Repubs complain constructing a high-speed rail line between LA and Vegas is Pork??? That is pork?

[Pirate Smile]

Damn, they have a bizarre definition of pork. That is what Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray of CA said on Hardball.


In late-stage talks, Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pressed for $8 billion to construct high-speed rail lines, quadrupling the amount in the bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday.

Reid's office issued a statement noting that a proposed Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas rail might get a big chunk of the money.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gdDrWnoMueqVFI-Uo1ClxVZur22AD969TIKG2

I don't think this type of spending is what people think of as pork.

[Hello_Kitty]

1. They've redefinined everything as pork or welfare

There are only 2 legitimate uses for tax money as far as the GOP is concerned: Blowing up brown people or locking them up. That's it. Everything else is pork or welfare.

[Occam Bandage]

5. Pork or welfare. This is true. nt

[NMDemDist2]

2. that is a GREAT IDEA

and would help both LA and Vegas with international visitors (a HUGE part of both cities revenue)

I love the idea and I don't live in either state!

[rufus dog]

14. the road between the two cities is a death trap

Two lanes both ways, flat and wide open. Backs up especially on Friday night and Sunday mornings. Perfect location to build an efficient show case for high speed rail in the U.S.

[CitizenPatriot]

31. exactly!

It's perfect and it will bring big money to both cities.

Kinda like the high speed rail between London and Paris does.

Oh, just thinking that we might have our own high speed rail, all these many years later....Very cool.

Pork: What Republicans Spew

[Hawaii Hiker]

34. Which road goes from LA to Las Vegas, is it the

I-10?...

Southwest Airlines has pretty reasonable flights from LAX-LAS, but airport travel is such a pain nowadays....A high speed rail would make it much easier to do a day trip between the 2 cities....

[Frank Booth]

38. It's the I-15.

This would be just about the perfect place for a high-speed train. There's basically nothing between the I-10/I-15 interchange and Las Vegas, so the eminent domain issues would be pretty easy.

[ellie]

3. I would love to see

a high speed rail line between Toledo and Detroit. Really, Toledo could be the spoke in a high-speed wheel that goes to Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Cincinnati.

[Captain Hilts]

I am VERY excited about better rail between NYC and Buffalo. Tack Toronto on!

[RollWithIt]

24. That will be up to the Canadians of course....

We can't pay for everything, lol.

[RollWithIt]

25. So LA to Las Vegas? How fast? I board the train in Vegas, how quickly am I in LA?

Just wondering.

[rockymountaindem]

36. You made me cry a little on the inside with that pic

*sniff*, I miss Tarana...

:cry:

[Thrill]

4. I heard that idiot woman from Michigan say that too

claiming they will have a high speed rail in California but they're getting railroaded in Michigan. I don't know the Congresswoman's name

[Aloha Spirit]

17. "railroaded"

haha

[Vinca]

6. I can't figure out what actually qualifies as a job under GOP guidelines.

Another example, computerizing health records is out as far as creating jobs goes - apparently the medical file will, unaided by anyone, jump from the doctor's filing cabinet into the computer. At least that's how it sounds coming out of the Republicans.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. My favorite one was Michael Steele's comment

About how gov't jobs are just temporary work while private sector jobs never go away. :crazy:

[LiberalFighter]

20. So all those jobs that were lost during the Bush administration were just temporary work?

[CTyankee]

30. Wasn't he, uh, Lt. governor of Maryland? And wasn't that "temporary" for him

only because he lost?

I love it when these guys complain about government jobs, as if they aren't feeding at the government trough with their government health care...gawd, they're awful...

[ddeclue]

7. We've been trying to get high speed rail set up here in Florida for years

and the Gas Oil and Petroleum party has been fighting it until very recently when gas spiked and they tried to get it through last year in Tally but it still failed.

