Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Republicans Will Spend $31 Million On Rail Improvements Walker Threw Away Earlier

I'm a big fan of Amtrak, but isn't the state spending $31 million on Amtrak upgrades between Milwaukee and Chicago - - a sum basically covered in the $800 million Scott Walker refused for political reasons after his election - - a poor way to spend public money?

To satisfy Milwaukee talk radio, Walker balked at the entire federal grant, citing what probably would have been a few hundred thousand dollars a year in operating costs - - and now the state is on the hook for millions.

Madness.

Again - - ideology is a poor substitute for rational policy-making.

6 comments:

John Casper said...

Worst. Governor. Ever.

enoughalready said...

James wrote: "To satisfy Milwaukee talk radio ..."

Or, how about: to win election so the GOP would control all three branches of government and thus be able to redistrict the state for at least a decade?

Reagan's Disciple said...

Spending 800 million to save 31 million sounds like fiscal insanity to me.

The MadMil train was a bad idea from the start. Unless of course you are one of those that believe that money grows on trees (or you can tap the wealthy for unlimited dolloars) and then don't care that people won't use the train.

Best. Governor. Ever.

Paul Trotter said...

What a tragedy!

Reagan's Disciple said...

Censoring comments that hit right on target???

Anonymous said...

So let me get this straight. We could have saved 31 million by spending 810 million of borrowed federal money, which according to the doyle administration would not have fully covered the construction cost of the train line. The estimated uncovered cost was well above 31 million.

Also, the yearly operating costs of the line, payed for by the WI taxpayer and that were estimated low to make the line seem attractive, was 1.5 million a year.

So I am confused as to how you come up with a savings if we would have put the madison/milwaukee line in??

What am I missing?