13 April 2012

Louisiana's Folly


Everyone seems worked up by the report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that New Jersey Governor Christie used trumped up figures when he canceled the rail tunnel project.
Paul Krugman points out his object was to divert the funds to prevent having to raise taxes (4 cents a gallon on gasoline).
But no one is saying much about the fact that Bobby Jindal did the same thing with our high speed rail project and used the same bogus claims as did Gov Christie, and for the same reasons. He had the advantage that Louisiana passed the Right to Fire Law 20 years ago and the Labor Movement, never very strong here, was crippled by that. But Jindal's goal was to use the Department of Transportation's grant of $300 million to build more highways. But the Dept denied the grant, saying it could only be used for trains. So we lost the money and it went to Michigan.


He is hellbent on privatizing transportation, education and health services. His push for charter schools and vouchers to pay for them will devastate the poor and the middle class and when people realize that there is no opportunity for good education and good jobs (because companies will relocate to states with well-educated citizens) there will be a mass emigration not seen since the Great Depression.

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