Walker's Crazy Train Math
A friend sends this along about Scott Walker's train-killing blunder:
"Wisconsin taxpayers pay approximately 1.8% of all federal taxes collected.
National high-speed network is estimated to cost $8 billion.
1.8% x $8 billion = $140 million: this is the share to be paid by Wisconsin taxpayers.
$810 million granted to Wisconsin for rail is 5.7 times $140 million."
Look at how much better we were with the $810 million.
So we're still paying in to the train system that will be built in other states - - but somehow Walker thinks sending the $810 million won by Wisconsin to other states is in Wisconsin's interest?
A $0 return? With $140 million headed out the door anyway?
And the never-onerous operating cost projections for Wisconsin's new train line were already falling to a fraction of what it costs the state to operate, maintain, plow, repair and patrol the highways.
Bottom line:
Walker's move is a big defeat for Wisconsin's business climate, job-seekers, the train assembly business in Milwaukee and our major cities' connections to Chicago, the Twin Cities, throughout the Midwest and beyond, as historian John Gurda recently argued, with eloquence.
But a sloppy wet kiss for talk radio, and a boost for the talkers' ratings.
4 comments:
Btw, how are those ratings? I very rarely listen to Milwaukee talk these days. I think they are mostly just preaching to the choir. The quality of talk radio in general just stinks. I say, "Turn 'em off!"
When I worked for General Motors in Detroit, department managers within assembly plants were often scorned by onlookers when they worried more about the viability of their respective departments than looking at the big picture - i.e. the overall health of the company. For example, a manager would fight tooth and nail to retain his dept. budget even when relinguishing a portion to another dept. would yield a greater benefit for the company.
Jim, you've scorned the spending of tax dollars on roads and advocated the use of public funds for rail projects. Yet, 250,000 vehicles per day would benefit from Zoo exchange reconstruction while 1,000 theoretical passengers per day would use the rail system from Milwaukee to Madison.
I see the best interests of the country, while you seem more focused on Wisconsin. Doyle has been responsible for this state's wellbeing for 8 years and he hasn't done squat to stimulate economic growth. His policymaking has cripled the private sector - the portion of economics that actually contributes to the state's finances. Instead, he touts Talco's arrival despite the fact that it took an $810 public works project to create 100+ jobs for a couple years.
James, you'd make a good department manager in a General Motors plant.
Tom; Why, thank you.
When building a road, or an airport or a railroad one should look 35 years into the future. It is too bad that Walker can not or will not do that. I don't know if it is good politics but it is poor economics to send the $$ back.
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