Comments on: More train hi-jinks: Scott puts brakes on SunRail

By: RobLAL

RobLAL — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:40:23 +0000

So even though the people of Florida voted no on HSR and Gov. Scott said no, Troopermom supports the federal government telling us where to burn and they’re gonna build it anyway. What, then, is the point in state elections and government if we have fascists in Washington who snub state’s rights “for the greater good”?

Chairman Obama already has the Mussolini pose down pat. Might as well make the trains run on time too, eh?

By: Troopermom

Troopermom — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:16:26 +0000

Yes we can, without the approval, but with the co-operation of Rick Scott.We have 48,000 troops coming home at the first of the year.They need jobs too.Let the U.S.Army build and plan the rapid transit rail.They can cut the cost to the bone and still employ the Floridians.They built Allatoona Lakes which provides water for Atlanta. We also have an immigration problem, and they can help fix that too.Needless to mention the rich not paying their fair share of taxes.And the worst part about it is that they have gotten away with it for eight years.Let them tell the Army why they did not pay the taxes that everyone else did.Corperations will sell us out it has been their history.Why give them a chance to do it again, lets make this work.

By: tri rail

tri rail — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:44:56 +0000

You can’t comment about TriRail’s ridership. It was designed to be a temporary service back in the 90s when they were widening I95. It goes from nowhere to nowhere and isn’t well connected to downtown areas except barely to Miami. SunRail will actually go where people want to go and TriRail is getting better. They’re connecting it to Miami Airport and Downtown Miami by subway and building a lot of park and ride facilities. Cheap commuter rail (longest Tri-Rail trip is about $6) allows people who cannot afford cars to get to work, hold a job, and participate in our economy instead of sitting there and using the welfare system.

By: luvhim

luvhim — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 02:40:56 +0000

He’s an idiot. Cong. Mica has worked close to 20 years to get this high speed rail and this bozo is undermining this plan. The rail system will be one of the best in the world and Scott is too short sighted to see it. Glad I didn’t vote for him and will elect the devil himself if he ran against him in 4 years.

By: highwire

highwire — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:42:33 +0000

GO SCOTT

By: nemo

nemo — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:16:38 +0000

I wonder how many posters will actually ride the new commuter train. I for one won’t. I can’t imagine too many people will. If one looks at the number of passengers on the other commuter line, Tri Rail, we see empty railcars. Is there even a market for this? I’d hate to see Fla. spend the money to build the line, and then have it not be used.

By: Bob Eddy

Bob Eddy — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:09:00 +0000

I don’t understand how Florida elected this guy. It’s not as if he were “the lesser of two evils,” He was evil incarnated. You had a choice and you made a bad choice. A message to Mr Anderson: Don’t think this guy would hesitate putting your children in handcuffs to achieve his goals..whatever they are. You can be sure they are not to serve the people of Florida.

By: RobLAL

RobLAL — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 23:21:01 +0000

Speaking of gross oversimplifications:

“Do they feel the internet was a bad idea? Becasue our tax money help establish that.”

Especially since private companies made it widely available. You’ll note that the government is not your ISP.

By: RobLAL

RobLAL — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 23:13:52 +0000

@Lou “Your governor is making sure you don’t get any modern infrastructure investments.”

BS, sir. He wanted to use the money for “modern infrastructure investments”. LaHood said that it was Bamtrak or nothing. Ergo, the money had NOTHING to do with helping Florida with “modern infrastructure investments”. Zip, Zero. Nada. However, it has everything to do with spending Porkulus money bribing Floridians to vote for Chairman Obama.

By: BTR

BTR — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 20:48:20 +0000

For those that say “if thos is such a good idea why has the private sector not done it?” Do they feel the internet was a bad idea? Becasue our tax money help establish that. ALso is the Interstate HWY system bad?
Maybe once we hit the floor we can wake up and move foward.

By: Lou

Lou — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 20:19:31 +0000

Well, Florida GOPers are consistent, I’ve give them that.

