Stuck in Traffic? Blame *!

[AnnieBW]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/20/AR2008012002275.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

She Brakes for Ideology
By Fred Hiatt
Monday, January 21, 2008; Page A15

The next time you are stuck in traffic (and when are you not?), you might take a moment to ponder Mary Peters's contribution to the fix you are in.

Peters is the Bush administration's transportation secretary, and her main objective seems to be blocking any increase of public contributions to the public infrastructure. The main reason you are sitting in traffic, she believes, is not that the purchasing power of Highway Trust Fund revenue has been dwindling for the past decade, not that population and freight traffic have been soaring with no government response -- but that you are not being asked to pay enough to use the road you are on.

The rigidity of the administration's ideology became clear last week with the culmination of a two-year study of the nation's transportation woes. A bipartisan federal commission came up with a comprehensive, balanced plan for the next 50 years, calling for maintenance and construction, road and rail, public and private funds.

Peters acknowledged in her dissent that traffic congestion already is costing the U.S. economy as much as $200 billion a year. She acknowledged that growth in population and commerce is "straining our transportation system as never before," harming productivity, mobility and the environment.

"We believe, however, that a failure to properly align supply and demand, not a failure to generate sufficient tax revenues, is the essential policy failure," the Bush dissenters wrote. "When consumer demand determines supply, it will engender funding sufficient to meet the demand."

[ChazII]

1. We are told to

blame the snow birds. (sarcasm)

[Deja Q]

2. Another problem is "rush hour" and everybody wanting to work 9-to-5...

A more fluid approach to shifts would more regulate the traffic flow and reduce or eliminate "rush hour"; the benefits are numerous and should be obvious.

[Fridays Child]

3. Time for a Dem prez with a public works plan to improve infrastructure and employ Americans.

It would require a strong union presence and government regulation, though, because corporations will always use use cheap labor and inferior materials whenever they can possibly get away with it.

[AdHocSolver]

4. Bush's plan: The economy will collapse, people will lose jobs, and demand will drop to equal supply.

Under the Bush plan for the government, "drown it in the bathtub", you first destroy the economy which eliminates government revenues, and then create massive unemployment as unemployed people become desperate enough to take any job for any wage.

Then, you privatize the government effectively eliminating government checks and balances in order to end up with the same kind of society envisioned by the Nazis in the 1930's: i.e., one large corporation with a CEO/czar ruling it.

This is NOT SARCASM. If you ignore what the right wing SAYS about the economy and public policy (which is all meaningless gibberish, anyway) and concentrate on what they DO and the EFFECTS of their actions on society and the economy, it becomes almost transparent where this country is headed.

The right-wing may be technically incompetent, greedy, immoral, and corrupt. However, they do know how to manipulate people so as to turn this once great country into a banana republic led by an authoritarian dictatorship.

There will also be a fundamentalist theocratic component to the leadership, since such people are extremely narrow minded and ruthless. This theocratic component will impose an austere atmosphere of terror over the populace as a method of political control Even mild criticism will be severely punished (Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame), and overt rebellion will be put down ruthlessly.

The upper classes will NOT be subject to this kind of regimen. They will be allowed to get away with all kinds of criminal and immoral behavior, so long as they don't try to rein in the theocratic inquisition imposed on the masses below.

If you refuse to see the model that the right wing has for America, then compare it to its model taken from the Spanish Inquisition. Another, more recent model of a theocratic authoritarian state, which our right wing is copying, is Saudi Arabia.

In fact, it is quite possible that Bush/Cheney are taking lessons from Bush "cousin" Bandar.

[water]

5. Government transit would be OK, but...

...the threat of strikes paralyzing the economy doesn't seem to be worth it.