Thursday, January 20, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, January 20, 2011


Still I'm sure that you could rock the cynics if you try...
Posted by at

14 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/nyregion/19cuomo.html?ref=nyregion

Just weeks before Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that his senior staff would take pay cuts as a gesture of solidarity with weary taxpayers, he handed out five-figure bonuses from his campaign account to many of them, according to records disclosed on Monday.

(*CHUCKLE*)

Victory bonuses are fairly common for campaign staff, and Mr. Cuomo can afford them. His campaign reported about $4.2 million in cash on hand as of mid-January.

* HEY... FAIR ENOUGH!

Also in the five-figure range: The tab for Mr. Cuomo’s no-frills inaugural celebration earlier this month, held in the Capitol before a small audience of friends, family and aides.

His campaign reimbursed taxpayers for $46,953.83 in inaugural expenses, according to the filing.

(*SMILE*)

* IT MUST BE NICE TO LIVE "AS THE OTHER HALF" LIVES.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD IN AMUSEMENT*)

January 20, 2011 at 9:47 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/18/states-join-obama-health-care-lawsuit-fla/

Six more states joined a lawsuit in Florida against President Obama's health care "overhaul" on Tuesday, meaning more than half of the country is challenging the law.

(*BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE*)

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said, "It sends a strong message that more than half of the states consider the health care law unconstitutional and are willing to fight it in court," she said in a statement.

* DAMN RIGHT...! (*APPROVING NOD*)

[Federal] attorneys have said the states do not have standing to challenge the law and want the case dismissed.

* ONE MORE TIME... (*PAUSE*) (*DEEP BREATH*)... "MORE THAN HALF THE STATES..."

January 20, 2011 at 10:03 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47831.html

House Republicans passed a bill to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care plan Wednesday, taking their first major step toward rolling back the massive overhaul that has dominated the American political landscape for almost two years.

The vote was 245 to 189, and unanimous GOP support...

* DESERVES A BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE!

(*BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE*)

* NOTICE THAT MY CONGRESSWOMAN - NAN HAYWORTH - IS RIGHT THERE ON STAGE WITH BOEHNER! (GOOD FOR YOU, NAN!)

January 20, 2011 at 10:03 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/autos/car-dealers-lending-more-money-to-more-buyers-1295395044861/

* SUBTITLE THIS NEWSBITE: "RIDDLE ME THIS, BATMAN..."

It sounds like a bad commercial for a local car dealership: "These rates are so low, we're barely making money!" But more than three years after the recession threw car sales into a tailspin, many dealers have started offering loans at interest rates so low they don't make much of a profit...

* BUT, WAIT... IT GETS WORSE THAN "DON'T MAKE MUCH OF A PROFIT"!

Typically when dealers offer a loan, they do so at a rate several percentage points higher than what a bank or credit union might offer. The dealer isn't lending his own money, he's just a middleman - the money for the loan comes from the lending arm of the dealer's associated automaker. And everybody makes money.

* RIGHT... (*PAUSE*)... THE KEY WORDS BEING "MAKES MONEY."

* BUT WAIT...!

But now dealers are offering interest rates that are 0% or close to it - for less than what it costs a financing arm to raise capital to lend. In this case, the dealer is not making money...

* REPEAT: "...THE DEALER IS NOT MAKING MONEY..."

(WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...)

...and, because the automakers subsidize the loans to help dealers move cars that aren't selling, the automakers are losing money.

* ONE MORE TIME: "...LOSING MONEY."

(*PAUSE*) (*BLOOD PRESSURE RISING*) (*HEADACHE BUILDING*)

On average, automakers lost $2,139 for each car they helped finance in 2010, slightly less than the $2,229 they lost per car in 2009, according to Edmunds.com.

* SO... TO RECAP... OVER THE PAST SEVERAL MONTHS WE'VE ALL BEEN READING THAT TARP AND THE BAILOUTS WERE SUCCESSFUL, THAT GM IS DOING GREAT... THAT FORD HAS BEEN DOING GREAT ALL ALONG... THAT EVEN CHRYSLER IS STARTING TO GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER, YET...

