rethinking your choices. I mean, like you were saying, if the power went out in that building that you’re in, you’d have to walk down a bunch of flights of stairs to get home.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right. Big deal.
SPEAKER 06 :
So maybe once a week, if you work in an office building, walk down the stairs just to see what they look like. Right. Don’t count on the elevator every time. Correct. I mean, for… it’s little things like that, but hopefully tomorrow won’t be as bad. and it’ll be over by 2, 3 o’clock, and they can get your power back on.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, and truthfully, and this is my complaint, I don’t think, you know, from everything I’ve seen forecast-wise, the winds aren’t going to blow near as hard as they just did. And, again, I’m not an expert. I’m not in the power company end of things. But if you were going to have issues, you’d have already had them. So why are they going to shut down for 80-mile-an-hour winds when we just went through 100-mile-an-hour?
SPEAKER 06 :
because they don’t want to get sued.
SPEAKER 12 :
There you go. There’s your answer, John.
SPEAKER 06 :
If something happens. But check out that podcast that I texted you about two days ago. Okay. He was talking about it this morning again, and he said it could be just as bad on Friday until about 3 o’clock.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, good to know. All right, I appreciate that, John. No, thank you very much. Had lots of text messages, by the way, coming in, talking about how, you know, this has never happened before. And again, is this all just Governor Polis? No, although I do think Democrats and how the PUC and such is run has a lot to do with this. Really, folks, and I said this yesterday, this really, in my opinion, boils down to the fact, and John just stated it, a judge allowed a lawsuit to happen in the first place, whereby… they allowed a lawsuit to continue on whereby Xcel Energy had to settle for $40 million. Had that been dismissed… There wouldn’t have been any out-of-court settlement because it’s a dismissed case at that point, and Excel wouldn’t have spent a nickel other than a little bit of lawyer’s fees, but that wouldn’t have been enough to change anything, and we wouldn’t be going through today what we’re going through. Somebody asked me, how did my EV work out with no power? Fabulous, by the way. Fabulous. I was all charged up on the front side, so why would being, you know, again, to John’s point, if you’re planning ahead far enough, how would me being out of power with an EV be a problem? Folks, it’s no different than you having to go down and get gasoline as far as that goes. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s a non-issue. So I know you’re poking fun at me, but I did just fine. No issues whatsoever. I’ll have power tonight. I’ll get everything charged back up again. I’ll be full charge in the truck that I drive. That’s about 360 miles of distance, as much as you probably have in a tank of gas in your car. So at the end of the day, how am I any different than you are? And frankly, if I need to go recharge even outside of my house, I have plenty of opportunity to do that. Not that big of a deal. So is it any different for me than you? Not really. Now, the advantage I have that you don’t have, which I’m actually going to investigate, is with EVs, there’s lots of devices now whereby I can backcharge and run my entire house, not backcharge, but backflow my entire house out of the EV that I own and not even need as much of a backup generator if I decide to do that, which I’m going to look at. So at the end of the day, I actually have an advantage. that you don’t have in that regard. Between the two EVs I own, I could power my house for a couple of weeks, no problem. So, not to be rude, but put that in your pipe and smoke it. Sorry, not to be rude, but you were to begin with, so I guess I can be that way. Back to you. Cub Creek Heat and Air Conditioning coming up next. If you had any issues at all with power outage and your furnace not coming back on correctly, or issues along those lines at all, please give Cub Creek a call. Find them at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Before I jump to Dan, I just want to comment on the text I got from somebody basically poking fun at me for having an EV. Frankly, folks, that’s why our site doesn’t win as many elections as we should. Number one, that’s an ignorant statement, and I know you’re just poking, but if you do that in other areas of life, it’s why we as conservatives don’t win more arguments and we don’t win elections, and I mean that sincerely. Dan, you’re next. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
So you’re gutting in and out. What did somebody poke fun at you about?
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, they wanted to know how well my EV worked with no power on. Dumb comment. Dumb comment, I know, but anyways, it is what it is.
SPEAKER 08 :
I mean, it all depended on your charge. If it was charged up, you wouldn’t have any problems.
SPEAKER 12 :
Which it was, and so at the end of the day, Dan, I have no issues whatsoever, no different than somebody that would be running around with a full tank of gas versus what I had. So, I mean, again, dumb comment, but my point with that is if that’s how we influence others when it comes to winning elections, Dan, it’s why we keep losing.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, the… Okay, I mean, I was calling on something else. The whole EV thing, it’s… I don’t want to touch the lost cause, but I think their mandates are going away. So like you have said, it makes sense for some people to actually have an EV because the amount of driving that they do and the type of driving that they do, they’re just as efficient, if not more efficient, than a gas-powered engine. So… I mean, I’ve looked at them. I tried to do a hybrid, a midsize truck, but there is no hybrids out there. The only one that’s out there is Toyota, and it’s a $70,000 truck, and the mileage isn’t any better than their gas-powered plant. Right, right, right. So why would I do that? I mean, I’d have more torque, but if I want more torque, I’ll go with the diesel.
