President Obama's Weekly Address - March 24, 2012

President Obama Says House Must Pass Bipartisan Transportation Bill



...and while I'm at it, here's last week's weekly address that I failed to post do to very limited to no blogging time. I'll be back in full force by the end of this week.

Ending Subsidies for Big Oil Companies

President Obama's Weekly Address - September 3, 2011

Time to Act on the Transportation Bill

NJ Gov Christie Blows Another $350 Million

Governor Rejects Huge Rail Project Already In Progress - Must Repay Fed

I've recently moved to New Jersey and use the New Jersey Transit rail system five or six days a week to get to and from work. It's a pretty good system, I imagine no better or worse than any rail system in the US, subjected to occasional delays but for the most part, relatively reliable.  The one thing that is strange however, is that as the population has expanded to the suburbs and train ridership has increased over the course of years, the rail system hasn't been able to keep up.  There are only one pair of single track tunnels connecting New Jersey to Penn Station.  Those tracks are owned by Amtrak, and they have priority to let their trains pull in first, leaving NJ Transit trains sitting on the tracks waiting for permission to enter the station.

Well that was all going to change with a program called Access to the Region's Core (ARC), a "big dig" that would have created a new set of tracks below 34th Street and controlled by New Jersey Transit.  No waiting to get in. The project was estimated at $8.7 billion, $6 billion of which would have been provided by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey  and the Federal Transportation Department. New Jersey would have to come up with the $2.7 billion balance. The project also would have provided 6,000 construction jobs and once the tunnel was completed, another estimated 40,000 jobs.

The project was underway, two decades in the planning, but was killed by Republican Governor Chris Christie when he looked into possible cost overruns he didn't want the citizens of New Jersey to be responsible for.  At a glance, it looks like a reasonable concern.  But dig deeper and you realize the partisan rhetoric and politicking that is going on.

Christie is the new GOP darling.  The no-nonsense, fiscal conservative who is slashing spending to get New Jersey in the black.  But if he truly cared about the citizens of his state, he would have been in his office trying to crunch the numbers to make this project work for the benefit of New Jersey Transit and its commuters instead of stumping for GOP candidates in Massachusetts, Connecticut,  Pennsylvania, and anywhere else (19 candidates to date) he can show his face to get name recognition for a possible 2012 run for the White House.

The fact is that $3 billion has been slated from the Port Authority of NY/NJ and another $3 billion from the Federal Transportation Department. So, less than the projected 1/3 of the money ($2.7 billion) would be coming from New Jersey. Even with projected cost overruns of $2 billion, New Jersey would still be footing less than 50% of the bill without even attempting to ask for Federal aid in the future for the project. Let alone the 6,000 construction jobs and the projected 40,000 jobs after completion that have been lost as Governor Nero has turned his thumb down to the project.

"I don’t want to hear about the jobs it will create. If I don’t have the money for the payroll," it will not create the jobs, Christie said. "This is not a difficult decision for me."

And if you want to talk about fiscal conservatism, Christie's cancellation of the project now puts New Jersey on the hook for $350 million we have to repay the federal government with absolutely nothing to show for it.  That combined with the Governor's boneheaded botching of the education grant, and Mr. Fiscal Responsibility as cost the state $750 million in his first 10 months.

But the fact of the matter is, Christie is just trying to make a name for himself; the new GOP governor pushing back against the big, bad federal government. It may play politically for Christie, but New Jersey residents will pay one way or the other. So far, they've paid to the tune of three quarters of a billion dollars for, apparently, nothing.

Heckuva job, Christie.

Immune To Irony

How do these people get elected into office? Did they stop drooling on themselves long enough to convince the rubes they call their constituents that they would be of use in Congress? ANY USE?

After receiving a complaint from a rube/constituent of their inconvenience during their recent travel, Republican Texas Rep. Kevin Brady decided to write a letter on their behalf, which would be a nice gesture if it weren't for the purpose of the trip and the specific travel complaint, as the Wall Street Journal so aptly describes:

Protesters who attended Saturday’s Tea Party rally in Washington found a new reason to be upset: Apparently they are unhappy with the level of service provided by the subway system.

Rep. Kevin Brady asked for an explanation of why the government-run subway system didn’t, in his view, adequately prepare for this past weekend’s rally to protest government spending and government services.

