Scott Walker's Post-election ChutzpaFest rolls along.
After forcing Gov. Doyle to cancel the high-speed rail connection between Madison and Milwaukee - - Doyle stopped the project to limit the state's losses and reimbursement to the feds - - Walker wants President Barack Obama to let him off the hook for the project's lost jobs by agreeing to let our get the impulsive Republican governor-elect spend the $810 million rail grant on highway projects.
Why should Obama give Walker the time of day?
Walker has misrepresented the process by which such reprogramming had happened in the past, misrepresented the projected cost of the system's annual operation (it is $750,000, not $7.5-$10 million as Walker continues to claim) and spent the last year bashing Obama's health care reform and other domestic items.
More nerviness on Walker's part: his letter to the feds asking for authorization to spend the rail money on roads attacks the entire rail program and suggests it be scrapped nationally. Does Walker not understand that the rail plan is a key Obama goal?
So Walker wants a favor from Obama and goes into attack move when asking for what is clearly a political bailout request?
If the money is lost to rail in Wisconsin, it will go to another rail project, probably in Illinois, New York or Florida.
And if Walker is facing a road budget too bloated and unaffordable, he can bit the bullet and downsize or cancel projects, and tell the road-builders their donations were in vain.
Walker's game is so blatantly transparent: He's killed the train - - so Tea Partiers and talk radio hosts are elated - - so now what, as the money disappears? Ask the feds, those evil Washington DC politicians, to shift the money to some other non-rail purposes that Walker knows is not going to happen.
When the request is denied, then it's the feds who have denied Wisconsin money for road projects that Walker has endorsed - - $3.7 billion remaining on the SE Wisconsin freeway expansion, one billion for I-39/90 expansion from the Dells to Illinois, and others - - but for which there is no money.
And Walker can stay on message: Obama bad, Walker good.
Rhetoric and reckless actions have consequences and Scott Walker's is that he has ruined his post-election honeymoon by trashing a fine project, killing jobs and making Wisconsin a poor partner with the federal government.
Let Walker be consoled by talk radio as he works his way through a problem completely of his own creation.
Wow. So Clueless.
ReplyDeleteHow about this:
Rather than take our own federal taxpayer dollars and dump them into a wasteful project that nobody wants, we use our taxpayer's federal dollars and put it towards the infrastructure that people actually use.
Something wrong with that?
Yes, you think so.
You want to bring back the 1930's and call it modern.
Unfortunately - that is just as stupid as the entire "progressive" (regressive) movement.
Trains were already dying when your hero "fighting Bob" was advancing re-packaged socialism as the pablum for the people.
Move on. You lost. Work harder, have a point.
Such a brave stand for an anonymous post...
ReplyDeleteNo one wants rail? Try Tommy Thompson, who asked for federal money for it for YEARS and never saw it.
Part of energy independence is going to be having options for travel; if all you can use is roads, then that's all you will use. Rather a specious argument to say all of Wisconsin wants only roads.
There are a large number of commuters to Chicago that would disagree.
...and while you're at it, dump the socialism shtick. This isn't the '50s and Joe McCarthy's drunken corpse is long in the grave. Try something at least original.
Refresh my memory: what's the criteria for impeaching a Governor in Wisconsin?
ReplyDeleteNot an idle question.
Mr. Rowan you are being to hard on our Gov.-Elect Scooter Dub. He is looking to the future; as of yet he hasn't stopped the new Pabst Farms interchange at Hwy P/I-94. This project is scheduled to begin in 1/11 and will serve a grand mall to be built on cornfields that have recently been reclassified as ag. land for tax purposes for the next 5 years. We will have the finest 4 roundabout interchange in the world. $700,000 for a da.. train and ancillary development or $20 million+ interchange to the stars.
ReplyDeleteSomething wrong with that?
ReplyDeleteOther than the fact that it belies complete ignorance of the federal appropriations process and a crazy belief that Governor Trainwreck can magically wish this into being, nothing at all.
"You want to bring back the 1930's and call it modern."
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that, in that era, you could take a train from Madison to Chicago at over 100 mph. Now you have to settle for crawling past O'Hare at less than half that on the interstate.
Wisconsin Progregressive: The boondoggle train is about Madison's inferiority complex about not having a train. C&NW passenger service to Madistan stopped back in 1977. Where were you "forward thinking" Progressives back then? Milwaukee already has train service to Chicago and Minneapolis.
ReplyDeleteObama will make a deal with Walker. Why? Because he and the Demorats want to carry Wisconsin in 2012. The Republicans will hammer the Dems if Obama does not make a deal.
Wisconsin Conservative
It is interesting that Walker doesn't oppose the stimulus/deficit spending - he just wants a $810 million cookie jar for his supporters. Looks like we will need to change the state motto to backward.
ReplyDelete