Free Republic

Keep yourselves in God’s LOVE as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Jude 1:21 People wonder why the politicians are so enamored by a transportation system which is as inefficient a way of moving people as Light Rail. Every train that has ever been used for transportation has never made money or been a convenient method to get from where you are to where you are going. Never mind a car is far more efficient in every category, the city pols need trains and all the graft and corruption they...

And so we know and rely on the LOVE God has for us. God is LOVE. Whoever lives in LOVE lives in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16 In the Peoples Republic of Portland the commies really love their Choo Choos. They have wasted tens of Billions of other people’s money so a few thousand riders can ride Light Rail. This is not about transportation or even the corruption we have in Tri-Met mass transit, this is goes to the darkest depths of the liberal mindset. For the most hardcore liberal who worships the earth these trains are...

Let's stipulate that high-speed trains might be worthwhile. Sometimes. In some places. Now let's make this perfectly clear: California in the foreseeable future is neither the time nor the place. A high-speed rail system for California would be like a canoe concession in Saudi Arabia. Unneeded. Unprofitable. Just plain stupid. So, why do so many clamor for just such an unneeded, unprofitable, stupid idea? . . .

Commission on Security Cooperation in Europe (CSCE):  Also known as the Helsinki Commission, their job is to monitor European compliance with the Helsinki Final Act, which served to dilute Cold War tensions. Maybe somebody needs to tell them that the USSR ceased to exist over 20 years ago... and that Obama's already abandoned Eastern Europe to current Russian regime anyway. Federal Citizen Information Center (FCIC):  Visitors to the FCIC website can find useful info on topics ranging from how to purchase a new car to how to save $ for college... and all the same as you can find on zillions...

Our nation's entitlement programs, from Social Security to Medicare to ObamaCare to dozens of welfare programs such as Medicaid, are all based on simple, late-19th century tax and redistribution ideas. Politically, we will never be able to solve the entitlement crisis by simply trying to cut people's benefits. As I discuss in my new book, "America's Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb," the only politically viable solution is fundamental, structural reform that would modernize the systems to rely instead on capital, labor and insurance markets, with transformed incentives that would lead them to contribute to economic growth rather than suppress it. Through such...

Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy writes this morning that ” ‘FREE’ FEDERAL FUNDS ARE A BULLET TRAIN TO BANKRUPTCY.” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Although we repeatedly make this point and will continue to until either the boondoggle dies or it kills California. Says Foy about the ill effects of taking “free” money from Washington:...

NORFOLK Months before signing legal documents assuring federal officials they could build light rail for $232 million, Hampton Roads Transit leaders knew it would actually cost tens of millions of dollars more, a new state investigation reveals. In fact, HRT senior officials maintained a separate, internal accounting of light rail costs that was intentionally kept “secret” from government entities footing the bills, documents show.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WDTN) - In his first news conference as governor elect, John Kasich de-railed plans for high speed trains connecting Dayton to the rest of the state. In a press conference with reporters from around the state, Kasich outlined his priorities for taking Ohio into the future. "My message today is to get jobs going in this state," said Kasich. Political analysts said the economy is what helped Kasich win the election, now he wants the economy to win for Ohio. "We have to become competitive. We've got to show the people of this state that we can manage...

There is something profoundly wrong with a nation where more adults ride bicycles than children. America might now be such a nation. While kids sit at home texting their friends and slaying computer-generated monsters, a growing number of their parents and grandparents are clogging the roads atop a contraption that was once considered a child’s toy. We will have accurate data when the 2010 census is complete, but there are already strong indications of bicycling’s rise in popularity. Fortunately for red-state America, the phenomenon is more common in urbanized regions along the coasts. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia recently...

A transmission from Bizarro World via CBS’s “Early Show.” I know he has to say stuff like this — admitting that we just added more economic dead weight to an already crushing entitlement load would be politically catastrophic — but it’s still amazing to hear him say it. They really, truly are going to campaign on the idea that a raft of new federal health-care benefits is a money-saver, despite the glorious experiences of Medicare and RomneyCare and despite poll after poll showing that people expect costs to go up, not down. We can crunch the numbers every which way,...

TAMPA - The questions no longer are if or when Tampa will get high-speed trains to Lakeland and Orlando. What's now important is how the Bay area can make the rail system pay off. The Obama Administration on Wednesday announced that Florida will receive a "down payment" of $1.25 billion toward the eventual $2.56 billion required to build the project....

Stimulus, indeed! Car dealers turned in 642,277 vouchers to the the Cash for Clunkers program, and they’ll get $2.7 billion from the government, according to the latest statistics. But the program, some consumer experts say, was poorly designed and executed, saddling dealers with risk; consumers with precious little protection; and taxpayers with the bills. For the $4,000-plus per car that taxpayers shelled out, “we could have gotten a lot more,” wrote Lisa Margonelli. a senior research fellow with the New America Foundation in a piece in The Atlantic. “Consider this: C4C only required a fuel economy increase of 2...

