Thursday, January 17, 2008

safe for now

The state legislature has averted the latest transit funding doomsday. Phew!

I'm relieved that they finally passed this bill. However, I have to wonder how much Blago's free rides will contribute to future doomsday scenarios. In the short term, how soon will the rest of us have a fare increase to pay for those free rides? I'll bet that it will happen within the year. And how many non-seniors will borrow grandma's card to get free rides. Probably more than a few.

Some seniors are truly deserving of a free ride, but many of them have the money to pay. Many say that the existing reduced fare program is just fine. As a demographic category, the percentage of single mothers who are desperately poor is probably a lot higher than the percentage of seniors who are very poor.

The State Constitution should be amended to allow a simple majority to override a Governor's veto, particularly when the veto is used to bludgeon the legislature into passing a half-baked measure as Blago has done today.

Blago's reckless, irresponsible spending of money the state does not have may do lasting economic damage. It does not help that he has a childish, petty tendency to pick unnecessary arguments with people he should have a working relationship with. The prospect of how much damage he could do in the remainder of his term is truly scary. He lives in a bubble, out of touch with regular people, too much like Shrub. The Feds can't indict his sorry a$$ soon enough.

Julie Hamos deserves our everlasting gratitude for her persistence in getting this bill passed. I hope she's having a fine celebration tonight.

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