Congress, Please Don’t Cut Funding for Bike and Pedestrian Programs
In the U.S., cities and states provide most of the funds for bike and pedestrians developments, but the federal government also provides essential funds without which many very important projects wouldn’t have been possible. The previous transportation bill, which was signed into law in 2005 by a Republican Congress and Republican president, supported that vital infrastructure funding. But the current federal government isn’t so keen on creating alternatives to cars: “The Senate has passed a bill that by and large preserves the status quo, but the House of Representatives has tried to eliminate bike and pedestrian programs.”
OK, back to TreeHugger for another go (no, I don’t make a general habit of commenting there but after a while, I get tired of seeing the “gimme hands” always out as if the Federal Government is just another name for Santa Claus or view it as a bottomless money pit simply ready for the bucket to go down and when it comes up, their pet project is funded. Realization of the nations current fiscal status – pretty much either nil or determined obliviousness.
So, seeing yet another iteration of “get that free money for MY important project” gimme mentality, I could not help myself:
We’re $16 Trillion in the hole here, folks – when does the spending stop? In reading this site, I keep seeing pleas to do with less – how about with less Federal spending. If something is THAT important, why not persuade your local level of government to spring for these kinds of projects – after all, it benefits the local community.
And if they won’t, doesn’t that send a message?
Really, if something is that important to a local community, shouldn’t they be self-responsible for paying for their own needs (or wants)? I have never understood the outlook of “hey, we want something – but let’s get somebody else to pay for it”. Silly me; as I was growing up from childhood to adulthood, that had a name: selfishness. But, this is today and that, seeming, was a more mature time.
Well, that was not well received by the Greenie Keynesians – after all, they can’t go green on their own dime, can they?
Peted666616: You should watch the video again, so that you understand the points it’s making.
In direct answer to your concerns: the spending at the federal level _creates_ spending at the local level that wouldn’t otherwise happen; in addition, small investments in pedestrian- and bike-friendly infrastructure create huge returns elsewhere. Reduced health-care costs alone would pay back the infrastructure investments many-fold.
One of the best ways to help reduce the federal debt would be to invest in this sort of infrastructure.
Oy! <Shaking head> Did he not read what I said? We don’t have it to spend, yet, that’s what he said “to help reduce the debt, spend more on infrastructure”. Sure, we’re broke so just spend some more! My retort:
Right. I just served two terms on my town’s budget committee (here in NH, that’s the entity that presents the town and school budgets to fellow townfolk who actually vote to approve or disprove the budgets).
I am SO tired of hearing “it’s FREE money” – all we have to do is pitch in a little bit and look what we get! Right – and our tax money goes elsewhere to become someone ELSE’S free money.
Then, we are stuck with the maintenance costs, along which come other undefined costs. Get tired of paying those “not free at all!” appropriations?
Simply pay the Feds back – with interest. Meanwhile, all that money comes with strings attached.
Yeah, we have over $330,000 of Fed money that paid for two “Sidewalks to nowhere” put in around our school – which hardly are NEVER used as in our rural area, buses bring the kids to school.
MAHVELOUS example of the locals refusing to spend it out of their own pockets, but “FREE” money? Yes sah!
Peted666, you sound like my wife who spends several hundred bucks at the store and crows “Look how much I SAVED!”. Meanwhile, that’s money gone that can’t go towards a more important bill.
Sheesh! Let me say it ONE MORE TIME: the Feds are $16 Trillion in the hole – WE DON’T HAVE IT TO SPEND! It is IMMORAL to place that debt burden on the next generations just to say “hey, we’re GREEN!”
Now, THAT was a mistake – how DARE I call Greenies immoral. Yet, how can that be any different from their argument that not leaving a clean environment for later generations? Well, he didn’t address that, but Peted666616 didn’t like my local example of “gimme hands”:
Suffice to say, not all local governments are as incompetent at handling federal money as yours apparently is.
Fact is, federal funding has made a positive difference in lots of other places and (does it really need to be said again?) _does_ in fact save money in the long run. It’s unfortunate you aren’t willing to take at face value the truthful statements made in the advertisement and elsewhere.
And as for complaints about being “stuck with the maintenance costs”, well…a) federal funding can help with that as well, and b) even if that weren’t true, your argument was to have local governments pay for _all_ of the costs, which still includes being “stuck with the maintenance costs”.
Again, we have the “spend more to save more” answer. Well, if my bank account is flush, I could agree with that – it’s called “be able to afford it”. But the Feds don’t, Obama doesn’t care, Harry Reid enables him, and the House Republicans don’t seem to have the stones to turn off the spigot (even as they passed the Ryan budget today, which itself keeps running deficits for years to come). So, I tried to make the fiscal point again (I can get hard headed at times):
Sure, let’s spend MORE money that we don’t have just to save money a few years hence. There are LOTS of stuff I could go buy that could save me money down the line – but I can’t afford the upfront cost. You, on the other hand, seem to wish that basic Law of Fiscal Sanity.
You’re ignoring the MOST important point – the Feds are in the hole for $16 Trillion, that is > than our entire GDP. We are at Greece levels – and you STILL want to spend even MORE?
“GEE, I’ve maxed out my credit cards, but if I spend a few thousand more, LOOK at how much I’ll be ahead with savings in the next few years”.
Sounds just like people who end up in bankruptcy court…… politicians…..and moochers from the taxpayer trough.
And you ignored my statement on enslaving our kids with our spending – how’s THAT gonna work out fer them?
So along comes, Sports Bettor, who seems to display the common idea that the money train will never run out. I kept saying this in my small NH hamlet – hey, that money from the State? It is going to stop soon as they can’t keep deficit spending for long – you can only “balance the budget” (required by state law) for so long with accounting tricks, borrowing, and “free” money from the Feds. And then it stopped – and the locals complained “Our budget! our budget! we have to make up this gap!”. They didn’t listen. Either is this guy:
The spending isn’t stopping anytime soon. So why not spend the money on things that benefit the people and environment instead of all the other things the government wastes money on?
Well, one last comment as I have other things to do; I tried to frame it as “fiscal pollution” and “making do with less” (something these folks are ALWAYS trying to Nanny the rest of us to do. But, typically, when you use their argument against our modern living against their greed, it goes unheeded – hypocrites:
This present Administration is on track to deficit spend >$1trillion 4 years in a row. Either politicians will hard land the Federal budget spending or the capital markets (think Chinese) will crash it full stop because they won’t lend because of fears we won’t pay them back. Frankly, I think the latter is going to happen, and soon, because our politicians are not going to make the hard decisions we elected them to do and cut spending.
Unfortunately, we have this wrong headed idea that Government’s purpose is to give stuff to people – our entitlement mentality is just as poisonous as what the Cuyahogua (sp?) river was to the local environment as it caught fire. So is our spending to our nation’s fiscal health.
As I read these comments saying ‘spend more’ , all I can think of is the comparison to the environmental polluters that all that killed off the river by dumping more and more of their deadly chemicals, expecting the river just to take it. The same goes for our “fiscal river” – everyone wants their “deadly gimmees” be taken by that fiscal river (otherwise known as the US Treasury) to just keep taking it.
Unless the loading, either chemical or fiscal, stops, the environment dies and no one derives a benefit from it.
Choose wisely. The environment or yourselves.
It will be amusing to see if they do.
