Posted on 05/26/2009 10:21:11 AM PDT by ClassicLiberal
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a group of reporters at the National Press Club on Thursday that he wants to “coerce people out of their cars.”
In Newsweek magazine last week, nationally syndicated columnist George Will published a piece critical of Lahood, entitled, “Ray LaHood, Transformed--Secretary of Behavior Modification.”
“He says he has joined a ‘transformational’ administration: ‘I think we can change people's behavior,’” Will reports that LaHood said over lunch.
LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Peoria, Ill., has become a champion of using the Department of Transportation and federal transportation spending to get people to take trains, busses, and ride bikes instead of driving cars.
At the National Press Club on Thursday he attempted to respond to George Will’s column and to explain his vision for using the power of government to change people’s transportation behavior and to change the nature of American residential communities.
“We want to really--and notwithstanding the fact that George Will doesn't like this idea--the idea of creating opportunities for people to get out of their cars--and we're working with the secretary of HUD, Shaun Donovan, on opportunities for housing, walking paths, biking paths,” said LaHood. “If somebody wants to ride their bike, if--to work or to the place of employment or to other places--mass transit, light rail--creating opportunities for what we call livable communities.”
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Aren’t civil servants supposed to be our, well, servants?
How did they transform into our masters?
WTF’s up with this guy? He IS a Republican, right?!? From what I’ve read on this site, he was a right-of-center congressman during his time. Wow.
-PJ
You’ll just have to move to an apartment above the store.
Corrupt IL RINO Combiner. He ran out Sen. Fitzgerald for the totalitarian fascist pig occupying the White House, and the Cabinet job was payback.
Obama is very active in the auto industry. He's giving control to the UAW, he's hiking up the mpg requirements, and he's trying to coerce people not to drive at all. It's all very strange.
Sudenly I'm thinking of the James Bond movie Goldfinger, with Bond strapped to a table, and a powerful laser beam inching toward him:
Bond: Do you really expect me to talk?
Goldfinger (laughing): No Mr. Bond! I expect you to die.
Obama does not expect the US automakers to become viable businesses. He expects them to be totally destroyed.
Sounds like he has already been through the re-education camp himself.
I love riding my bicycle to work. But one of the reasons it is fun is that I DON’T HAVE TO RIDE MY BIKE TO WORK!!!
I wish these people would leave us the he** alone.
Somewhere in the OK panhandle ... the main alternative to a car would be a horse. Yes, we are definitely going backwards. The Luddites have seized control.
Thank you for the info. The guy’s a real scum.
FURlaH
“Second Hand Driving?”
See the USA in a Chevrolet.......
He wants you to ride a horse!
Typical nanny-state liberal mindset — change the rubes’ behavior to suit the masters in power.
He would never be elected again in Peoria with this policy.
The population of his district is spread over a big countryside..in nice suburbs and country homes.
The remaining city—Peoria—is in real trouble. They don’t ride the buses cause they don’t work. Good luck riding a bike in the winter..ha.
and Lahood is a REPUBLICAN (RINO branch of the GOP)
RINO’s want to coerce you out of your car.
True Liberal Dems just want to cap you as you’re
sitting behind the wheel.
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