:(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_the_United_States

Authorized by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 and heavily backed by the federal government, it was the culmination of a decades-long movement to build such a line and was one of the crowning achievements of the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, completed four years after his death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railway_Act

The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 (12 Statutes at Large, 489)<1>, as enacted by the United States Congress, was approved and signed into law by the President, Abraham Lincoln, on July 1, 1862. Officially entitled "AN ACT to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes," some provisions of the original Act were subsequently modified

I am sure that we could solve our energy problems by harnessing Abraham Lincoln's spinning corpse to a generator for no doubt he must be spinning pretty fast over what has happened to his Republican Party.

:eyes:

[cherokeeprogressive]

9. HELL NO it's not pork! I hate the three and a half hour drive to Vegas.

When they build the rail, we'll probably go 12 times a year instead of the 6-8 that we go now. Sun-Thur rates in Vegas are awesome, especially now. What with the monorail they have in Vegas now, and the prospect of a free shuttle from the train station to the Wynn, who needs to drive to Vegas any longer?

If you build it, I will come... to Vegas, MORE often.

[tridim]

10. Or as the R idiot on hardball just said..

"A high speed train from fantasyland to sin city"

:eyes:

[Pirate Smile]

11. To me, it sounds like exactly what we should be doing.

Talk about the parties being on different wavelengths. :crazy:

Creates Jobs and Infrastructure.
Will be an energy-saver long term.

I just don't get complaining about that item. :wtf:

[opihimoimoi]

12. The GOP is Flummoxed/Frustrated...angry and jealous too

They are trying everything to destroy him...everything...

[rufus dog]

13. Did you catch Tweety's response?

Paraphrasing "wow you mean Congress will finally get something built?"

[Blue_In_AK]

15. You haven't figured out that pork is anything that isn't a tax cut? n/t

[grantcart]

16. I would have thought there would be better routes on the East Coast for

such a development but start here and add others later on is fine with me.


The great irony is that with that single move Nevada will once and forever turn from Red to Blue and never go back again and that alone will make a Republican electoral victory that much more impossible.

[Aloha Spirit]

18. Yeah, my guess is it's easier to build that route... with the low density of development

in the desert.

[Thothmes]

33. You are correct, much more needed in the North East corridore

but Reid is from Nevada if I recall correctly.

[Pirate Smile]

19. kick

[HooptieWagon]

21. Any Dem spending will be called pork or welfare.

While vast amounts of Rep largess to Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, etc is "patriotism". :eyes:

[midnight armadillo]

22. Why does the GOP hate rail so much?

They love air travel and highways, and hate bus and rail service. I don't get it.

[Retrograde]

23. no private RR cars?

On trains and buses you have to associate with "other people", who may not be as rich or as nice as you. Highways are good because you can be shut off from the great unwashed, and air travel is good because you can fly your private jet, or at least sit in first class.

The ultra-rich used to have private railroad cars back in the day. Maybe they'll make a comeback once rail travel in this country is brought up to modern standards. Then we'll see rail travel become acceptable again.

[SKKY]

26. Well, duh! It is pork! It's a good, productive idea put forth by Democrats...

...That's how they define pork.

[harun]

27. If it doesn't help solely the richest 1%, it is pork to a Repuke. It is against their religion

to help any middle class people.

[dkf]

28. Is Bilbray the idiot that got smacked around by Debbie Wasserman Schultz the other day?

That woman is my HERO.

She's so good that listening to her makes me LOL in delight.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

40. Yes. He was flailing about and she was in complete control.

It was quite impressive.

[firedupdem]

29. The definition for pork with rethugs

is anything good for the american people. Tax cuts for the rich which result in some money in their pockets is good.

[Jennicut]

39. Yup. Anything that benefits every day folks is "pork".

Whatever. They have given away plenty of pork to the military and corps over the years.

[Cha]

32. Porkers see everything

through pork colored lenses.

[Honeycombe8]

35. I don't know if that's a necessary expense or not. Don't know enuf about it.

A lot of traffic going between those 2 cities, is there?

[Generic Brad]

37. A train to somewhere is not pork

It's not like we're planning to build a bridge to an uninhabited island.