Walker Omits Passenger Rail, His Hostility To It From Transportation Discussion

I'd said earlier I was taking the day off, but someone has to call out Gov. Walker for his inveterate double-talk, so why not me?

To wit: Our Governor manages to leave out of a federal-government-gripe session today at the National Governors Association meetings in downtown Milwaukee an entire mode of transportation - - passenger rail - - that he has obstructed in Wisconsin.

While criticizing the very federal government he and his Tea Party colleagues regularly condemn as too free to spend money.

Can you get any more hypocritical and underhanded than that?

Do we let him get away with rewriting the definition of transportation and downplaying for his out-of-state guests his job-killing obstruction of federal partnerships and funding for the Amtrak extension between Milwaukee and Madison, a separate commuter rail linking Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha to Illinois' METRA service, and the proposed downtown Milwaukee streetcar?

So he can say with a straight face:

Walker echoed the call for a strong federal partnership on highways, bridges and other transportation infrastructure, saying they're critical to moving state products such as milk, beer and equipment. 

"Transportation's key to that," Walker said.

In other words, Walker is interested in moving products and people only on roads. He has deleted passenger rail from transportation construction, spending and discussion in Wisconsin.

In his mind, and because of that in our state, passenger rail in "a strong federal partnership" is an impossibility, though many US cities large and small have modern light rail, downtown streetcars and fresh Amtrak connections.

Producing jobs, housing and economic development along the lines, at stations.

Sacrificed and banned here.