Posted on 03/10/2007 7:58:24 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
You're welcome. :-)
Cintra is Spanish, not Mexican.
Perry has found out that he is not the King of Texas.
BTTT
Three cheers for the patriots in Texas who are fighting this piece of Global Fantasy rot.
Cintra is a Spanish firm, one of whose owners/lead investors is His Most Catholic Majesty himself, King Juan Carlos of Spain.
Another group investing heavily in these U.S. road-infrastructure and tolling projects is Macquarie Group, an Australian private-banking and money-running outfit with ultra-quiet investors from all over the world.
I don't think Terri gets it.
My own take is that Rick Perry, back when he was desperate for new state revenue sources to meet school-funding mandates without going for a politically-suicidal state income tax, got sold the idea that turning the principal highways of Texas into toll roads would provide large amounts of fresh cash for the state treasury.
In effect, it was double-billing the public for infrastructure, but hey, it was new money.
I think that's where Rick is coming from. His DoT man Williamson is on the public record: "Toll roads, or slow roads, or no roads!!"
I don't think you get it either.
The authority to convert existing roads into toll roads lies with the regional authority(RMA), not the state or Perry. The legislature gave this authority to the RMAs.
Also, this issue of converting existing roads is exaggerated by those that try to imply that a thoroughly modern road with adequate capacity is being converted.
"Texas’ population expected to double in the next 30 years and with the shortfalls the state is facing in highway funding"
What I don't understand is why there is a shortfall in highway funding. If highway taxes are collected on every gallon of gas sold, then as more gas is sold with the population increase, more money is raised. By the way Texas dosen't need 40 million people, close the border.
"Texas’ population expected to double in the next 30 years and with the shortfalls the state is facing in highway funding"
Doubling the Texas population is a function of being too close to the Mexican border and not stopping the illegal tinruders.
The doubling will not be coming from the AMERICAN citizens increasing their birth rates in Texas.
Stop the illegal intruders.
Quit spending money to molify the situations they are causing.
"Carona admits he made a huge error in signing the measure that created the TTC. He told Fort Worth Weekly that he and nearly everyone else in the Texas Legislature were “deliberately deceived” by that bill, and that it’s time to put a halt to the TTC."
The voters were *deliberately* deceived during the Nov. 2001 special election. (amendment 15, section 49C....establishment of TMA)
bump.
It is all social services. At one time it was important to strive for self reliance. Now it is not "What can you do for me?" but "Every American has a right to free health care, free insurance, free college education, free senior care, free breakfast & lunch, free transportation, free medications, free child care, free (add your own here)....".
Socialism is promoted by the have nots and many of the have alots. The poor believe it is a right written in the Constitution, and many of the have alots see the poor and, knowing they can pay higher taxes without effecting their live style, feel guilty.
You are right. There is plenty of money for roads but it is being diverted by the politicians so they can get reelected.
If you truly oppose the project, you (and your allies) won't get very far playing stupid.
If it was double-billing, then why is Cintra-Zachry putting up 12 billion dollars? Does money grow on trees in Texas?
The voters, those with common sense, didn't know that they were voting on borrowing money that had to be paid back?
There are only two ways to pay it back, raise taxes or charge tolls. It has been 6 years and the legislature has not raised taxes, which means that tolls are the only way available to pay for the roads. Whether you tax-me-more boys realize it or not, there are a significant number that don't want the taxes to rise.
Are you talking about the money borrowed to do secret deals? The real question, WTH was the money spent on? Buying influence? Lining the pockets of Perry and his cronies?
Keep in mind, too, that TexDoT's own presentation slides on TTC and tolling make the point that tolling only works if there is no free competition. That is the real meaning of Ric Williamson's defi, "Toll roads or slow roads or no roads."
There's another wrinkle implicit but not stated in that wrinkle. That is, if Cintra-Zachry build TTC, will the existing Interstate system be maintained properly? Or will it be allowed to deteriorate, in the interest of encouraging people to take the TTC routes instead? Think about that -- I-35 needs a lot of work, its end-of-service-life is in sight (the original highway is what, nearly 50 years old now in many segments that have seen the heaviest commuter traffic), and its infrastructure needs for maintenance will be very expensive.
Interstate 10 is showing a fair deal of wear and tear, too -- try driving in the right lane for a while between San Antonio and Houston. I-45 is in better shape, and it's had a lot of work done close to town in Houston and through Corsicana, but I-30 between Dallas and Fort Worth is another highway that is showing its 50-year age; it's relatively narrow and twisty for the amount of traffic it carries, and no telling how much longer the underlying roadbed is going to hold up.
Any controlled-access highway parallel or near a TTC superhighway will be in danger of being underfunded and eventually abandoned. The Cintra-Zachry lobbying interest will always be in the scales against appropriations for its upkeep. That's just business.
He was making a wry comment about Kansas senators playing dumb in town-hall meetings a couple of years ago. He's talking about a senator who ought to know about a multibillion-dollar "inland port" to be constructed near Kansas City, Kansas, on which two committees of the Congress have been working for 10 years, telling his constituents, who knew exactly what they were asking him about, that the NASCO Highway (which some people call, reasonably, the "NAFTA Highway" instead) was some kind of "Internet rumor" and that it was all will-o'-the-wisp, phantasmagorical stuff that irresponsible people like to talk around and scare little children with.
We're talking about government that denies, denies, denies that it is spending billions to build an infrastructural project that, as far as I can see, will mostly benefit Chinese manufacturers and Stateside "big-box" retailers by eliminating U.S. labor, and a lot of U.S. taxes, from the logistical train.
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