Your congressional Republicans are working to make sure no one does anything to stop climate change.

Your governor is making sure you don’t get any modern infrastructure investments.

It’ll all be under water soon enough…Why fix it up?

Pssst. Don’t move north. You voted for it–stay down there and take your medicine. You’ll soon be Alabama with flip-flops.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 20:05:32 +0000

Nilsson, YOU NAILED IT! Well Said!

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 19:57:43 +0000

You dont need a brain to conclude that the good far out weigh the bad anyway you look at this high speed rail project.

The possibility for people like me and millions more to conduct business at a faster pace from one end of the state to another is endless.

The skill others will get from constructing this project will last a life time and boost our educated workforce. Tourism traffic will increase within Florida… leading to more jobs and a stronger local economy. The list goes on…

Fraudster Rick Scott is allowing his “Hatred” for President Obama to cloud his thinking, plain and simple. This is what it boils down to. This is a proposal by Obama when he came to florida make the high speed rail commitment. If this was a proposal from the previous president we would NOT be hear talking about project delays and threts to shutdown the project. GET Wise people! This guy Hate Obama!!

By: Nilsson

Nilsson — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 19:27:29 +0000

Lots of good comments made here.

Just my opinion, but it does seem like the new Republican governors are following a similar playbook, the payoff being the outcome of the 2012 presidential election.

It’s as if they all got together asking themselves, how do we defeat Obama in ’12?

By: greg

greg — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:00:14 +0000

RobLAL Says:”Think maybe if businesses didn’t have to pay 400% higher unemployment rates, so people can sit around watching Oprah for 99 weeks, they might be able to afford to hire people?”

Duh, FL UC Fund only covers 26 weeks (soon to be 20). The rest is Federal.
Maybe FL corps were underpaying for far too long.

By: Simian Nation

Simian Nation — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 17:12:02 +0000

Sid Says:
March 11th, 2011 at 5:28 pm

“It’s all those make-work “jobs” that gave us our $14 trillion debt”.

And the two unpaid for wars were done for free?

By: Larry McCabbage

Larry McCabbage — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:23:49 +0000

“How do you have “unpaid for wars”? I mean, the libs tried several times to defund them. How do you defund something that’s “unpaid for”????”

Can I answer this one? Can I??

Bush never put the wars into the budget. He used emergency funding bills to fund the war. Borrowing heavily to pay for them.

Repubs talk about how big Obama’s budget is… but never discuss him paying for the Iraq and Afghan wars without emergency funding.

By: JM

JM — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:12:38 +0000

Scott used FaceBook to make his announcement? Sarah Palin uses FaceBook, too. A couple of cowards.

By: Anton Kreimer

Anton Kreimer — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:50:00 +0000

I have followed the actions of Columbia HCA fora long time, needing hip replacements some years ago and made sure to have them performed in any hospital not affiliated with HCa because of their costcutting for profit only. For this reason I was aware of Mr. Scott as CEO of HCA having to refund the government 1.7 Billion in medicare overcharges. In my eyes that makes him a first rate crook but Floridians voted for him anyway and now they are stuck. I fully agree with the person from Belgium!

By: Ingrid

Ingrid — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:51:02 +0000

I am from Belgium, I have lived in Florida for 1 year and this government of Scott reminds me of Mussolini
of Italy. Scott even looks a little like him.
We have sold the house
and we are going back to Europe, this place is only for the old and the stupid

By: Buddy

Buddy — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:14:50 +0000

He’s a Kochboy.

By: Thomas Joseph

Thomas Joseph — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:04:21 +0000

I have read comments here and elsewhere supporting Rick Scott in his attack on rail-anything. I-95, I-75 and I-4 are not profitable private business projects.

There for according to the logic of the great-Scott crowd these highways should never have been built.

To suggest rail is a socialist make-work scheme is absurd. If you consider train a stupid useless invention lets take down the rest of rail and see what happens. Rail is important and will grow in importance as oil prices rise, no?

