Whatever Happened To Jobs?
The Orlando Sentinel reports on the latest stupid Tea Party gesture by Florida’s governor:
Florida’s congressional delegation, state officials and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer are pushing back against Gov. Rick Scott’s decision Wednesday to reject $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money to build a high-speed train between Orlando and Tampa.
“This is a century-type decision that needs to be vetted,” Dyer said. “I don’t think it was given a fair hearing.”
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood intends to meet either in person or by phone Friday with Florida elected officials, likely including Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Reps. John Mica, R-Winter Park, and Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, to discuss ways of keeping the project alive even as California, New York and Washington state offered to take some of the money.
Scott kept telling the peasants that he had the “proven track record for creating jobs” and so far he wants to eliminate about 7,500 state employees and this action wiped out thousands of construction jobs. With an official unemployment rate of over 12%, he is not moving in the right direction.
Another little problem is that this train has been in the works for years and the legislature has already appropriated money to cover some of the expenses. The Republican leaders in the Lege are not happy with little Scotty, who apparently doesn’t understand his job, or the separation of powers.
It has been rumored that “The Mouse” wanted the train. Messing with “The Mouse” is as bad as saying you hate orange juice or like Fidel Castro. This could get messy.
21 comments
The GOP could care less about jobs. They have theirs and if you don’t have one, well, it’s your own damn fault
I really resent having an individual as governor who should be sitting in a Federal Prison for fraud. He apparently thinks that appeasing the whackoes is the way to run the government.
A Democrat is going to introduce a bill in this session to allow for recall elections. I think people will be surprised at the number of Republicans who will vote for it.
But government jobs aren’t *really* jobs, according to Republicans, because government jobs are sucking up people and capital that could instead be used by private enterprise to… err… do what? Anybody seen a shortage of people and capital lately? Crap, the reason our natural resource prices are fluctuating around like a hurricane lamp in a windstorm is that there’s so much capital floating around, it’s got nothing to do except blow up one bubble after another until it pops!
But hey, that’s logic and reason, which has nothing to do with right-wing “economics”, which is all about gut superstition with absolutely no basis in fact but facts are liberal lies, right?
– Badtux the Economics Penguin
I really resent having an individual as governor who should be sitting in a Federal Prison for fraud.
me too! GRRRRRRR
Dept of Random Right-wing Poo Flinging:
If anyone else is tempted to click on Duff’s link, here’s what you’ll see right up near the top of the page:
“Fox News has the details:”
Credible sources, Dave, credible sources. Better luck next time.
As Wisconsin already found out, when you kill the trains you kill, not only the construction jobs, which are the biggest hurting sector in the Florida economy, but manufacturing jobs. As a number of Republicans in the Florida legislature have already pointed out. the next step was talking to private capital about investment in building the system. He killed it before the private sector even got to voice their opinion.
The road system is maxed out, and the airlines provide lousy service. The state bought its own aircraft because “you can’t get there from here” is a common problem with trying to take commercial flights between Florida cities. Most flights route through Atlanta.
Trains are important to the development of Florida. Henry Flagler, a partner of John D. Rockefeller, “created” the state of Florida by building railroads that made it accessible to the outside world. That’s why DeFuniak Springs was the winter headquarters of the Chautauqua Society. Rail connections are essential to the state’s military bases and NASA facilities. This criminal from Texas knows nothing about Florida, but, perhaps the Legislature can instruct him.
The problem with Fox, if I may creatively acronymize, can be expressed “FLED” … Fox Lies Every Day. Fox is not a news network; it is a right-wing opinion network that serves moneyed interests. If it happens to report news, well and good, but it does so by accident in the course of fulfilling its primary mission. Put briefly, if Fox “reported” that it was raining on my street, I would go to the window and look at the weather for myself; that’s how prone to lying Fox is.
Paintedjaguar makes exactly the right complaint: whatever the facts, you may be certain Fox is lying about them, so whether or not you are correct, Duffy, if you cite only Fox, no one here will believe a damned thing you say.
Maybe the governor should have read this, from September 2010
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/sep/26/charlotte-rail-leads-to-millions-in-development-of/news-breaking/
snip
Foxx was more certain about what could be in store for Tampa if taxpayers choose in November to fund light rail, which in Charlotte has exceeded 20-year ridership projections in its first three years of operation while adding to the region’s economic development arsenal.
Since light rail opened in Charlotte in late 2007, $288.2 million in development near light rail stations has been completed and $522 million is under construction, despite a veritable halt in growth since the 2008 recession. The Charlotte Area Transit System projects private investment development stations will reach $1.45 billion by 2013, depending on the economic recovery.
“Other people should know that now is a heckuva good time to start a transit system,” Foxx said in a recent interview. “With historically low interest rates and construction prices still relatively depressed, you will get more for your dollar.”
snip
there’s more…
Sorry, there is no doubt that the entire thing is based on politics and nothing else. Scott is about to get his head handed to him by his own party for this stupidity.
What Steve Bates said.
However, in response to David’s red herring about “factual inaccuracies” I’ll point out that although Fox does indeed broadcast outright contra-factual statements, there are other ways to obscure the truth, including the simple omission of inconvenient facts. Hence the need for credibility. Lest we forget, Fox would be the same organization that found it necessary to obtain a court judgement that they have a legal right to broadcast lies!
In short, Duff, you are quite right – we can’t be arsed to go and check, because it isn’t worth anyone’s time to fact-check a bunch of known liars. Or to bother listening to those who use Fox as a source.
PJ, how can you question an organization that actually brings on a prophet to explain how the demonstrations in Wisconsin are actually a sign of the end of time and the position Obama plays in regards to the Anti-Christ. I mean, what kind of a “news” organization would lie about a thing like that? [/sarcasm]
No doubt from this quarter, Duffy: Fox Lies Every Day. Life is short; Fox is bullshit.