(*PAUSE*) (*REITERATING*)

On average, automakers lost $2,139 for each car they helped finance in 2010, slightly less than the $2,229 they lost per car in 2009, according to Edmunds.com.

* AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO SEES A BIT OF... er... umm... A DISCONNECT HERE...???

January 20, 2011 at 12:00 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704590704576092801256486430.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_Top

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is weighing plans to lay off more than 10,000 government workers..

* WHOA...! (*APPROVING NOD*)

While Mr. Cuomo has not settled on a figure, the governor in recent days has told lawmakers and other officials that he is looking at dismissing 10,000 to 12,000 workers, or more than 5% of the state's public work force, the individuals say.

* WOW...! THIS IS GOOD NEWS!

Mr. Cuomo also warned that he would be calling for billions of dollars in cuts to public schools, eliminating spending growth and possibly reducing it below this year's level. And he's also drawing up a health-care budget that could knock $2.1 billion or hundreds of millions of dollars more out of the state's share of projected Medicaid spending in the next fiscal year.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* WE'LL BE KEEPING AN EYE ON "YOUNG ANDREW" HERE AT NEWSBITES. SO FAR, THOUGH... SO GOOD!

January 20, 2011 at 12:00 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/articles/2011/01/20/house-gop-lists-25-trillion-in-spending-cuts

Moving aggressively to make good on election promises to slash the federal budget, the House GOP today unveiled an eye-popping plan to eliminate $2.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years. Gone would be Amtrak subsidies, fat checks to the Legal Services Corporation and National Endowment for the Arts, and some $900 million to run President Obama's healthcare "reform" program.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

What's more, the Spending Reduction Act of 2011 proposed by members of the conservative Republican Study Committee, chaired by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, would reduce current spending for non-defense, non-homeland security and non-veterans programs to 2008 levels, eliminate federal control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cut the federal workforce by 15% through attrition, and cut some $80 billion by blocking implementation of ObamaCare.

* I DON'T WANT EITHER "DEFENSE" OR "HOMELAND SECURITY" TO BE EXEMPT. CUT EVERYTHING! AND CUT IT TO YEAR 2000 LEVELS - AT A BARE MINIMUM! OH... AND WHY STOP AT CUTTING A MERE 15% OF THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE "BY ATTRITION?" WHY NOT CUT 15% RIGHT OFF THE TOP NOW AND PLAN ON A TOTAL CUT OF 33% BY THE END OF 2015?

* READ THE FULL ARTICLE FOR DETAILS OF PROPOSED CUTS, FOLKS. YES I'D LIKE THEM TO GO FARTHER... BUT I CERTAINLY SUPPORT THE THRUST OF WHAT THEY'VE PROPOSED SO FAR.

January 20, 2011 at 3:03 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47713.html

Candidate Barack Obama repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail that working in his administration would not be “about serving your former employer, your future employer or your bank account.”

(*SMIRK*)

* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...

In recent months, officials have quietly left the White House, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Highway Administration and the Departments of the Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security for high-paying gigs on K Street and Wall Street, for top PR firms including the Glover Park Group and VOX Global and to work or lobby for powerful media and telecom companies including Facebook, Comcast, Bloomberg L.P., DirecTV, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile.

(*CHUCKLE*) (*SNORT*)

On his first day in the White House, Obama announced that all his appointees would be required to sign an ethics pledge barring those who become lobbyists from “lobbying my administration for as long as I am president” and - more broadly, for all former employees, not just lobbyists - “from any attempt to influence your former government colleagues for two years after you leave.” The pledge, he boasted, “represents a clean break from business as usual” and [would] “help restore that faith in government” by “closing the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely and lets them use their time in public service as a way to promote their own interests over the interests of the American people when they leave.”

* HMM... O.K....