Finally there is a knock against Amtrak usual to these supporters of Scott. Most developed nations have better rail than Amtrak for passengers. It saves their people money on transportation and is part of a diversified transport concept.

The USA used to have a grand rail system now Amtrak is the remnant of this once comprehensive transport service. It was governmental decisions that put all our eggs in one basket, that of the automobile. But that my friends was in the era of 25 cents a gallon gasoline, now long gone.

I am sorry to be so critical of the supporters of Rick Scott. But the ideas are what is important and none of them make sense if examined.

By: tweedle

tweedle — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:30:57 +0000

Rick Scott, biggest crook in Medicare history, and the FLA teaple-republic party loves him. That is what you would expect from them though. The rest of the state is seeing just how evil this policies are, Buyers remorse has set in early in FLA.

By: coastal

coastal — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:30:45 +0000

What I believe is going on in Florida, is also happening in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersery, and other states with a new Republican governor. They are all followinging the same template.

1) They all ran on creating more jobs.
2) Once in, they are not creating jobs, but giving huge sums of money to corporations in tax breaks.
3) They are seizing power illegally.
4) In Michigan, their House passed a bill where the governor can replace a local city governor with a corporation, if necessary, if the city is a financial disaster area (like Detroit).
5) Ultimate goal: Turn America into a corporate monopoly.

By: Deb

Deb — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:10:21 +0000

Why would a governor want to keep the people of their states at the mercy of ridiculous gas prices ??????? Hmmmmm?

By: Karen Karczmarki

Karen Karczmarki — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:02:55 +0000

Rick scott is the worse thing that has happened to Florida since we had those three hurricanes hitting our state in 2004. Who voted for him?, no one thst I have asked, of course I’m not a tea party person or a rich oligarch, that’s why, those are the ones that voted for him, or I would say bought him the election. I knew he has going to be bad since he was “elected”, but he is just coming so fast on all these changes that it seems to be worse than a devastating hurricane. I need to get out of this state soon.

By: scottrus

scottrus — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:02:41 +0000

Well, it seems Mr. Scott has learned his lesson about taking gov’t money from his Texas experience with Columbia HCR. Check it out.

By: R B

R B — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 11:48:57 +0000

It appears that Gov Scott is working for big oil companies. Florida desperately needs high speed rail. When federal government is offering funds, why is he rejecting the funds? High rail will create thousands of permanent jobs in Florida.
Scott is bad for Florida.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 10:32:34 +0000

And as for the Bush tax cuts: In the past 30 years (not counting the current administration for which there are no figures yet), the Clinton administration is the only administration that presided over a drop in the national debt as a percentage of GDP (just about -10% in eight years). In eight years, Reagan increased the national debt by well over 21%. Bush I increased it by 15% in just four years. Bush II increased it by over 27% in eight years. So much for cutting back spending … All these Republican administrations left us owing more and more and more in relation to what we produce. You have to go all the way back to the first Nixon administration to find a Republican whose term resulted in a drop in debt as a percentage of GDP — and a modest -3% at that. (And these days, Nixon wouldn’t qualify as a Republican …) Even Kennedy and Johnson, who were dealing with the Cold War, the Vietnam War and an ultra-expensive space race with the Soviets, managed to drop the debt by over 16%. (Must be because we actually produced stuff back then …)

How do you have “unpaid-for wars”? The same way you have an “unpaid-for 60-inch flat panel TV”: You charge it. That’s where all this debt is coming from: We’re borrowing gazillions of dollars from China to “pay” for these wars. Which is why China gets away with everything it gets away with these days …

By: Chuck

Chuck — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 10:02:00 +0000

The Interstate Highway system was not built FOR defense. As one of the components of the National Highway System, Interstate highways are intended for use by the Defense Department to convoy troops and materiel in times of war (as are highways all over the world — see the German Autobahn system as an example). But to say that they were built FOR defense is a massive oversimplification to try to refute the OP’s point. This country would grind to a halt without the National Highway System, and particularly the Interstate Highway network.