Archive for July, 2008

Salem-News.com

A 45-foot, 28 ton Rolling Bush Museum Makes Latest Stop on National Tour / Local OR Progressive Leaders to Hold Sen. Smith Accountable for Enabling Disastrous Bush/Conservative Policies That Have Harmed Our National Security, Ruined the Economy and Sacrificed Key Domestic Priorities.

(PORTLAND, Ore.) – In what supporters of the President have dubbed his “legacy year,” Americans United for Change, the progressive issue-advocacy group best known for leading the successful fight to beat back President Bush’s effort to privatize Social Security in 2005, has hit the road its latest effort — the Bush Legacy Bus.

The 45-foot long, 28 ton, clean bio-diesel-powered museum on wheels features several interactive exhibits on how two terms of failed conservative policies supported by Bush and his allies – including Sens. John McCain and Gordon Smith – have weakened America’s security abroad while neglecting and undermining important priorities here at home.

The Bush Legacy Tour will make two stops in Oregon – first on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 in Portland at 12:00 PM PT at Tom McCall Waterfront Park by SW Yamhill and SW Taylor, and then on Thursday, July 24th, in Salem at 10:00 AM PT at State Capitol Plaza (Wall of Water), 980 Court St. N.E.

Americans United will be joined by Oregon Action and other local OR labor and progressive leaders to hold Sen. Gordon Smith accountable for voting in lockstep with this President’s worst policy failures 81 percent of the time in the last full congressional term, according to Congressional Quarterly.

He stood with Bush on everything from tax cuts for millionaires that never managed to ‘trickle-down’ to everyone else; to a 2005 Republican energy bill written by and for big oil companies making record profits that did nothing to lower gas prices; to keeping U.S. troops struck in the crosshairs of a religious civil war in Iraq.

The bus will be opened to the public where the people of Oregon will be given the chance to reflect on how 8 years of failed Bush/conservative polices have left behind an economy in shambles, millions more without health insurance, an endless and mismanaged war in Iraq that has stretched our military to the breaking point, and thousands each day losing their jobs, their homes, and their dignity.

The Bush Legacy tour kicked off in Washington D.C. on June 24th and will travel coast-to-coast throughout the summer, making nearly 150 stops in the hometowns of Bush’s allies in Congress, both national political conventions and symbolic and historic locations like New Orleans and Crawford, TX. Click here to visit the Bush Legacy Tour homepage: bushlegacytour.com.

Jobs with Justice, AFSCME, ACORN, SEIU/OPEU, Oregon Health Action Campaign, Oregonians for Health Security, will bring the 45-foot, 28 ton Rolling Bush Legacy Museum to be Opened to Public / Sen. Smith to Be Held Accountable for Enabling Disastrous Bush Policies That Have Harmed Our National Security and Sacrificed So Many Domestic Priorities.

1st Bush Legacy Bus Stop in Portland, Oregon, happens Wednesday, July 23rd at 12:00 PM at Tom McCall Waterfront Park by SW Yamhill and SW Taylor in Portland.

The 2nd Bush Legacy Bus Stop happens in in Salem, Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 10:00 AM, at the State Capitol Plaza (Wall of Water), 980 Court St. N.E., Salem, Oregon.

This $1 billion deal, in the works behind closed doors since April, and unveiled on a Monday with the admonition that it needs to be done by the end of the week or the money goes away, oozes status quo. All of a sudden, we’re in too much of a hurry to have a community discussion about our priorities.

Posted on July 24, 2008

The $1 billion transportation plan approved by City Council Tuesday and on its way to approval by the Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Camino Real RMA is fundamentally at odds with what I recall is one of City Council’s stated goals — to make El Paso one of the least car-dependent cities in the Southwest. [plan background]

It’s par for the course in El Paso’s status quo politics. No matter who is in office, when a major infrastructure project is approved, it’s the same guys in the room. Big developers, big contractors, top bureaucrats. With a public official or two, because, after all, their votes are nominally necessary. When this plan was unveiled Monday, the guys in the room, among others, represented highway contractor JD Abrams, the development outfits of Woody Hunt and Bill Sanders, Texas Transportation Commission member Ted Houghton, and Mayor John Cook.

While gas prices shoot up, as the city struggles with factoring in the cost of fuel for essential services like fire and police, and for enterprise services, like mass transit — which many might argue is an essential civic function — we’re celebrating spending a generation’s worth of transportation funding on 20th century works.

This $1 billion deal, in the works behind closed doors since April, and unveiled on a Monday with the admonition that it needs to be done by the end of the week or the money goes away, oozes status quo.

All of a sudden, we’re in too much of a hurry to have a community discussion about our priorities. It’s a given that the priorities will be roads. And the council, mostly, with the exception of a few questions from city Rep. Beto O’Rourke, fell all over itself to show its approval. Presumably, the MPO and CRRMA will do the same thing today.

Eddie, Eddie, where were you on this one?

Put aside the promises that we’ll solve some traffic problems. No. There is no building your way out of traffic. New roads will quickly fill up.

To be fair, toll roads might be a little different, as cost tends to whittle down a crowd. And maybe more fuel efficient vehicles and alternative fuels will enable us to maintain our well-traveled lifestyles, where commuting 10 miles or more to work is a norm.

Still, what do these new roads do? They further the large scale, master planned development to the Northeast (Hunt), East (Hunt and Schwartz), and Santa Teresa (Sanders). It might be master planned sprawl, but it’s still sprawl.

Meanwhile, $23 million will go to a Bus Rapid Transit program. Putting aside the question of whether BRT is really mass transit of a different order, a more nimble version light rail, what percent of a $1 billion is $23 million? Or even if the $23 million is leveraged into two or four times that?

And a few lone civic activists are puting voice to a reasonable question: What if the toll projections do not materialize? What if the cost of materials goes up? Who will be on the hook to pay off the bonds, and to maintain the new roads? What roads will be first in line for maintenance?

There is a big picture here. It’s on a wall, on the top floor.

I don’t know. Maybe this is just one of those days that makes me feel like moving to Portland.

But I think I’ll stick it out. I don’t need El Paso to change. Politics is politics, and writing and editing is writing and editing.

And the status quo, a billion dollars worth, is the status quo.

Original Link:  http://www.newspapertree.com/news/2681-the-billion-dollar-status-quo