Question: what do the people in the following commercial have in common?
If you answered, "They're all radical communists trying to destroy the American way of life," sorry, wrong, please resume posting borderline racist comments on the Post-Dispatch website and leave this blog alone.
What all of these leaders actually have in common is that they all have a vested interest in the success of the St. Louis region. The President of the St. Louis Convention and Visitor's Commission and the President of Ameren UE are not doing commercials for public transit because they are flaming Marxists who love "big government." They know that if St. Louis is going to succeed as a city, it needs to have a viable public transit service that can help people get to work and take cars off the road.
Which is why, though I'm one of the least sympathetic people to the local tea party, even I was surprised to see that the local tea party has actually founded a new astroturf group to oppose Proposition A, the ballot initiative in St. Louis County to raise the sales tax 00.5 % in order to fund transit. The tea party site is full of misleading talking points and distractions, and is completely indifferent to the fact that failing to pass Proposition A would not only prevent the expansion of public transit, it would actually lead to massive cuts in service similar to what we saw last year before the state of Missouri helped St. Louis out (which would not happen again). In other words, hundreds of people would lose their jobs if Prop A doesn't pass, thousands would not be able to get to work, and Call-A-Ride services for people with disabilities would be massively scaled back. And yes, as the title of this post alludes to, failing to fund public transit will make it more difficult for people to get to Cardinals games in the future. Yet this new astroturf group proposes gutting the funding of Metro in the name of "better transit" without even explaining where any additional funding would come from. It's complete nonesense.
And, by the way, the head of this new organization is listed as John Burns. Is it this John Burns? Because, if so, that would be hilarious.
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They just don't care about others. They have theirs and that's all that matters. They aren't going to ride the bus, it doesn't effect them. I have never seen a group of people wrap themselves tighter in the flag and the cross and not give a flip about anyone else. I work in the city (and pay taxes to the city). Several of the bus stops around here were originally closed. The workers at my childs daycare take those buses. How were they supposed to get to work?? Where are the tea party protests for this? We are trying to have a society here. Our society is only as strong as our weakest members.
ReplyDeleteDana and Jaime were for the tax hikes for transit the first time. Will they change their tune? Will they encourage people to gather at Kiener plaza in support of public transit? I doubt it. Sorry for the rant. This issue just gets me going.
I agree annette. the tea partiers, many republicans are selfish and don't care about the poor. i got mine you get yours, if your lucky, especially since i have my foot on your throat basically is their attitude. notice they never mention the middle class? Never.
ReplyDeleteThey never cared about fixing the horrific problems with our health care system for 8 years under bush but then all the sudden when obama comes up with a plan they say "we have plans too." which end up being a page worth of bs, no plan.