* FOLKS, READ THE ARTICLE FOR YOURSELVES. IT'S DELIBERATELY WRITTEN TO PROTECT OBAMA, BUT SUBTRACT THE TONE AND PURPOSEFUL DOWNPLAYING AND JUST READ THE NAMES ALONG WITH THEIR FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TITLES AND NOW LOOK AT WHAT THEY'RE ENGAGED IN.

(*SMIRK*)

* EXAMPLE...

No former official’s new job has generated as much controversy as former Office of Management and Budget Director Orszag’s move to Citigroup, which The New York Times Dealbook reported could pay him as much as $3 million a year to “draw on his deep knowledge of public-sector financial issues and his experience overseeing the federal budget to counsel Citi’s clients on various policy actions” and “be something of a corporate rainmaker.”

* AHH... A "RAINMAKER," HUH?

(*SMIRK*)

* FOLKS... THE OLIGARCHY IS ALIVE AND WELL, AN EVER-GROWING CANCER ON THE AMERICAN BODY POLITIC.

January 20, 2011 at 3:03 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-01-18-littlelearning18_ST_N.htm

Nearly half of the nation's undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college...

* OH, FOLKS... (*RUEFUL LAUGHTER*)... WAIT TILL YOU FINISH READING THE ABOVE PARTIAL SENTENCE...!

* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...

...in large part because colleges don't make academics a priority, a new report shows.

(*LAUGHING TILL THE TEARS FLOW*)

* OH... FOLKS... YA CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!

Instructors tend to be more focused on their own faculty research than teaching younger students, who in turn are more tuned in to their social lives...

(*COVERING MY FACE WITH MY HANDS*) (*SHAKING MY HEAD*)

After two years in college, 45% of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, 36% showed little change.

* OH, YEAH...! LET'S SUBSIDIZE "HIGHER EDUCATION!" MORE MONEY... THAT'S WHAT'S NEEDED....! (*SNICKER*) (*SNORT*) (*SMIRK*)

* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... WHAT THIS SHOWS IS THAT AT LEAST 45% OF COLLEGE STUDENTS HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING IN COLLEGE!

(ACTUALLY, FOLKS... IT MAY WELL BE THAT WE'RE TALKING 45% PLUS 36% EQUALING 81% OF COLLEGE STUDENTS HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING IN COLLEGE...!!!)

[S]tudents in the study, on average, earned a 3.2 grade-point average.

(*SNORT*)

* FOLKS... CONSIDER WHAT THIS MEANS... (*CAN'T STOP LAUGHING; CAN'T STOP CRYING*)

The Department of Education and Congress in recent years have looked for ways to hold colleges and universities accountable for student learning, but researchers say that federal intervention would be counterproductive.

* I KNOW WHAT WOULD HELP! NO MORE GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL AID FOR COLLEGE. NONE! ZIP! ZILCH!

* HEY... FOLKS... USE THE BRAINS GOD GAVE YOU! IF ONLY 19% OF CURRENT COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE TRULY BENEFITING FROM GOING TO COLLEGE THIS MEANS THAT WE CAN DISMANTLE 81% OF THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY INFRASTRUCTURE WHICH IS SUPPORTING THE 81% OF WASTE IN HIGHER EDUCATION SPENDING...!!!

January 20, 2011 at 3:04 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/01/19/morning-bell-a-false-truce-in-obamas-war-on-business/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

[U]nemployment is over nine percent for a post–World War II record 20th month in a row...

In fiscal year 2010, the first full fiscal year under the Obama Administration, the federal government issued 43 major new regulations.

On net, the Obama Administration inflicted $26.5 billion in new regulatory costs on the economy last year, an all-time record. (This was on top of the $1.75 trillion in existing regulatory costs already inflicted on the U.S. economy by the federal government.)

[Yesterday President Obama used a WSJ op-ed to announce “a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.”

[N]ice sentiment.

(*SMIRK*)

[The problem is...] even a cursory examination of the President’s actual order shows he is all talk and no action.

