Trains, Benefits and Funds Oh My!

While the bluster from the left and the union heads continues, I see a pattern developing. Wisconsin's bottom line, we're broke, resonates throughout the land. To the East, NJ Gov. Chris Christie spoke at The Enterprise Institute in Washington DC recently. He echoed the words of our own Gov. Scott Walker. "It's restoring and maintaining fiscal sanity. It's getting our pension and health benefits under control, reformed and have the costs lowered, and it's reforming an education system that costs too much and produces too little". I don't know about you, but I've heard that before, AND I LIKE IT! It definitely could have come from the mouths of Christie, Walker or Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. Speaking of Gov. Kasich, boy was he lambasted by the Democrats and transportation Nazis for sending Washington's money back instead of building a half fast train. Seems the same was done in Wisconsin, for the same reasons. The car haters here said Gov. Walker was "sending thousands of jobs, and millions of dollars to other states, like Florida, that would gladly take the jobs and money". Well, his retort was that ridership would never support the rail line and Wisconsin taxpayers would be on the hook for years. Keeping afloat a failing industry with State and Federal subsides that, hello, are our money anyway! Well he wasn't alone on this one either. To the South! Transportation Secretary Ray LeHood recently said he was "extremely disappointed". Why you ask? It seems Gov. Rick Scott of Florida recently informed him that he wouldn't be accepting the two billion dollars (portions of which were diverted from Wisconsin and Ohio) from the Federal government for a half fast train between Tampa and Orlando! Scott's reasoning? (this is scary familiar too) "The proposal is far too costly for Florida and could put the states taxpayers on the hook for roughly three billion dollars, while ridership is unlikely to pay for the operating costs. Meaning the state would have to pump even more money into the line each year". Hey, can you hear that, it sounds like dominoes falling to me.