Wisconsin Republicans Create Their First Job

State Republicans, most notably Goobernator-elect Scott "Train Wreck" Walker, has been taking a lot of flak for their anti-high speed rail posturing. Walker, as the reader is probably very well aware, made his anti-rail stance one of the main planks of his campaign platform.

Since the election, the people are starting to realize that the Democrats were correct and that Walker's grandstanding could get very expensive. Despite growing concern and repeated warnings, Walker continues his act of bravado with our jobs and money and states that he won't allow HSR to go through Wisconsin, but would rather use the money to fix roads and bridges. (This is the first recorded incident of Walker caring about maintenance of anything, by the way.)

Then, last Friday, as I predicted, Walker started to backtrack on his position, saying he was "in no hurry" to push for the rail funding to be used otherwise, in order to prepare for the inevitable flip flop. You could start seeing the concern growing in his base by then.

The following Monday, reacting to a rally held outside of the Talgo plant and increasing pressure from the state's Democratic Party and groups like One Wisconsin Now, Walker caved in a little bit more, saying he was now willing to allow that money to go to fixing current rail lines. Even the Wisconsin State Journal, which had originally endorsed him, appeared to be having some buyer's remorse. The flop sweat from the right was becoming quite noticeable.

On Tuesday, the desperation from the right was palpable as three of Walker's allies, Congressmen Jim Sensenbrenner, Paul Ryan and Tom Petri said that they would introduce a bill that would change the law so that if states like Wisconsin and Ohio, who made terrible blunders in their elections, wanted to forgo jobs and a large influx of money, it would go to back to pay off some of their debt and deficits.

But the chances of that bill going anywhere is somewhere between slim and none. The problem that these three stooges face is that they are not the only members of Congress. To get the bill passed, it would need the support of the representatives from Illinois, New York and now California, as well as any other state that would be more than glad to bring jobs and a recovering economy to their fair states.

To add to the job-killing Republicans disconcertion is the fact that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has again emphatically repeated the fact that if Wisconsin, Ohio or any other soon-to-be backwater state wanted to reject the HSR funding, he would move swiftly to make sure the money is responsibly and fairly redistributed to states that want to actually grow their economies.

And just to pile on more bad news, Walker's idiot ideology won't be cost the state $100 million as previously reported, but might actually be closer to $135 million.

With all of the backtracking, moving of goal posts, and attempts to throw up red herrings, it is easy to see that Walker and his Republican allies have actually created one job. That job is a massive snow job which they are trying to pull over on the state's citizens.

The only real question is which promise Walker going to break - creating jobs, stopping the train or both?

Train Wreck Walker Still On The Wrong Track

In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath
Runs the all-time loser
Headlong to his death.
He feel the pistons scraping--
Steam breaking from his brow--
Thank God, he stole the handle and
The train won't stop going--
No way to slow down

-Jethro Tull "Locomotive Breath"

Talk about slow learners.

Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood made it clear to Scott "Train Wreck" Walker that the funding for high speed rail, by federal law, is meant for high speed rail only, and not to reward his magnanimous road builder campaign donors.

Today, U.S. Representative Gwen Moore re-emphasized the point. Even his ally, U.S. Representative Tom Petri told him that it's not going to happen. Republican darling, Paul Ryan, won't climb aboard Walker's Train Wreck Express.

Businessmen in Wisconsin are telling Walker they want HSR to come to Wisconsin so they can remain competitive. Some people have even called Walker's opposition to HSR as "economic treason."

So how does ol' Train Wreck respond to this growing groundswell of support for HSR and the undeniable fact that his oppositional stance is folly?

He responds the same way he always has. He ignores the people and the facts and clings to his irresponsible and irrational ideology. Not only does he not blink before reality, but he stokes the engines on his crazy train and fires off a letter to Secretary LaHood not only continuing to pursue his own vainglorious publicity stunt, but shows himself to be totally delusional. In Walker's eyes, because he and two other fools don't like to have the train, he says that the federal government should just scrap the whole push for a nationwide rail system:

I strongly encourage the federal government to halt all investments in new passenger rail lines and instead devote this funding to state and local road projects. All across the country, in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida, the voters chose new governors who are opposed to diverting transportation funding to passenger rail. I believe it would be unwise for the Obama Administration to ignore the will of the voters.

Too bad for Train Wreck Walker that this isn't the case. New York State's Governor Elect Andrew Cuomo has already put dibs on the funding that should be Wisconsin's. State officials in Illinois, and yes, even Florida, have expressed desire to get that HSR funding.

And for something that no one wants and no one will ride, according to Walker and his acolytes, it sure seems to be doing really well in Minnesota and Illinois. I wonder how Walker will respond to his old buddy, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, when he tells Walker to stop hurting his state's economy with his ideological grandstanding.

I foresee only three real possible outcomes from this. One, Walker will cave to reality and allow the HSR to be built, using some lame excuse to cover his butt. The other option is that he emulates his hero, George W. Bush, and alienates the state from any possible bonhomie with our neighbors for the sake of his misguided ideology. The third is one of the smarter governors, like Cuomo, takes a page from Tom Barrett's playbook and just takes matters into his own hands and gets the feds to walk away from Walker.

The first outcome will only cost him a little political face, which he could easily recover from in short order, and possibly make it play out in his favor. The other two would cost the state any chance of economic recovery in the near future, including hundreds of millions of dollars being squandered and thousands of jobs being lost.

Whether Walker's continued grandstanding is due to political pandering, ideological obstinacy or just plain obtuseness, well, there is a word for that kind of behavior.

And that word is not leadership.