SPEAKER 12 :
There you go. Yep, exactly. No, no, you’re fine. All right, so what were you… Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to get off track on EVs. What were you calling in on?
SPEAKER 08 :
So I’m in Gilpin County, and I lost power for over 18 hours. It’s going to go off again tonight.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 08 :
So I’m trying to understand, is it because I’ve heard different stories, and I don’t know if you got more information, is it because… The Marshall Fire we had several years ago that people sued Excel and they won. And so Excel is saying, forget it. We’re not going to expose ourselves to the liability, so they’re just going to shut off the power.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s my thought process. And they never really were… proven to be guilty. They settled out of court, but it still cost them $40 million, Dan, because, of course, that was cheaper than going to court. So nobody admitted fault at the end of the day, but it cost them $40 million. So, yeah, I mean, if I were them and I was running the company, I wouldn’t do it any differently. I hate to say it that way, but I wouldn’t, because why would I expose myself when you know there’s a bunch of knuckleheads out there that are going to sue you at a drop of a hat?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, they, right, so they won. So whoever, I’m assuming it was a class action suit, So they got their $40 million, the attorneys, and I know you have attorneys, so I’m not trying to knock them, but they probably got at least $20 million out of it.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, I’m guessing that on a situation like that, yeah, some law firm ended up with at least a third of that, so at least $10 million, I’m guessing, or that would be a fourth, I guess. A third would be, what, $13, $14 million, roughly. So at the end of the day, Dan… Yeah, I mean, somebody got very wealthy on that end of things. I don’t remember where the money… I think the money went into a slush fund into the state, if I’m not mistaken, Dan. So really, at the end of the day, the state probably won. I’ll look that up. I’m pretty sure that that didn’t go directly to any victim itself.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. So, again, and I’m not blaming Excel. People are a hot man. I have United Power, but they come off of the Excel grid. They get their power off of Excel. energy and so excel energy shut down the transmission plant or whatever it is to send power up to my place so i was out of power knowing that this is what i’m going to do i’m getting a whole house generator so that i know this is going to keep occurring now and so i don’t want to be without power anymore so you know that’s so that’s that’s my response to it then i get mad i’m just going to Just get a whole house generator. So I’m going to need an electrician to do the wiring. And I think, do you have electricians that can do that on your home?
SPEAKER 12 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. So I just need to go to your webpage.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, ask Bill Anderson. He’ll be with me Friday on, or tomorrow, I should say, tomorrow for Ready Radio. And I was wrong, and I don’t remember who told me. It was $640 million that they actually paid out. Those funds were split. that went among 4,000 individuals, families, businesses, public entities that were affected by the fire, $350 million from insurance, the rest from the company funds with no admission of fault. So, yeah, they’re basically, Dan, trying to avoid another $640 million payout, which I don’t blame them for. Dumb. Again, as John from Cheyenne said, a judge should have just thrown this out from the get-go.
SPEAKER 08 :
And the insurance, because they had to cover that $340 million? their rates are going to go up for Excel on insurance, and Excel is not going to absorb that cost. They’re just going to pass it on to the consumer.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
So you have 4,000 people that apparently were underinsured, I think.
SPEAKER 12 :
That would be my guess. Yeah, probably so, yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
So they should have talked to Paul Norago or whoever.
SPEAKER 12 :
Paul Inigro or Paul Booneberger, one of the two. Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
They should have talked to them to make sure that they were accurately insured, or adequately insured, I should say. And we wouldn’t be in this situation. But how it is, people do scrape everything to get to a house that they can barely afford, and then they can’t afford the insurance to cover that investment. So anyway, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to get a whole house generator so I don’t have to rely… I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ll do the regular power, but if it goes out and if it’s going to go out for extended periods of time, I’m going to address that issue, which I need to. So anyways, that’s my two cents. I just wanted to make sure that I understood that it was Xcel Energy that’s doing it, but it’s a result of this lawsuit that happened.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yep, you’re 100% correct.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, so 4,000 people got some money, but how many more thousands of people are affected and losing power, losing food, having busted water pipes? The economical impact is much more than the $640 million that’s going to affect people going forward. So that’s all I can say.
