Scott Walker's $810 million Rail Road Blunder Looks Even Worse One Year Later

This model train, featuring the slogan "Wisconsin is Open for Business,"
is running around the base of the Christmas tree
at the state Capitol in Madison. Photo by Larry Tamiso

Update: See also Absurd: Tea Party Mayor Rejects Federally Funded, Job-Creating Amtrak Line.
"In what could be a new high water mark of anti-Washington sentiment, the city of Troy, Mich., is rejecting a long-planned transportation center whose construction would have been fully financed with federal stimulus money. The terminal, which would help Troy become a transportation node on an upgraded Detroit-to-Chicago Amtrak line, was hailed by supporters as a way to create jobs and to spur economic development." (NYT)

Suppose that a given state is offered $810 million in funding for a labor-intensive [lots of jobs] project to improve and expand its rail road system. And the state's governor said, in effect, 'no, we don't want the $810 million, or the jobs.'

This is precisely what happened when Scott Walker made one of the most foolish decisions in the history of Wisconsin public policy in this period of sustained high unemployment.

Scott Walker, taking his cues from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Koch brothers, has dictated over a no-growth, crony capitalistic, corrupt period of Wisconsin history that will take a years-long, damage-repair effort.

For an excellent analysis of the scope and danger of what is happening to our country, especially the state of Wisconsin (ground zero in the battle to take our country back starting with the recall of Scott Walker), see:

• ALEC Exposed: Business Domination Inc. (Joel Rogers and Laura Dresser)
• ALEC Exposed: The Koch Connection ( Lisa Graves)
• ALEC Exposed: Rigging Elections (John Nichols)
• Why the Koch Brothers and ALEC Don't Want You to Vote (Ari Berman)

The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) has a tremendous editorial looking back at Scott Walker's corrupt and imbecilic rejection of $810 million:

A year later, Walker rail blunder looks even worse

Last Dec. 9, exactly a year ago, federal officials redirected $810 million in transportation funding that Gov. Scott Walker had rejected to improve Wisconsin's rail system.

That rejection may go down as one of the biggest political goofs in state history.

Walker had campaigned against the proposed Madison-Milwaukee passenger train project, saying it represented "runaway government spending" and would cost state taxpayers in the long run.

"I'm going to stop that boondoggle train to Madison" became a rallying cry for Walker, whose own polling showed that dissing Madison — and the train — was a winning issue despite the wider long-term implications for the state's transportation system.

Walker played that high-stakes gamble throughout the race, saying he could persuade Congress to redirect the money to fix Wisconsin's highways or bridges.

But after the election, when it became obvious the Obama administration was going to send the rail funds to other states, Walker had to fall on his sword to save face. That prompted the Los Angeles Times to famously write "Thanks a billion, cheeseheads" after the money was sent instead to California.

Now, as other states move forward to upgrade their rail systems — the 110 mph train could be a reality by 2015 — Wisconsin is floundering. No 2,300 construction jobs, no track improvements, no plan.

In fact, the only new train running in Wisconsin is the toy train around the Christmas tree in the Capitol proclaiming the state "Open for Business."

"At least we have one train we can enjoy while other GOP governors get a real train," quips Rep. Brett Hulsey, D-Madison.

And Wisconsin is still trying to figure out how to pay for badly needed rail improvements that would have otherwise been covered if Walker had not acted so foolishly.

This week, the Legislature's budget committee slowed planning for a permanent train maintenance facility in Milwaukee, opening the possibility the Amtrak cars will be serviced in Chicago instead. Republicans have balked at spending an estimated $53 million on the maintenance facility, saying it wasn't worth it for only two dozen permanent jobs. But not building the facility would result in the state defaulting on its contract with Spanish train company Talgo.

Sadly, the $810 million federal grant would have covered the cost of the maintenance facility, along with upgrades of tracks for the Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha line.

Earlier this year, the Walker administration went back to the feds and begged for $213 million to pay for upgrades to the Hiawatha line and most of the cost of the maintenance facility. But that request was denied.

"The Walker administration made a bad choice in wasting federal resources," says Rep. Tamara Grigsby, D-Milwaukee, in a statement. "Now Wisconsin taxpayers must foot the bill."

The state has already spent about $25 million on maintenance equipment and a temporary maintenance facility in Milwaukee for the Hiawatha line. All of that would have been covered under the money Walker rejected.

A sad day indeed.

Dan Balz: National GOP Rancid - Echoed in Wisconsin

On graphic display in the Wisconsin Assembly budget debate last week is the Republican demographic demise. GOP failings in Wisconsin echo those nationally.

Says Dan Balz today in his For Republicans, the Forces Aren't With Them in the Washington Post.

