Some of the jabs at Walker were funny. State Sen. Spencer Coggs, who represents the district that includes the Talgo site, brought a gift card from Wisconsin Vision Optical Center because the governor-elect is “shortsighted.”
He wondered, “Who in their right mind gives away $810 million?”
Walker, that’s who.
Others took a more serious tone. Rev. Ken Wheeler, representing MICAH, said the Talgo investment is important because it represents the resurrection of the former home of A.O. Smith and Tower Automotive and “the key to success for African Americans.”
Rev. Wheeler asked Walker to “utilize common sense” and not merely be the governor for the wealthy.
“Invest your moral chips for once—for once—on the side of the workers,” Wheeler said.
Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, said Walker’s opposition to rail is creating “outrage across the state,” since state taxpayers would have to refund about $100 million if the train project is halted here and moved to another state. Walker is coming into office with an estimated $3 billion deficit and essential services like education face drastic cuts. Kraig said killing the project would only make the state’s fiscal situation worse while boosting another state’s economy—Illinois’ economy, for example.
“Why would we pay to give jobs to another state?” Kraig asked.
Walker hasn’t come up with a good answer for that yet.
Of course, the governor-elect is welcome to attend next week’s candlelight vigil to save Wisconsin’s jobs and Talgo, to be held at Talgo’s 27th Street parking lots between Hopkins and Townsend. The event will be held at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 23, and is sponsored by the Good Jobs and Livable Neighborhoods Coalition.
Hopefully Walker will come to terms with the fact that, despite his opposition to high-speed rail and his campaign rhetoric, it is too costly in terms of job loss and repayment of the $100 million to walk away from the project.
Heroes of the Week
Elliott and Lisa Torrence
Local entrepreneurs
Elliott and Lisa Torrence believe in giving back to the community. The owners
of Torrence’s House of Threads (7732
W. Burleigh St. and 4722 W. Fond du Lac Ave.) recently celebrated
their 10th year in business—and since the beginning, they have used their
success as a springboard to help enrich the community.
In addition to
performing charitable work with their local church, the Torrences also donate
clothing items to winter clothes drives and “Back to School” and “Dress for
Success” programs. They recently partnered with Running Rebels, a
Milwaukee-based nonprofit, to provide clothing and guidance to high-school
students who want to attend college. We applaud Elliott and Lisa Torrence for
providing an outstanding example of a local business giving back to the
community.
Jerks of the Week
U.S.
Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, Paul Ryan and Tom Petri
Why are Republicans
lining up to cut jobs in our state? Wisconsin
has always been a state that paid much more in federal taxes than it received
in federal payments back to the state. Southern states with many military bases
have always received the most federal dollars. And now when Wisconsin finally wins one, Republican
congressmen are trying to give back the money. Wisconsin’s Republican congressmen are
stepping into the high-speed rail debate with a proposed bill that would allow
states to return their high-speed rail money to the federal government to
reduce the deficit. So this Republican trio believes that Wisconsin should return an $810 million
investment in the state’s transportation infrastructure—and the jobs and tax
base it’ll produce—to provide a fraction of a reduction in the nation’s $1.6
trillion deficit and $13.8 trillion debt? If these three men were truly
concerned about the deficit, they would not have been so eager to support the
war in Iraq, which along
with the war in Afghanistan
has cost the country more than $1.1 trillion, according to the National
Priorities Project. Wisconsin’s
share of that cost? More than $17 billion—or about 20 times the cost of
high-speed rail. They also claim that Wisconsin
is being told by “bureaucrats in Washington
how to allocate their resources,” but they neglect to mention that Wisconsin applied for
these funds because the state would become a vital link in a 21st-century
Midwestern transportation hub.
*/?>
All these inner city activist look at are dollar signs. They could care less about high speed rail. What if instead it was a bridge to Muskegon, MI? They would come up with reasons why we need that bridge and all the economic development that willl occur on both sides of the lake. Where are their morals? Creating "make-work" jobs is immoral. I would suggest to the people who want jobs to "man up" and move to where the jobs are. Stop sitting on your butt getting activists in bathrobes to lobby for you.