Why does this not surprise me? Wait till they handle our healthcare.

We are living in a historical moment that in some ways represents uncharted territory. In other respects, however, the current moment is a return to a simpler and clearer past, when the hallmark of conservatism was opposition to extravagant spending boondoggles proposed by liberals. For a variety of reasons the fiscal battle lines have been blurred in recent years, but these days we are back to the paradigm that held sway decades ago. Yesterday, Minority Leader John Boehner sent out an email on the House Democrats' ridiculous $825 billion "stimulus" bill. It is worth reproducing in its entirety: A Dozen...

We are living in a historical moment that in some ways represents uncharted territory. In other respects, however, the current moment is a return to a simpler and clearer past, when the hallmark of conservatism was opposition to extravagant spending boondoggles proposed by liberals. For a variety of reasons the fiscal battle lines have been blurred in recent years, but these days we are back to the paradigm that held sway decades ago. Yesterday, Minority Leader John Boehner sent out an email on the House Democrats' ridiculous $825 billion "stimulus" bill. It is worth reproducing in its entirety:

Barack Obama has a curious definition of “non-ideological.” He’s insisting on bipartisan support for a stimulus package that will cost more than anything Uncle Sam has ever bought, save perhaps for victory over the Axis powers. He says he wants “to put good ideas ahead of the old ideological battles” and doesn’t care whether they come from Republicans or Democrats. But he also says that “only government” can pull us out of this crisis. It’s like Henry Ford’s line that you could buy any color car you wanted, as long as you wanted black. Obama is interested in any idea,...

CONCORD – Gov. John Lynch asked President Bush yesterday to quickly issue a disaster declaration for the state. Lynch wrote to Bush, saying floods that began May 13 were "."the most severe disaster the state has suffered in the more than a half-century Lynch said floods across six counties destroyed 25 homes, caused major damage to 235 and minor damage to 5,000 homes. "This incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of New Hampshire and the affected local governments and that supplemental federal assistance is necessary," Lynch wrote. [Snip, but embarasingly for conservative...

Hawaii citizens see it as a mark of distinction that they have a high cost of living -- because every justification and demand for a wage increase is not based on merit or increased productivity, but on the cost of living and the cost of living adjustment based on the rate of inflation. Therefore, it is desired that the rate of inflation be as high as possible, not realizing that wage increases fueling inflation may decrease their buying power, and value they receive for their exchanges. The highest inflation is when all the money in the world gets one nothing...

...Higher oil prices hit the economy much like a tax increase.... It's a testament to the effectiveness of the 2003 Bush tax cuts that the economy continues to grow briskly despite this anchor of high fuel costs. So what can be done about it? In the long run, the government can lift restrictions on domestic production of oil and natural gas in Alaska and offshore. The Federal Reserve can also play its part by tightening what has been the most accommodative monetary policy since the 1970s.... And speaking of the 1970s, the most important thing Congress can do is not...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - An Assembly committee voted Monday to sidetrack a nearly $10 billion high-speed rail bond measure for another two years, despite a warning that the delay could make the project prohibitively expensive.Assemblywoman Betty Karnette, D-Long Beach, said delaying the bond vote again could make environmental studies being done by the California High-Speed Rail Authority outdated and force the authority to rewrite its general plan for the trains. There could be bigger expense increases if right of way for the trains is developed before the state can buy it, she added. "I think the people in this state really...

The Taxpayers League of Minnesota has started a great feature, which highlights extravagent government structures in that state, The "Taj Mahal of the Week." Nearly every day, I drive past a stunningly beautiful and extravagent public school campus in berkeley. Perched on a prime hillside lot, with incredible views of the Bay, bridges, and mountains, the building itself features a large glassed-in atrium, the finest materials, and beautiful lanscaping on its oversized grounds. It must have cost at least 50 million dollars. To the causal eye, it looks more like an elegant corporate headquarters building than a school. Of course,...

"No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session." -- Judge Gideon J. Tucker Many of you have wondered how our state could possibly have gotten into the mess we're in. In the last fiscal year, with a $38 billion deficit looming, did you think our state legislators would have been busy focusing on the important crisis before them? Naaah, they were gleefully preoccupied with prying into the details of your personal business just so your life could be made even more miserable than it already soon will be. You can thank California's Demo-controlled Legislature...

watch them debate a late - and massive - budget

The city has spent $80 million that will never be repaid for a new New York Stock Exchange facility that will never be built. The Exchange, which pulled out of the deal this week, spent barely $10 million. And the city isn't even through spending. City money will continue to flow for at least a year. The cost could soar to nearly $100 million. In the end, the money killed it. As incoming mayor, Mike Bloomberg sought to change the arrangements for the $1.4 billion project, upping the NYSE's contribution, but angering chairman Dick Grasso. "The city just cannot afford...