First of all, the President’s executive order doesn’t actually require federal agencies to identify harmful regulations during the next 120 days. It merely requires that they submit a “preliminary plan” for reviewing regulations sometime in the future.

(*HEADACHE*)

(This is not an order to reduce a single regulation. It is an order to plan to plan to maybe someday reduce regulations!)

Second, the order exempts “independent” agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

(*SMIRK*)

Finally, even if an existing rule is found that stifles job creation, it will take years to actually repeal it. Kauffman Foundation Vice President Robert Litan tells The New York Times: “It’s more of a talking point than a policy. Even if you find a rule you don’t like, and they probably will, then they’re going to have to go through rule-making and then it’s going to take a year or two or longer.”

There is a very simple way to tell if President Obama is serious about stopping job-killing government regulations: He can stop the torrent of new regulations his Administration is set to start producing this year.

The 2,319-page financial regulation bill requires 243 new formal rule-makings by 11 different federal agencies. The 2,700-page Obamacare bill contains more than 1,000 instances where Congress instructed Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to regulate the health care industry. And, in the ultimate example of power-hungry federal regulators providing “solutions” where no problem currently exists, for the first time in the history of the Internet, the federal government will begin to regulate service providers with “net neutrality” regulations.

President Obama may be signaling that he plans to slow the federal government’s regulatory explosion, but America’s job creators should not believe him for a second.

January 20, 2011 at 3:04 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70J37P20110120

Over the past two years, as U.S. unemployment remained near double-digit levels and the economy shed jobs in the wake of the financial crisis, over a million foreign-born arrivals to America found work, many illegally.

* READ THIS: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10283/1093758-407.stm

Often young and unskilled or semi-skilled, immigrants have taken jobs Americans could do in areas like construction, willing to work for less wages.

"Employers have chosen to use new immigrants over native-born workers and have continued to displace large numbers of blue-collar workers and young adults without college degrees," said Andrew Sum, the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies. "One of the advantages of hiring, particularly young, undocumented immigrants, is the fact that employers do not have to pay health benefits or basic payroll taxes," said Sum.

* NICE... REAL NICE...

* ISN'T IT FUNNY HOW OUR OTHERWISE OFTEN RACE OBSESSED MAINSTREAM MEDIA FAIL TO POINT OUT THE UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS IN THE BLACK AMERICAN CITIZEN COMMUNITY - PARTICULARLY THE BLACK MALE COMMUNITY... PARTICULARLY THE YOUNG BLACK MALE COMMUNITY?

(*SMIRK*)

* WELL, FOLKS, READ THAT POST GAZETTE ARTICLE I'VE PROVIDED THE LINK TO UP ABOVE.

January 20, 2011 at 4:58 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/retirement/social-security-trust-fund-illusion-debt-deficit-bonds-borrow/19806199/

The recent tax deal approved by Congress and the president cut the payroll taxes that employees will contribute to Social Security for 2011 by about a third...$112 billion...

Social Security is already deep in the red, with outlays exceeding payroll tax revenues by $76 billion in 2010...

* IS ANYBODY PAYING ATTENTION...???

Though the program's trustees continue to reassure the public that Social Security's funding is secure through 2037, rising outlays and slumping revenues - not even counting the "tax holiday" cut - call that rosy outlook into question.

* ONE MORE TIME... (*DRUM ROLL*)

Social Security is already deep in the red, with outlays exceeding payroll tax revenues by $76 billion in 2010...

[T]he trustees' short-term projections have been so far off the mark that the validity of their longer-term estimates must also be in doubt. Their estimate of total revenues was too high by $50 billion in 2010, and their estimate for 2011 income is $855 billion - fully $114 billion more than the system's 2010 income.

* BUT BEYOND ALL THAT WE'RE STILL FACED WITH THE REALITY THAT... (*DRUM ROLL*)

Social Security is already deep in the red, with outlays exceeding payroll tax revenues by $76 billion in 2010...

