Walker wants rail funding for WI

[Eric S]

Yeah right as if the politicians were going to ride trains.

Face it Shawn, you are a bit disconnected from reality on this one. Many politicians do ride trains when a good usable service is available. Politicians are just like anyone else. They will use a service that serves a purpose in their lives.

And, last time I checked, there are many, many, many non-politicians that might just find a need/desire to travel to/from the state capital city from time to time. Or to/from the state's largest city. Or to/from the Midwest's largest city.

 

[volkris]

You guys are still missing the math here.

This request means the state has to spend $12 million instead of $30 million, saving $18 million.

Canceling the $810 million meant the state had to spend $0 instead of half a million a year, saving unknown millions of dollars going into the future.

That's consistency. To claim hypocrisy requires intentional blindness to the very clear situation. Propose ill intentions, political motivations, or conspiracies if you want, or go for the simple explanation: a governor is trying to save his state from unfunded liabilities.

 

[Ryan]

Whatever you say.

When you clearly state "no money should be spent on rail projects" and then ask for money for a rail project, you're a hypocrite.

No amount of mealymouthed jibber jabber changes that fact.

 

[jis]

You guys are still missing the math here.

This request means the state has to spend $12 million instead of $30 million, saving $18 million.

Canceling the $810 million meant the state had to spend $0 instead of half a million a year, saving unknown millions of dollars going into the future.

That's consistency. To claim hypocrisy requires intentional blindness to the very clear situation. Propose ill intentions, political motivations, or conspiracies if you want, or go for the simple explanation: a governor is trying to save his state from unfunded liabilities.

It is you that is not getting the fact that we are not talking about the math at all. We are talking about the fact that depending on convenience one day stimulus money was not OK to spend and the next day it was. That is NOT consistency no matter how much you juggle the math. So you are indeed wasting your time setting up mathematical strawmen and knocking them down when there is no math involved, none at all, in the determination of the hypocrisy

But carry on if it pleases you

 

[volkris]

No, it's not about whether money should be spent on rail. The decision to spend the money was made before Walker was governor, so he has no say in it.

The only thing Walker can do now is work on ways to pay for the liability, and he's choosing to seek federal funds because that saves the state money in the same way that it saved the state money to turn down the $810 million.

I know the Huffington Post article was unclear if not completely wrong about this point, which is why it's such a bad source of information. The articles HuffPo linked to spelled it out.

 

[PaulM]

^Who the hell was gonna ride to Madison? Except U of Wis students and staffs. More people are going to use train to Chicago than Madison.

I normally respect poster opinions; but this is even dumber that the arguments put out by Walker.

The train to Madison would have been an extension of the Hiawatha currently running between Milwaukee & Chicago. It already had a built in customer base. People would have had a one seat ride from Madison to Chicago.

...

The Madison to MKE wasn't some stand alone line that no one would have used.

Given that it would connect the states two largest cities, one of which is the capital and hosts the state's flagship university, and would connect to the rest of Amtrak's system, IMO I think it would have been a success even without the one seat ride.

Given that it would continue on to Chicago increases its chance of success. Didn't Wisconsinites look across the border to the south during the campaign against the Madison service? The population of Madison alone is many times that of all the station stops along the IZ/CS line - the largest town by far has a population of only 40,000. That the CHI-QCY service has been a success is based not only on Wikipedia, which claims it is one of Amtrak's most successful services, but on the frequent higher buckets, addidition of coaches, and the large number of cars in the station parking lots.

I doubt the the culture of Wisconsin is that different that of southern Wisconsin.

 

[Ryan]

Look, I'll try to use real small words this time in hopes that you can try and understand it.

The dictionary defines hypocrite as "a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings"

Walker has stated IN HIS OWN WORDS (so no BS "Huffington Post" excuses from you) that transportation money shouldn't be spent on rail projects. He has then acted in contradiction to those beliefs by putting his hand out for Federal dollars. The decision was made on the extension to Madison before he was office, and he didn't have any trouble pulling the plug on that one, so if he wanted to maintain a logically consistent position he'd do everything in his power to cancel this work as well. However, knowing that it would be unpopular, he takes the road of the hypocrite and puts his hand out for my tax dollars.

 

[VentureForth]

Please remember that if "Walker will never get it", neither will the people.

You mean the people who voted overwhelmingly for a politician who routinely blasted passenger rail?

"Overwhelmingly" is a bit of a stretch. <_< Walker only won by around 120,000 votes out of over 2.1 million votes cast. OK, 5 percentage points. But because voter turnout was so dismal, only around 25% of the eligible voters actually voted for him.

