19 replies on “The Senate Stimulus”

  1. Maybe if state and local leaders could demonstrate that they would use transit funding to build or operate a semi-decent transit system.

    Do you know any state and local leaders who could do that, Erica? You’ve pointed out plenty who fuck it up, but is there really any reason to give them $5 billion?

  2. God, this is exactly what I was afraid would happen with the stimulus. We’ve gotten in this hole because we’re stupid, but now that we’re in the hole we’re no less stupid than we were before. So all we know to do is redouble our efforts. If you find yourself in a hole, dig harder.

    Hey, cressona, you ivory tower urban elitist. Actually, we got ourselves in this hole because of all the sub-prime loans and derivatives and the rest of our out-of-control, unregulated financial system. Not because we drive our cars too much.

    Hey, whoever. I don’t deny that’s part of the problem. But the fundamental problems with our economy run a lot deeper than the runaway real estate and finance markets.

  4. @1 – on a related note, we shouldn’t allocate any more money to improve highways, because, you know, our local highways kind of suck – the traffic is terrible and there are too many potholes – and our state and local leaders haven’t solved that problem yet.

    WTF?

  5. Also: Tax breaks for the rich and the middle class and more service cuts for the poor.

    Our entire country’s political leadership, Republican and Democrat, are completely bereft of vision. The only thing they know are mantras about small government, tax cuts, and privatization. When asked for a stimulus package, all they can come up with is promoting home ownership and building new freeways– ideas about 100 years old, popularized by Herbert Hoover when he was Commerce Secretary in the 1920s.

  6. Just a postscript to my comment @2. I should really resolve to comment on the original news articles and not Erica C. Barnett’s inflammatory summations of them. (And I use the word “inflammatory” only in the most flattering and favorable sense of the word.)

    I’m less outraged now that I’ve read a bit more about the two amendments. The Feinstein/Murray amendment that would have tacked on another $25 billion (among it $5 billion for mass transit)–it’s almost the kind of thing where you’re taking a larger imperfect bill and making it just a little less (or more) imperfect. I dunno.

  7. and no matter what the rebates are i wont be able buy a car if i don’t have a job (1) or the need to have any of my taxes rebated if im unemployed (2).

    We need a WPA, we need higher taxes on luxury goods, yes i really think that, and we need to end the grocery store tax. Yes I indulge in a vodka tonic more often than not or a beer but things like alcohol and cigarettes and maybe even sugars should be increased and the tax on my lettuce, poultry, and tofu should not exist.

  8. uh, spending more money on mass rapid transit makes a helluva lot more sense than building MORE roads which ends up increasing traffic and our need for fossil fuels and fucking up the environment even further.

    It should have been $50 billion to increase and improve mass transit all over the country, including a complete overhaul of Amtrak, which would add thousands of jobs and improve our quality of life a helluva lot more than more fucking freeways.

  9. A lot of this stuff that keeps getting tacked on or argued over belongs in the actual budget rather than the stimulus package. The stimulus package should be all about creating jobs. Infrastructure, as Teddy Roosevelt. FDR, and Eisenhower proved, is the greatest way to put people to work.

  10. Which item creates more jobs in the end, building a car or building mass transit?

    Building a car employ suppliers, manufactures, retail outlets, and the construction industry…not to mention mechanics, insurance companies, police/fire units, and tow truck operators. Mass transit will employ less than a quarter of a people that it would take to make a single automobile.

    Mass Transit is nice, looks pretty, keep people off the roads, but cities depend on the revenue from cars in the form of tax revenue while Mass Transit is usually subsidized.

    Face it, personal automobiles bring in more revenue and employ more people than Mass Transit ever will.

  11. Mass Transit only works in cities with strong downtown cores. Go to Louisviile, KY sometime, it’s Sprawl City, USA down there…can’t get anywhere without a car.

  13. Regardless of political persuasion, we can all agree that most of our “representatives” are incompetent, greedy, submoronic fucktards, so at least the country’s united in that respect.

  14. @10,

    Mass transit will employ less than a quarter of a people that it would take to make a single automobile.

    Care to prove that? Do you have any sources?

    Mass transit employs suppliers and manufacturers for laying down track, for manufacturing train cars and buses. Mechanics need to maintain mass transit. Mass transit authorities have to buy insurance same as any auto owner in the event of an accident or bad behavior on the part of an employee. Many of these workers are paid very, very well. At least as well as any traditional unionized auto worker.

    And, in case you didn’t notice, most to all of that tax revenue you cite from cars goes toward auto infrastructure. Cities rely on those taxes to pay for roads, not to pay for police and schools.

    Besides, if people use mass transit, especially if they give up their cars entirely, they have more money to spend on other stuff. This isn’t a zero sum game. When people are freed up from spending thousands of dollars a year on something they need just to survive (owning and operating a motor vehicle), they have more money to spend on entertainment, eating out, going on vacations or to save and invest.

    And many of those other pursuits are far destructive to the environment. Environmental destruction costs the economy billions of dollars a year by the way.

  19. #10 and #11 need to wake up…the era of the car and urban sprawl is on the short list with print journalism. Society is changing; it has to, and the days of driving 50 miles in a personal vehicle are waning. Louisville may not be ready for a big mass transit system, but there are 50 bigger cities that could use improvement and the money to expand their existing systems.

    And the idea that the revenue from cars and trucks is the glue that holds this country together financially is ludicrous. Taxes collected from cars and trucks and gasoline help pay for maintaining roads and bridges and building new ones but never fully fund them.
    Bigger and better mass transit means fewer cars which means the need for fewer freeways which leads to denser cities and higher property value and more income from property taxes.

    It’s the future. Embrace it.

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