* IS IT ME, FOLKS...??? SERIOUSLY... IS IT ME? I MEAN YOU ALL KNOW THIS - AT LEAST IF YOU'RE FREQUENT PARTAKERS OF THE WIT AND WISDOM OF WILLIAM R. BARKER - BUT PUTTING THE AVERAGE SHEEPLE ASIDE FOR A MOMENT, I WONDER HOW MANY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ARE EVEN AWARE THAT...

Social Security is already deep in the red, with outlays exceeding payroll tax revenues by $76 billion in 2010...

(*SHRUG*)

[I]f payroll taxes don't rebound strongly in 2011 and beyond, the long-term viability of Social Security will be in doubt, because with the baby boomers beginning to retire en masse, the number of people receiving benefits is climbing rapidly. [P]recious little evidence suggests...a powerful hiring boom is in the works. Instead, there's plenty of evidence that the current recovery is a jobless one: 9 million jobs - 8% of all private-sector jobs - have vanished since 2008, and another 8% more have slipped from full-time to part-time or temporary. America's millions of self-employed, freelance and contract workers have seen their incomes decline by 5%.

* FOLKS...??? I KNOW ALMOST ALL OF YOU READING THIS CAN FOLLOW THE MATH AND THE LOGIC... BUT, FOLKS... SADLY... YOU AND I ARE IN THE MINORITY.

Social Security [presently] has over 53 million beneficiaries - 17% of the U.S. population of 312 million, or about 1 in 6 Americans.

Its outlays in fiscal year 2010 totaled $707 billion, about one-fifth of the $3.45 trillion federal budget.

* AND DON'T FORGET, $1.4 TRILLION (GIVE OR TAKE) OF THAT $3.45 TRILLION WAS FINANCED BY BORROWING - MEANING WE NOW OWE THAT AMOUNT ON TOP OF THE PREVIOUS NATIONAL DEBT ON TOP OF WHAT'S GOING TO BE NEXT YEARS BORROWING.

(*SEVERE MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)

* To be continued...

January 20, 2011 at 6:41 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

[P]ayouts will inexorably rise in coming decades, thanks to the 76 million-strong baby boom generation. The first boomers qualified for Social Security in 2008, and over 3 million more enter the system every year.

* YOU GUYS DO UNDERSTAND THAT THE AVERAGE AMERICAN DOESN'T KNOW ANY OF THIS... RIGHT? IT'S NOT TAUGHT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL OR HIGH SCHOOL OR EVEN FOR MOST IN COLLEGE. (*SHRUG*) ANYONE THINK THAT'S AN "OVERSIGHT...???"

Social Security is a "pay as you go" retirement system, intended to run with a surplus designed to fund future shortfalls. Payroll taxes paid by current workers and employers fund today's retiree benefits, and the difference between tax receipts and outlays - a surplus, until recently - is transferred to the U.S. Treasury. In exchange for this "excess cash," the Treasury issued the Social Security Trust Fund special nonmarketable securities.

* SECURITIES = DEBT - PAYABLE WITH INTEREST. GUESS WHO ULTIMATELY PAYS THE DEBTS OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT...

(*SMIRK*)

The "Trust Fund" now holds about $2.6 trillion in these securities. (Technically, there are two trust funds, one for the main Social Security program and one for Disability Insurance, but the SSA usually combines the two.)

* AND THE "TRUST FUND" COUNTS THESE SECURITIES AS ASSETS RATHER THAN WHAT THEY ARE - DEBTS!

U.S. taxpayers are...paying twice for their Social Security benefits: Once through payroll taxes, and again when the Treasury uses their taxes to pay interest on the bonds it sold to fund Social Security.

* OH... AND AS A "BONUS" WHILE WE'RE PAYING TWICE, THE GOVERNMENT IS ALSO ACCRUING FURTHER ADDED DEBT WE'LL HAVE TO PAY OFF (WITH INTEREST) IN THE FUTURE!

This is not some far-in-the-future issue: The Treasury reported in October that it had to sell new bonds to fund Social Security shortfalls in 15 of the previous 25 months.