He will be easy to recall, because only about 508,000 signatures are needed, and over a million people voted for his opponent. Since November, he has lost even more support as a result of his positions, including his position against the Milwaukee-Madison Hiawatha extension.

508,000 certified petition signature are required to initiate a recall election. After that, there will be a vote to recall him, and I'm sure his loyal supporters will come out in droves in support.

Really, the hypocracy hasn't anything to do with rail. He may show support or dissent to make a point, but his number one aim is to cut spending in WI. If there is any hypocracy at all, it has to do with the fact that he's OK with spending US taxpayer's money in order to reduce spending WI taxpayer's money. But all states are like that, aren't they? Even Florida would have loved to have the 2.8 BILLION buckaroos. But the money that FL would have had to contribute - and then spend to maintain the line - was more than the Governor thought was viable for his state.

The HSR option being mulled in CA is hysterical. They want to connect two teeny towns with the most expensive rail technology.

If they REALLY wanted to get a ROI for a High Speed Rail-toy, build a BRAND NEW ROW from NY to BOS.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

No, it's not about whether money should be spent on rail. The decision to spend the money was made before Walker was governor, so he has no say in it. The only thing Walker can do now is work on ways to pay for the liability, and he's choosing to seek federal funds because that saves the state money in the same way that it saved the state money to turn down the $810 million. I know the Huffington Post article was unclear if not completely wrong about this point, which is why it's such a bad source of information. The articles HuffPo linked to spelled it out.

Walker does not appear to be making the claim that this is only about his lack of options. Instead he appears to be claiming he had always supported some passenger rail improvements while not approving of others. Unfortunately, instead of running on a nuanced platform that would have allowed for logical exceptions and caveats born of reasonable ideologies, Walker ran an extremely divisive campaign that strongly favored the hardline approach over anything resembling honest diplomacy. So far Walker has done a fairly good job sticking to his scorched earth policies, but his decision to seek funding for ANY passenger rail is unlikely to sit well with the voters who found his zero-tolerance approach appealing.

 

[Oldsmoboi]

Please remember that if "Walker will never get it", neither will the people.

You mean the people who voted overwhelmingly for a politician who routinely blasted passenger rail?

"Overwhelmingly" is a bit of a stretch. <_< Walker only won by around 120,000 votes out of over 2.1 million votes cast. OK, 5 percentage points. But because voter turnout was so dismal, only around 25% of the eligible voters actually voted for him.

He will be easy to recall, because only about 508,000 signatures are needed, and over a million people voted for his opponent. Since November, he has lost even more support as a result of his positions, including his position against the Milwaukee-Madison Hiawatha extension.

508,000 certified petition signature are required to initiate a recall election. After that, there will be a vote to recall him, and I'm sure his loyal supporters will come out in droves in support.

He seems to have quite a few less of those currently.

 

[Ryan]

Increasingly offtopic, but the first recall petition for one of the Republican State Senators is being filed today:

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/article_d5240e94-5c0c-11e0-b582-001cc4c002e0.html

Kapanke only won by a little over 2,000 votes in 2008 and trails in polling against a generic Democrat 55 to 41.

I would expect to see much the same when the recall petition for Walker is able to be filed.

 

[jis]

No, it's not about whether money should be spent on rail. The decision to spend the money was made before Walker was governor, so he has no say in it.

You are now reaching hard The decision to work on Madison was also made before Walker came to office. Heck that is why WI applied for the grant in the first place. It is not like FedDOT came knocking on its doors uninvited to come and give them the money. Walker went out of his way to state that because as a matter of principle he thought that spending money from the stimulus bill was a bad idea he was not going to accept the money. In addition he has been on record stating that spending money on rail is a bad idea and should be spent on road instead. First it seems to have been OK to forgo the high principle of not spending any stimulus money when it came to spending it on road. And now he is turning around further and applying for money from the same stimulus pot that in principle according him was a bad idea to even spend on rail, which according to his own previous rants is a bad idea.

Bottom line is he has gone back on his stated principle and that can variously be termed as hypocrisy or flip-flop or unprincipled political convenience. And all this has nothing to do with Huffington Post either.

 

[AlanB]

The decision to spend the money was made before Walker was governor, so he has no say in it.

All the more reason that Mr. Walker was wrong from the very beginning.

The decision in Wisconsin was already made by his predecessor and the State's legislature. Mr. Walker's only job was to figure out how to fund it!

 

[AlanB]

The decision was made on the extension to Madison before he was office, and he didn't have any trouble pulling the plug on that one,

Just to be clear here, Mr. Walker didn't pull the plug on anything. Yes, he promised that he would do so; but like everything else that he promised during his campaign, he actually failed to cancel the project. Secretary Ray LaHood took that decision away from him by pulling the funds before Mr. Walker was even sworn in.

