Posted on 03/04/2008 1:28:23 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
REFUGIO, Texas - With an abandoned Wild West-vintage town of storefronts slumbering just a block from old US 77, tiny Refugio is a place where myth and reality coexist in a ghostly silence.
more stories like this Obama faces heat over aide's NAFTA remarks to Canadians Texas, Ohio could decide Dem nomination Canada says didn't misrepresent Obama over NAFTA McCain tags Dems on trade treaty NAFTA seen differently in Ohio, Texas And now this South Texas outpost is swept up in one of the more intriguing tests of myth vs. reality in today's political life: the battle over the so-called NAFTA Superhighway.
Local residents came together last week for one in a series of public hearings on the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, a massive public works project that in this area would take the form of a superhighway from the Mexican border to the Arkansas border, with special trucking lanes and rail lines, along with communication and utility cables.
Texas officials say the superhighway is necessary to relieve chronic road congestion. Local opponents say it will cut through their ranches and destroy the area's ecology. And politicians like US Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, and national commentators like CNN's Lou Dobbs have condemned it as a betrayal of American interests - the very road by which American jobs will move out of the country.
"This is a major conduit for getting cheap imported goods into the heartland," insisted Hagan Parmley, a local property owner who is also part of Corridor Watch, an opposition group of residents who gathered in the Refugio community center late last month.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I thought this was a “crazy” Ron Paul myth.
Yes, "crazy" "myth" and "Ron Paul" are all appropriate words to use in the same sentence.
No myth. The TTC is even larger and more encompassing than most even know.
The TTC is a network of roads....two, possibly three major legs running from the border to Canada.
I-35 leg runs close to Austin, Tx right up through OK.
I-69 leg runs just West of Houston, with a spur east of Houston linked together by the Grand Parkway just to the North of Houston. The east and west spurs will run northeast and rejoin around Huntsville and on to Texarkana.
The 3rd leg goes out toward Amarillo, has not gotten as much attention, but has been proposed.
So the NAFTA superhighway is not just one 400 yard wide.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
So your point is what?......that the information reported in the article is a crazy myth?
My bad (stupid sidebar).
>>”This is a major conduit for getting cheap imported goods into the heartland,” insisted Hagan Parmley, a local property owner who is also part of Corridor Watch, an opposition group of residents who gathered in the Refugio community center late last month.<<
So they are arguing that only trucking costs from the border are the impediment for Walmart etc from getting cheap imported goods... and thus this highway must stopped. This is somebody either with a serious lacking understanding of economics or else he is simply being dishonest.
Texas lead the nation in exports. Texas is also a job creating engine. More exports require more capacity to move goods. The giant sucking sound never materialized in Texas, but then again, we don't sit around complaining.
I would prefer to not toll any roads, but since Ron Paul likes to give his district pork, like Wild Shrimp research, we are unable to target money back to things that benefit us all, like free roads.
Isn't the interstate highway system unconstitutional? I mean, I don't see it written in there.
Are you a Texan, Captain?
If you were, none of this would be a mystery.
Any further question can be answered by TSR or me.
BTTT
Rising gas prices, the economy heading towards recession, the push for alternative modes of transportation, and the list goes on...yet TxDOT still believes this boondoggle is necessary?
James Tiberius Kirk was born in 2233 in Riverside, Iowa on planet Earth.
I'm assuming I don't need a sarasm tag here.... :-)
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