The American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution convened a stellar cast on Friday to review what has been learned since November. The panel included Robert Lang of Virginia Tech; Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress; William Frey of the Brookings Institution; Bill Bishop, a Texas writer and author of ‘The Big Sort’; Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center; and Ronald Brownstein of Atlantic Media. They presented a wealth of data about what happened in 2008 and offered conclusions that would alarm any Republican hopeful of a quick turnaround in the party's fortunes.

Wisconsin mirrors the nation in setting off Republican political alarms.

Wisconsin is a political anthology of the demographic trend Balz discusses as the GOP problem with blacks and Latinos persists with the GOP still behaving in an overtly hostile manner towards these communities that comprise fast-growing segments of the electorate, with “black women [having] the highest voter turnout rate in November's election -- a first". [See Dissecting the 2008 Electorate: Most Diverse in U.S. History.]

Says Balz:

In the last election, there were more than 2 million additional African American voters, about 2 million more Hispanic voters and about a million more Asian American voters. All are groups in which Obama increased the Democratic share of the vote over 2004. Frey estimated that minority voters in nine states made the difference in Obama's victory margin.

Republicans can't reverse the demographic trends; their only solution is to increase their share of the minority vote. Opposing Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's Supreme Court nominee, because of her pride in being a Latina won't help solve that problem.

So what is the response of Wisconsin Republicans like Mike Nichols, Patrick McIlheran and other GOP talking heads?

Mocking and scapegoating, for example, obnoxious and unanimous Wisconsin GOP opposition to Democratic initiatives on immigrant driver licenses and collecting racial profiling data.

The GOP message to African American and Hispanic voters veers from we don’t like you to you don’t belong here to you’re on your own.

As Balz implies, this isn’t a winning political strategy anymore, never mind its fetid taste.

During the budget debate, Jim Doyle, Tamara Grigsby and Pedro Colón have been the collective punching bag of the GOP looking to stir up white resentment on the economy and to place the blame for the last eight years of national economic catastrophe on one Wisconsin governor and minority constituencies—this has been the GOP playbook since the Southern Strategy.

But Doyle, Grigsby and Colón appear quietly confident that this old divisive tactic is not working.

The future looks bright for a political message based on unity, civil rights and inclusion, geared especially to younger voters who are diverse demographically, less religious, culturally liberal, and less susceptible to GOP racist appeals.

Mike Nichols Is Clueless on Racial Profiling

Update: See also Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling ... , Amnesty International ... Wisconsin's protection from racial profiling: "None".

Rightwing columnist Mike Nichols has made it clear: There is no racial profiling in Wisconsin and certainly not in Milwaukee suburbs.

Collecting data that might support or disconfirm this conclusion is a waste of time.

Nichols is shocked, shocked by Pedro Colón's (D-Milwaukee) "startling accusations" that dark-haired, dark-skinned people are pulled over while driving with dark hair and dark skin.

You might think Colón and Rep. Tamara Grigsby's (D-Milwaukee) (pictured above) defense of a new requirement approved by the Joint Finance Committee mandating police tracking of the race of the people they pull over is a no-brainer.

But not to Nichols, a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist, who can't be troubled with innocent people being persecuted. [See Bill Christofferson's Should we admire prosecutor who sees crime where there is none in which Nichols defends the prosecution of the innocent Georgia Thompson. See also The proven-innocent Georgia Thompson and Biskupic tried to 'squeeze' Georgia Thompson for additional background on the prosecution.]

Writes Nichols at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI):

I think this is going to be interesting because it sounds like Pedro Colón doesn’t just have one name [of a minority being pulled over], he has lots of them. After all, he says, 'all the guys' complain. Everyone knows what’s going on. That’s 'just the way it is.'

In reality land every dark-skinned, dark-haired person who I know takes it as a fact of life that police pull you over if you're dark-skinned and dark-haired in a white community. It's a humiliating and abusive experience that's painful to talk about.

How far removed from reality is Nichols that he doesn't know this? That he smirks and repeatedly ridicules the notion in his column?

But a rigorous empirical investigation is called for, i.e. collecting data. As Nichols demonstrates many lily-white Republicans are clueless that racial profiling actually occurs.

Nichols demands names and data. But data is exactly what Colón and Grigsby are mandating. So what is Nichols' objection with collecting data?

Noting the race of the person next to the sex police field report on a statewide basis is not a hardship for anyone who cares about defeating racism.

You just have to wonder how someone like Nichols can be so isolated to what is common knowledge in minority cultures and progressives fighting racism. Is this guy really that dumb?

And what is he and GOP afraid of and whom are they are protecting? I'll stand with the darkies.