….to the states who do not wish to have the rail system in their area.
This is aimed directly at you jackasses here in the state of Florida who voted for that piece of shit Rick Scott to be your next governor, and for you fools in Hillsborough County (Tampa) who are to stupid to know a good idea when one is presented to you. You voters cost the local area some work that would have helped get the economy going a little better than it is going now,not to mention a lot of jobs that could have been had. There’s also the letup on your local traffic congestion that the rail system might have helped with. But nooooooooo!! A 1 cent sales tax increase increase was just out of the question.
Instead of rail. Mr. Scott and the rest of the Republican shitheads want to keep the federal funds for more highways and road improvements. WTF? You dumb $@*%(, we do not need more highways in this area. In case you haven’t noticed it, all of that road building has not kept up with the traffic, and it never will.
Obama wants your tax money to go back to the feds if it isn’t being used for the rail systems as it is supposed to be, and it should. But the voter will get fucked once again because I hear that not only does the original amount go back, but so does interest that will be attached to it. KISS your nearby Republican next time you see it.
DailyKos
A destination for that high-speed rail money
Governor-elect Scott Walker of Wisconsin doesn't want to build the high-speed rail line from Madison to Milwaukee that the federal government has granted his state $810 million for. Governor-elect John Kasich of Ohio doesn't want to spend the $400 million in federal grants his state is slated for a high-speed line connecting Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland. Governor-elect Rick Scott of Florida doesn't want to spend the $2.05 billion the feds have granted his state for high-speed rail between Tampa and Orlando. Add in the $3 billion in federal dollars for the Hudson River Tunnel that Gov. Chris Christie rejected and you've got a substantial pile of dough.
Not that these Republicans want to send the money back to Washington like the frugal deficit-choppers they'd like people to believe they are. They just want to spend it on "traditional" transportation projects, mostly highways. The U.S. Department of Transportation has told them no go, as greendem notes in the diary Obama Admin: Rail Money is for Rail, Use it or lose it.
So why not give that $6.2 billion to California and Illinois, states with Democratic governors who actually favor the idea of high-speed rail?
Chicago is set to be the hub of the nine-state Midwest Regional Rail Initiative. Illinois has already received $1.2 billion in federal funds for high-speed rail, and Illinois Transportation Secretary Gary Hannig has already said his state would be willing to take Wisconsin's rail money and put it to work doing what it's meant to be spent on.
Had Meg Whitman been elected, yet another Republican governor would be demanding to spend federal high-speed rail money on highway expansion. Instead, the state is set to start building the first phase of its 800-mile, high-speed rail system within two years. The federal government has granted California $3.1 billion so far for the project. California voters showed their approval for the project in 2008 by setting aside nearly $10 billion of their own money for high-speed rail that will eventually connect San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento and Los Angeles.
This is truly a no-brainer. Transfer the high-speed rail money those four (and any other) Republican governors want to use for new pavement to California and Illinois. The proposed systems will not only be ready to carry their first passengers sooner, but voters in Florida, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Ohio will get another lesson in how picking reactionary know-nothings wreaks havoc on their future.
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