It's hard to take seriously one who replies to a story like this with 100% cut and paste rhetoric. Your statements are so absurd, it's as if this is a joke. "Activists in bathrobes", "make-work", "Muskegon"? Sounds straight out of the mouth of Rush or Charlie. Your daily dose of Rush and Hannity really juiced you up for this article hey? I bet you couldn't wait to drop these new buzz words and sound smart on the next "libral" article you saw.
I don't even know where to start. Lets begin by addressing your blatantly racist statement about inner city activists. Money hungry? More like fighting desperately to improve the lives of their community in an area of town all but forgotten by the entire city. Saying that is like saying gay people choose to be gay because they love being discriminated against. It's a statement only a hate-filled intellectually malnourished asshole would say. Your morals of ending the development of family supporting jobs are curious to me. Do you just hate black people or is it really the tiny amount of tax money it will take to create such good jobs. Are you being penny smart and pound foolish? I bet neither of the three.
I bet your hanging out at the Mayfair Mall food court.
Did those inner city activists really burn you recently or was that fryer grease?
Either way, I'll take some fries and a coke.
And DJ - Supersize it!
Indeed you'll reply with more rhetoric and zero substance.
Now off you go DJ, go scour the A.M. airwaves or faux news for your next reply.
it's very short-sighted because more rail service will bring more businesses to our state. If we don't have it, rail will go through IL on the way to Minneapolis and parts west. Many jobs will leave as well. We will be left behind, while other states prosper.
Linda, respectfully- do you have any evidence whatsoever that rail will bring jobs? Take a look at the Sturtevant station between Chicago and Milwaukee. You need to dodge the tumbleweeds blowing around that place. Which other states are prospering due to thier rail systems? What employers have committed to expand their operations in WI if the rail plans go through?
Pyg, Sturtevant isn't anything like Milwaukee, Chicago, Madison, or the Twin Cities. Why would you make such a foolish comparison? The "evidence" for the creation of new jobs is simple economics. The need for train cars would create jobs for folks to build train cars. The need for maintenance on those train cars would create jobs to maintain those train cars. If more people can get to Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago you see an increase in the demand for the service industry.
Taz - Please reconstruct your post in your own words. I'm tired of reading Neo Con posts that are straight regurgitations of Right Wing talk radio points. Everyone read the JS article that showed 52% "didn't want" light rail. However, 35% did want it. So your statement, "the public doesn't want it," is utterly false. I have to imagine that the majority of the 52% polled who don't want it don't even know why they don't want it.
If the long term goal is a high-speed rail line between Chicago and the Twin Cities, then maybe we need to cut the Milwaukee to Madison run out of it, route that train through Ron Johnson's Oshkosh or Scott Walker's Delavan. Liberal cities can just be left out of it. Isn't that what all freeway bypasses around metro areas is about?
Instead, maybe we should build a mass transit rail system to tie the rural dwellers of "up north" with their taverns. Then the folks can drink and not have to drive drunk to bar-hop and get back home again. Let the Tavern League pay for it all.
Actually, maybe we should boost the rail network, get off them damn airplanes so we don't have government workers doing virtual strip searches or feeling up our junk! We took our shoes off, switched to travel size toiletries, now body scans and crotch-feeling searches. Suppose the next terrorist hid the explosives up his bung-hole, are we going to put up with body cavity searches?
Oh, wait. In Europe, don't the muslim terrorists blow up trains? There's no way to win!
djlresearch -- who is going to buy your house at your full mortgage balance price ( realtors commision) so you can move to where the jobs are? "Man up", my foot! The problem is MUCH bigger than government deficit, it is more about the personal deficit, or that a 30-year mortgage only supports a 90-day effort by the builder.
You don't want to hear my lecture on the creation of money, and it's flawed thinking.
You can forget an imaginary "grassroots" support for rail. The idea has been floating for decades. It had only two chances, a federal budget surplus, or someone who whould push it through regardless of any evidense we needed it. The support has evaporated by public vote. It's over.
The public does not want it, it is amazing to me how the jobs were 120 at talgo(60 from out of state) then 5000, then 10,000, now the numbers are 10s of thousands. What total BS, you want it, you can pay for it. 52% of the public doesnt want it. the referendums failed miserably to adjust to pay for it. Doyle signed it in so he could get his payoff from whomever he greased. Now he is going to spend money like there is no tomorrow to screw the citizens of this state so he can screw scott walker. Start boiling the tar or mr doyle you better get your one way plane ticket out of here