SPEAKER 12 :
You are 100% correct. So, Dan Goodwin, appreciate the phone call. Let’s do this. We’ll take an early break. I’ll come back and wrap things up for this hour. Roof Savers of Colorado. Now, with all… Take a moment here with… With Roof Savers of Colorado, because with all of the wind and things that have gone on, some of you, a lot of you may find yourself with wind damage on the roof. You might even see shingles laying out in the yard. Now, I will tell you this. I did a lot of checking around my property this morning, and we had really strong winds where I was. That’s why we were out of power, of course. I have had the RoofMax treatment done on my roof, and I didn’t see a single problem with anything on my roof. I’ll have Dave come out and check that probably next week, once you’re after Christmas, once things settle down. But, yeah, I have the RoofMax treatment, and I didn’t lose a single shingle, meaning does it work? Yes, it does. Find out how that would work for you, 303-710-6916.
SPEAKER 15 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
All right, we are back. I should say, okay, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. And sorry, I’m sending out some text messages to some of you that are texting in. I appreciate all of your text messages as well. Try to get them answered as quickly as I can during the breaks. And yeah, $640 million payout, in my opinion, is why Xcel Energy is doing what it’s doing. All right, in other news. Some of you may have seen this. This is sad news, by the way. This is something that we don’t want to talk about. So NASCAR driver Greg Biffle was among seven people, his family, killed in a North Carolina plane crash. So the rest of the family has confirmed that. A family friend has confirmed earlier that Biffle and his family were among those on board of a business jet that crashed Thursday while landing at a regional airport at Statesville, North Carolina. The FAA said the Cessna C-550 crashed while landing at Statesville Regional Airport about 10.20 a.m. today, Thursday, NTSA. SB, of course, is investigating along with the FAA. And it sounds like Garrett Mitchell, whose internet personality is Cletus McFarlane, confirmed that Biffle, along with his wife, Christina, and two children were on the plane. Mitchell said the family was flying down to Florida to visit him. McFarland and Biffle became friends when Biffle organized flights to carry relief supplies to Hurricane Helena victims in western North Carolina. So, unfortunately, that is a huge loss and nothing that you’d want to hear about, especially this time of the year as we head down the stretch into the holidays. That’s extremely difficult for those family members, of course, as you guys can imagine. Now, one thing that I’ll put a little plug in for Ready Radio Tomorrow. I’ve got a new program. sponsor that’s going to be joining us in the very beginning of ready radio and then of course bill and i will get into talking about some of the things that we’ve just discussed during this last oh half hour or so here on rush to reason and that is you know backup generation all the different types that are out there there’s many many ways to do that Some are very simple. Some get a lot more complicated. Some are very inexpensive. Some are very expensive. And we’ll go through the list of some of those things that you can potentially do. We will not get the entire list done tomorrow. I can already tell you because there’s no way in a one-hour show that we can possibly get everything taken care of. And there’s many ways. to actually accomplish having backup power when it’s all said and done. And really, it depends on your setup. And this is where I’ll just say it straight up. It’s hard to just make a single phone call to, for example, a generator company, and then get exactly the answers you need as to what type of generation system do you need to backup your home. Because it’s unique to each individual. It’s sort of like buying a tow vehicle for your fifth wheel or, frankly, buying the house that you need for whatever it is that you do. The reality is it’s different for each individual family. And like us, for example, it’s just my wife and I. Realistically, when things are down, there’s not a lot of things we actually need. So when it’s all said and done, how much generation or backup power do we actually need? And I think we learned a lot about that even last night. Frankly, not much. Not much. For me, I don’t care if the TV’s on. I don’t care what else is working. I mean, at the end of the day, it’d be nice to have Internet access, but even that gets sketchy just because the power being down and relay stations for them are down and so on. So the reality is Internet’s probably not going to work anyway. you’re probably bound to use some sort of a cell system, meaning if you really want backup Internet, have some sort of a star link or something along those lines that’s working outside of the regular channels whereby you’ve actually got Internet access when it’s all said and done. So again, multiple ways to do backup when it comes to no power. It’s a great topic for Ready Radio. One, by the way, that we have covered many times. And now we’re into a situation where lots of people, 100,000 or more, have been affected by power outages across the Denver metro area. Most of those have probably never listened to Ready Radio. And to John from Cheyenne’s point, most of them are probably overreacting to what actually has happened. To me, it’s a huge inconvenience. It’s not an emergency by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a huge inconvenience to be without power. But again, Bill and I will talk about that tomorrow on Ready Radio. Tune in at this same station tomorrow, KLZ, from 2 to 3 o’clock, and he and I will talk about some of those things then. Got another full hour coming your way. Don’t go anywhere. This is Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
I’m a rich guy.
