Thursday, April 21, 2011

State Transportation Secretary Op-Ed Is Vanity PR For The Governor

Mark Gottlieb, Scott Walker's new Secretary of Transportation, has appended his name to an op-ed about "transportation" policy and spending (read: highway construction) in which the word "transit" first appears in the 10th of its short, compact 13 paragraphs.

So much for the "well-balanced blueprint" that Gottlieb embarks on explaining.

Even more interesting: the word "governor" in one form or another (Gov., governor, governor's) appears ten times and never twice in the same paragraph.

That's some mighty impressive rationing of your key word, as some of those paragraphs are one sentence long.

Like your English teacher said, "no word echoes, please."

To sum up:

This is not a statement about "well-balanced transportation."

It's a political justification for heavy spending on one mode of transportation while rationalizing cuts elsewhere (a sure tip-off is when Gottlieb compares Walker's gutted local transit aid program with some national average (without citation).

More than anything else, it's about cementing the notion that Scott Walker is gonna get the highway lobby all the money it can build you some big new roads.

And about those transit cuts? Well, we've still got it better than Palookaville.

1 comment:

citydem said...

to Gottlieb balanced transportation means half asphalt and half concrete