 

[Ryan]

True, but that's a bit of a technicality. Secretary LaHood wouldn't have done that without Walker's actions.

 

[AlanB]

Even Florida would have loved to have the 2.8 BILLION buckaroos. But the money that FL would have had to contribute - and then spend to maintain the line - was more than the Governor thought was viable for his state.

The Governor of Florida didn't think; he made a political decision!

After taking office he told everyone that he was going to evaluate the HSR situation before making a decision. To that end, he ordered his DOT to do a new study. Two weeks before that study went public, the Governor decided to cancel the HSR project. In doing so he pointed to a Reason Foundation study that supported his decision. A study co-authored by the Governor's former aide during the transition.

Imagine that, a study co-authored by his former aide that just happens to mirror what the Governor wanted.

A week later the DOT study was released and it showed that the HSR operation would have made money. The Governor's own employees found that he was wrong!

The HSR option being mulled in CA is hysterical. They want to connect two teeny towns with the most expensive rail technology.

No, they want to build the first leg of a HSR system that will run between the two biggest cities in California. And with the contraints of the Stimulus monies that require it to be spent by a certain date or lose it, building this leg is the only way to ensure that construction starts in time so as to not lose the money.

 

[AlanB]

True, but that's a bit of a technicality. Secretary LaHood wouldn't have done that without Walker's actions.

Ah, but Mr. Walker promised everyone that he would personally kill that project and that he would either get that money to use for roads or see it returned to the Fed to pay down debt.

Epic Fail on all points!

 

[Ryan]

That's absolutely true on all points.

 

[BigBlueBuddha]

Please remember that if "Walker will never get it", neither will the people.

You mean the people who voted overwhelmingly for a politician who routinely blasted passenger rail?

"Overwhelmingly" is a bit of a stretch. <_< Walker only won by around 120,000 votes out of over 2.1 million votes cast. OK, 5 percentage points. But because voter turnout was so dismal, only around 25% of the eligible voters actually voted for him.

He will be easy to recall, because only about 508,000 signatures are needed, and over a million people voted for his opponent. Since November, he has lost even more support as a result of his positions, including his position against the Milwaukee-Madison Hiawatha extension.

508,000 certified petition signature are required to initiate a recall election. After that, there will be a vote to recall him, and I'm sure his loyal supporters will come out in droves in support.

I know how a recall works. <_<

I wouldn't count on Scott Walker winning the actual recall vote. There is much discontent in Wisconsin right now, regardless of where one stands on the issues. This kind of situation is never good for an incumbent, no matter what side you favor.

 

[alanh]

The HSR option being mulled in CA is hysterical. They want to connect two teeny towns with the most expensive rail technology.

No, they want to build the first leg of a HSR system that will run between the two biggest cities in California. And with the contraints of the Stimulus monies that require it to be spent by a certain date or lose it, building this leg is the only way to ensure that construction starts in time so as to not lose the money.

Exactly. In my home state, when initially built the western leg of I-10 only served the teeny towns of Ehrenberg and Quartzsite, AZ. By that reasoning, it should have never been built.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

He seems to have quite a few less of those currently.

I dunno about that. Nothing he has done would really bother the kind of tea party supporting loons that put him in office in the first place. What has increased, however, is the vocality of his opposition.

 

[bretton88]

Let's not forget that any recall effort is still a long ways away for Walker, legally. So the furor may have died down by then. Thus losing momentum for the recall.

 

[Ryan]

He seems to have quite a few less of those currently.

I dunno about that. Nothing he has done would really bother the kind of tea party supporting loons that put him in office in the first place. What has increased, however, is the vocality of his opposition.

Exactly, but you can't win an election with 30% of the populace. You win elections by winning the vast middle ground, which the Tea Party seems hell bent on driving away:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/poll-shows-more-americans-have-unfavorable-views-tea-party/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Let's not forget that any recall effort is still a long ways away for Walker, legally. So the furor may have died down by then. Thus losing momentum for the recall.

True, but I doubt that the Tea Partiers are going to let up on doing stupid crap to reverse that trendline.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Y'all heard of shooting oneself in the foot, yes? Well putting political ideology over sanity (see: tea party) is more like taking an electric Gatling gun, pointing it at your foot and letting it rip. They'll be gone soon.

 

[PaulM]

Since November, he has lost even more support as a result of his positions, including his position against the Milwaukee-Madison Hiawatha extension.

It's too bad the proposed service wasn't billed as a Hiawatha extension. The term High Speed Rail sounds phishy, even to this passenger rail diehard.