Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Republican State Minority Leader Fitzgerald on Killing High Speed Rail: "A little Cloudy."

What if your political platform only dealt with repealing the opposition parties platform, and ran on that as a job creator? As preposterous as that sounds, the Wisconsin GOP is selling it, gaining support from a desperate angry electorate willing to grab at any straw that offers relief. Take high speed rail for example.

Upfront with Mike Gousha asked the simple question, how will a Republican governor stop the federal high speed rail project already implemented in Wisconsin?

State Sen. Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald couldn't answer Gousha's simple question. According to Fitzgerald, the promise of stopping the federal "boondoggle" is "a little cloudy." What a plan!!!! Fitzgerald made it clear, in a rambling disconnected way, just how fiscally incompetent and vengeful his party will be if it manages to gain control of the governorship and part of the legislature.
Fitzgerald: "Even if it means some of these federal dollars ultimately being...WASTED ... it's still may be the most measured approach...to say listen, this is a huge...FEDERAL DRIVEN...PROJECT, that...huh...needs to stop...because quiet honestly we don't have the dollars in the transportation fund in Wisconsin to maintain this."
Fitzgerald is willing to WASTE up to $300 million because it might cost $13 to $16 million a year for train upkeep? Based on these numbers, Republicans are willing to toss out taxpayer dollars that would be equal to 23 years of high speed rail service, just to prove their point that the stimulus is "wasteful." Point made, I guess?


Enhanced by Zemanta

4 comments:

  1. As I followed a link to this hilarious Yes We Scam! B.S. We Can Believe In! Obama Approval Plummets Hub on Hubpages I convinced myself that Democurmudgeon's commenters have to be able to pass judgment on this link! http://hubpages.com/hub/Yes-We-Scam-BS-We-Can-Believe-In-Obama-Approval-Plummets

    ReplyDelete
  2. I took a look at the site.

    A delusional list of nonsequiturs.

    No solutions....just humorless whining.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This proves Scott Fitzgerald is a bit close minded. I respect his logic that WI won't have enough funds for operation and upkeep. And that may be true, today. But with a high speed rail line, economic activity is expected to increase in the major cities.

    The problem is, republicans like turning complex problems into seemingly 'simple' problems that they can handle. But we won't be able to tackle economic stagnation, population increases, and energy independence by playing it safe and taking small steps.

    It's time for a bold new plan. If Republicans had their way, Neil Armstrong would never have taken that first step on the moon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Keep in mind, that new roads and bridges, sometime in the future, will again cost taxpayers money for upkeep and replacement. Everything public has to be maintained; schools, office buildings, buses, train tracks...

    If we turned all these things over to the private sector, they would pay for upkeep in the price of their services. The costs are the same, or more, and the people pay regardless.

    That's the crazy part of Fitzgerald's argument; the state gets a whole rail system, and we just have to maintain it. We even have a train builder in Milwaukee because of this project, a company Republican continue to bash.

    ReplyDelete