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| Richard Hanna and supporter |
Congratulations to Richard Hanna, winner in the 24th congressional district. While Richard will not take his seat until January, he's already provided a valuable service to the Finger Lakes and the nation by sending Michael Arcuri to early retirement.
Richard can count an South of 5 and 20 to provide helpful advice during his first Congressional term. We'll start out with an easy one. We need to abandon this perennial money pit immediately (to quote from Arcuri's re-election platform):
Calling it the “Erie Canal of our time” he has been a loud, vocal proponent of high speed rail.
In Monday's Washington Post, columnist Robert J. Samuelson provided a succinct lesson in the absurdity of Arcui's party line porkfest:
Let's suppose that the Obama administration gets its wish to build high-speed rail systems in 13 urban corridors. The administration has already committed $10.5 billion, and that's just a token down payment. California wants about $19 billion for an 800-mile track from Anaheim to San Francisco. Constructing all 13 corridors could easily approach $200 billion. Most (or all) of that would have to come from government at some level. What would we get for this huge investment?
Not much. Here's what we wouldn't get: any meaningful reduction in traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, air travel, oil consumption or imports. Nada, zip. If you can do fourth-grade math, you can understand why.
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