Seriously.

This would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. But what do you expect? These people who, as Brady writes in his letter of complaint to DC's Metro system, "came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration" complained that said government's transit system did not spend extra money to provide extra service for the teabagger event.

Seriously.

And the newest Republican MENSA member to step into that dubious Spotlight of Superstupid decides to write a letter on the behalf of an 80-year old woman, who is most likely in that evil, socialized Medicare program, with absolutely no conception of the irony of the situation.

Seriously.

And the kicker of this whole affront to the teabagging community? In July, the House voted on a resolution for appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, HUD, and related agencies including emergency funding for the Metro DC subway system. Brady voted against the resolution.

Seriously.

Texas Republican Rep. Kevin Brady: SUPERGENIUS.

(H/T Wonkette)

Hey You Guys!

guest-posted by Armadillo Joe

Howdy, Blog-O-Maniacs!

Your favorite rabble-rousing cowboy hippie is here once again. Mr. The Broadway Carl has asked me to mind his store for a few days while he and The Mrs. galavant about the country, visiting historic places and family and the like. Happy to help, sez I, but these people like to talk. Or, uh, read and type. How shall I keep them interested enough to ensure that you will still have a readership by the end of next week?

So much pressure.

Well, while Broadway Carl is away, these mice shall play! Whatever shall we talk about? So many topics, so little time. So much going on in this country, in the world. Octo-moms or whether Katherine Heigl will stay with "Grey's Anatomy" or not are important subjects, but I'm guessing not the principle reason most of you folks make this a semi-regular stop on your inter-web meanderings. Now, while I'm always as political as the next guy -- particularly the guy who runs this'n here website -- I'm not always engaged in the particular he-said/she-said's of any given political moment. Though in Michelle Bachman's case, I'm willing to make an exception.

Which is not to say that I won't highlight how much I enjoy some schadenfreude at the expense of our dim-witted opponents in the Party of "No." John "Cray-Baby" Boehner's pathetic "budget proposal" press conference this past week was just too darned precious not to snicker about. I just also, within the realm of serious-topics-we-all-should-be-worried-about, try to find time for bigger picture stuff without getting bogged down in the daily blow-by-blow of political combat.

But, Joe? Whatever do you mean?

For instance, I don't just want to talk about how deeply angry the AIG bonuses make me (which is so-o-o-o-o-o-o, like, last week already -- positively pre-historic in blogging-time) but I want to talk about the way our government (as a reflection and the real-world implementation of our underlying cultural values) reinforces certain economic inequities and social injustices, either by malicious intent or benign neglect, and that as a result the system of work and reward in this country is wildly out of whack. The sense that the bonuses -- orders of magnitude larger than the lifetime earnings of many Americans -- were even morally and socially acceptable after the company dispensing them received tax-payer money to the tune of 80% of the value of the company to even keep the doors open when so many people have been cruelly and heartlessly rendered unemployed, homeless or both or even worse, the complete lack of a sense of shame on the part of the people taking the bonus money, even as "Bushville" tent cities sprout like mushrooms across this country, is indicative of a deeper sickness in our national soul.

Or, I don't just want to talk about the exploded housing bubble and how it is such a damned shame that all those greedy banksters were able to dispense all those questionable loans willy-nilly with no apparent repercussions now that it has blown back on them and the rest of the country, but I want to also talk about how the housing bust is itself also a good thing that finally neutralized a burgeoning problem because of what we as a nation have actually been building these last ten, twenty, thirty or forty or more years of frenzied construction, that we have been building the wrong kinds of houses in the wrong kinds of cities that destroy good lands in the worst possible ways for the long-term health of ourselves and the planet we and all our descendants will have to live on for the rest of our lives. It's the only planet we'll ever get, and we haven't taken very good care of it so far.

Or, I don't want to just talk about our energy policy in this country, lamenting how we use too much petroleum, but I want to discuss alternatives -- not just the hybrid cars Obama and Co. fetishize as a panacea to rescue our struggling automakers -- but a world with fewer cars in it altogether and what that means for transportation options here and abroad not just for middle class commuters, but for all of us rich and poor and what impact our country's transportation policy has on social justice.

Stuff like that, ya know.

What do you guys want to talk about? Have I bored you yet?