FWIW, light rail in Houston has EXCEEDED ridership predictions every year since its inception. That’s why we’ve built so many lines… oh, wait, the Duffies of our world have done everything possible to prevent more than the initial Red Line from being constructed; I suppose they have investments in autos, oil and/or road contracting. But the Duffies are losing, and rail is moving forward, about 30 years late.
I love our light rail. It is overwhelmingly the preferred way to go north and south through Downtown, the Texas Medical Center (think: Bethesda of Houston, with a dozen hospitals and other institutions), the convention center, Discovery Green for outdoor events, one of the two 1500+-acre parks, Rice University (ahem), the baseball stadium, the biggest football stadium, the basketball stadium, more than a dozen sets of apartments both upscale and ordinary, the major classical concert facility, the old concert facility, the primary resident company theater, the opera house, numerous clubs including jazz venues, one of the historical districts… Why would anyone want to try to find a parking place when one rail line goes all those places? Most Houstonians are inveterate drivers, but almost all of us take the rail when we go any of the listed places.
Oh, and this will especially annoy Duffy. The city couldn’t find an adequate manufacturer in the US, so the entire system, all the technology, is FRENCH!
I, too, like highways, Duff, because unlike riding a train I can carry around all my old tape cassettes, so I applaud Houston’s Interstate Highways but I have two key questions: Who paid for it? And does it receive a subsidy?
Regarding Faux News: If someone lies to me once, it could be a mistake. If they lie to me twice, that’s shameful on their part. If they lie to me three times, shame on me for paying attention to them in the first place, because after the first two times I should have simply quit dealing with them. People who listen to proven liars are fools, even if liars occasionally do tell the truth either on purpose or by accident.
All highways here in America are built and maintained with tax money, just in case the Duffer is confused on the subject. The cost of running Caltrain (which carries roughly 40,000 people per day) for a year is roughly the same as the cost of repaving eight miles of freeway (each of our freeways carry about 120,000 people per day). Yet spending over $2 BILLION per year repaving freeways is uncontroversial, while spending $30M/year running Caltrain is fiscally impossible? Baffling. Completely baffling.
If we are going to talk about subsidies and driving, let’s not leave out the traffic signs and lights, the people to enforce the traffic laws, the people to certify fuel pumps at gas stations, the costs of providing parking if you want to build something, processing the storm water runoff from the roads, and all of the other associated costs of private vehicles that are borne by everyone, whether they own a car or not.
That’s without considering the secondary costs of vehicle-based pollution.
rumor has it that his liver transplant isn’t working out so well after all.
oh, wait… you meant jobs, those things where you go to work every day, and get a paycheck every __ weeks. i think i remember what that was like.
Duffer, a tax is a tax, I see no difference between whether it goes to a road or to a train, it still isn’t in my pocket. The difference is that you want to put a toll booth at the entrance to the train where everybody pays the tax up front, whereas you would justifiably erupt with outrage if every little city street and every major highway had a toll booth at its entrance where you were expected to pay the full cost (which, BTW, is *much* higher than what you pay in fuel and auto taxes — thus London’s attempts to collect a “congestion tax” to try to collect some more of the costs of autos).
Regarding Caltrain, it was built via bonds sold on Wall Street in the early 1870’s by the Western Pacific Railroad. It could not pay for itself, so the WP had to declare bankruptcy when they could not make payments on their debt, and the Southern Pacific bought the corpse of the WP for pennies on the dollars. In other words, it was basically built by defrauding bondholders who’d been assured that an intercontinental railroad was a “sure bet” when the WP knew up front that they likely would be unable to pay off the bonds needed to build the road. In other words, even before subsidized highways and airlines, the railroad that became Caltrain was unable to pay the full costs of its construction and operation out of user fees, just as no highway, anywhere, has ever been able to pay the full costs of its construction and operation out of user fees.
I am baffled as to why you believe that building a railroad via fraud is better than building a railroad via tax monies, but then, I suppose I should not be surprised. After all, Wall Street proves that there is nothing conservatives like better than fraud :twisted:.
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
So you’re saying that high speed trains are golden cat turds? Have you told the French and Japanese that? I suppose that insane nattering made some sense in a universe where unicorns are real, cotton candy grows on trees, and France and Japan don’t exist. It certainly made no sense in *this* universe, though.
– Badtux the Reality-based Penguin
Well, great. I just clicked on a link to myfoxhouston.com to read a post about rail funding for City of Houston to build new rail lines, and the Fox mofo locked up my browser and I lost my comment. Fox does more than lie: Fox fucks browsers. So here goes again…
Our Houston MTA funds rail construction in Houston. Two… not one but two… popular votes authorized the taxes Houston Metro assesses to pay for it. As far as I can tell, one line is complete, three are under construction and two are on hold pending assurance of availability of funding. (Our Mayor used to be City Controller and is very prudent in financial matters. Just to annoy Duffy, she is also gay.)
Sooner or later, all the lines will be built. They have to be, because the air here is already damned nearly unbreathable, and despite the very pro-awl-bidness population here, everyone admits what the studies show: a majority of the air pollution is from auto exhaust. Mexico City is worse, but who wants black air?
The majority of the pollution in Houston is from auto exhaust? Hmm. Things must have changed since I lived there. Back then, whenever the wind shifted to bring in the fumes from Pasadena and Baytown, the air suddenly turned this murky *yellow* color. Damn scary, and one reason why I refer to my twelve months living in Houston as the longest twelve years of my life — probably took that much off my lifespan, yo.
– Badtux the Former Houstonian Penguin
*For those not familiar with the industrial geography of Houston, between Pasadena and Baytown are where the majority of the chemical plants and oil refineries are located.