Death of a train?

"Here is the bottom line - federal dollars are OUR dollars. Rather than waste them, they should be put back into the Treasury."

Oh-oh. This is bad. Even Senator Al has gotten involved. He is in town to join some other local statists who are HUGE choo-choo lovers. Why? They are petitioning those rascally Republicans in the State House to get going on approving state funding for the troubled South West LRT. The only problem is most conservatives in our State House put spending MORE public money on trains somewhere lower than funding shrimp on a treadmill. 

As the good Senator continued to warn us, all that "free" money from the Feds could go to another foolish city (who also is run by statists) to build their trains. If that happened, a huge lynchpin of funding would be gone maybe forever. And the ripple effect could also affect another huge waste of taxpayer money - the Blue Line extension.

Excuse me for a minute - I had to wipe away a crocodile tear. Losing all that "free" money from the Feds! I just love it when some of the Lefties in blue states think Fed money is "free" Like it came from another planet whose main export was dollars. Or money trees which can only grow by the Potomac. Here is the bottom line - federal dollars are OUR dollars. Rather than waste them, they should be put back into the Treasury. These dollars come of many of us being overtaxed at our inconvenience.

One more thing that the mainstream media seldom puts in print. The trains in this town are losers. They are heavily subsidized by us taxpayers. I am not talking about the cost of construction - that is bad enough. I am talking about operating costs. The Northstar is a real lemon. If a passenger in Big Lake riding this train into downtown Minneapolis had to pay a non-subsidized fare, it would be almost $50 round trip. Instead that passenger pays about $5, and us over-taxed citizens get to pay the rest.

There is not one LRT nor Northstar in this area which is paying its own way. The more trains we build, the more we will have to subsidize. In the real world of private industry, how long could a company survive using that business model? I dare say not very long indeed.

So Senator Al, thanks for the pep talk. We did hear what you said, but we are not listening. Could this be the death of a train? I sure hope so.