* FOLKS... SOCIAL SECURITY IS AN UNSUSTAINABLE PONZI SCHEME. PERIOD.

January 20, 2011 at 6:42 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/560292/201101191852/Trading-Away-Secrets.aspx

During the visit of China's president, and as China's new stealth fighter takes to the sky, America's top jet engine manufacturer agrees to provide Beijing with state-of-the-art aircraft technology.

The aircraft industry remains one of America's strongest manufacturing sectors, providing needed jobs and industrial sales. Already buffeted by the heavily subsidized European Airbus, it may also face stiffer competition one day from a Chinese behemoth buying what American technology it cannot steal.

(*SOLOMN NOD*)

General Electric plans this week to sign a joint-venture agreement under which it will share its most sophisticated airplane electronics, including technology from Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, with state-owned Aviation Industry Corp. of China, or Avic.

* INSANITY...

[T]he deal provides the base for a Chinese commercial aircraft industry expected to eventually challenge Western giants.

* YA THINK...?!?!

GE is providing a future industrial competitor with technology that also has military applications.

* WITH OBAMA'S APPROVAL...

To do business in China, companies must share their proprietary technology with the Chinese. As a price for selling its cars there, General Motors, now a subsidiary of the U.S. government, had to share its technology with a Chinese competitor, SAIC Motor Corp.

(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)

We have seen the harmful effects of the transfer of "civilian" technology when we aided China's early space efforts. After the failed launch of a satellite built by Loral Space & Communications Ltd. and attached to a Chinese rocket in February 1996, Loral provided 200 pages of data to China's Great Wall Industry Corp. to correct the guidance system problems of their Long March rockets, which blew up 75% of the time.

* HMM... 1996... CLINTON ADMINISTRATION IS MEMORY SERVES...

A May 1997 classified Pentagon report concluded that Loral had "turned over expertise that significantly improved China's nuclear missiles" and that as a result "United States national security has been harmed." According to the Pentagon, the technology that improved the Long March satellite launcher has also made the Dong Feng ICBM series more lethal.

Technology is fungible and can be used for good or ill. Whether enabling a future competitor or potential combatant, its transfer can come back to bite us.

January 20, 2011 at 6:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/257529/high-priced-train-wreck-michael-barone

Where can the new Congress start cutting spending? Here’s one obvious answer: high-speed rail. The Obama administration is sending billions of stimulus dollars around the country for rail projects that make no sense and that, if they are ever built, will be a drag on taxpayers indefinitely.

When incoming governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio cancelled high-speed rail projects, Transportation secretary Ray LaHood refused to let them spend the dollars on other forms of transportation and sent the funds instead to California and other states.

* UNFRIGG'NBELIEVEABLE! HOW'BOUT SIMPLY "RETURNING" THE MONEY TO THE PLUS SIDE OF THE FEDERAL BALANCE SHEET...?!?!

Walker argued that Wisconsin didn’t need $810 billion for a 78-mile line between Madison and Milwaukee because there’s already a transportation artery - Interstate 94 - that enables people to get from one city to the other in a little more than an hour.

Kasich’s rationale? “They tried to give us $400 million to build a high-speed train that goes 39 miles an hour.” Train boosters countered that its top speed was 79 miles per hour - about the same as many drivers on Interstate 71.

(*SMIRK*) (*CHUCKLE*)

* HEY... FOLKS... I THOUGHT THAT OUR EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE WAS SUPPOSEDLY FALLING APART. SHOULDN'T WE FIX WHAT WE'VE ALREADY GOT RATHER THAN ALLOW IT TO FURTHER DETERIORATE WHILE CREATING MORE WHITE ELEPHANT PROJECTS?

* TO ANYONE WONDERING WHY JAPAN AND FRANCE CAN OFFER EFFICIENT, COST EFFECTIVE HIGH SPEED RAIL WHILE WE CAN'T, SIMPLY UTILIZE THE LINK PROVIDED AND READ THE ARTICLE IN ITS ENTIRETY.

January 20, 2011 at 6:53 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)