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It's raining outside and you get in your car to go to a friend's house for a movie night. As you are driving down the highway, a fog sets in and you can barely see the road in front of you. Suddenly you are consumed by the dense clouds around your car as you slow to a stop. You inch down the road and then you hear it, "crunch". Oh no, what was that? You get out of your car and run to the back to see what you ran over.
It's a devastating sight. There is blood everywhere. You will never forgive yourself for this one. Before you lies a defenseless life-form. He never stood a chance. That poor toad....
Have you ever experienced this? Of course not, because it is a freggin toad!
I mean, don't get me wrong, if one jumps out in front of you and you run over it, you feel bad for a second BUT it's still a stupid toad.
Well, leave it to the Liberals in Washington and at the state level to waste your money on toads and other reptiles.
According to these two stories (one & two):
The turtle tunnel is just one of more than 520 road and bridge projects the state plans to spend build with stimulus dollars. Leon County Commissioner Cliff Thaell said the project will create jobs.
The Turtle tunnel made a list of 100 questionable spending projects released by Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn. The list was sent submitted to the president’s office, which responded by calling the report “flawed.”
Because of the building of an overpass, animal lovers such as Julie Partansky worried about toads being smooshed by cars commuting from South Davis to North Davis, since the toads hopped from one side of a dirt lot (which the overpass replaced) to the reservoir at the other end. There was a lot of controversy, and the town decided to spend thousands of dollars to build the toad tunnel, which runs beneath the Pole Line Road overpass.
How many of you actually thought this administration would spend the stimulus money wisely?
Hope you are all happy.
Just to be clear, these tunnels for turtles and toads are different and show up in numerous places, I combined the stories to illustrate one point...
That this Stimulus money is not being used to "stimulate" anything, it is being wasted.
I responded to another person on my original post, where I said that even the jobs created to build these tunnels will only last a month or so and then set them right back into recession lifestyles.
We are in a lot of trouble if this is the type of behavior that we are due to have from those in charge of our tax dollars and more importantly, raising our taxes.
Why raise taxes if you can cut meaningless spending out of the budget and actually put the money into something good? Seems like common sense to me.
So your alternative plan is....what?
Alternative plan to "Turtle tunnels" or the Stimulus plan??
The one thing I hate about the package is that the statement, "will create jobs" is supposed to make us nod our heads in agreement and not question the technical stuff or the long term affects. Especially when it is a project that, like you pointed out, will not last long. I don't like living a life in the "should" mindset. Things that should happen, can too easily not happen and then what?
Politicians waste money not Democrats, conservatives may be more likely to subsidize corporations or were more likely to do so until it became obvious pouring oney into a coercive free marktet wasn't helping anyone but the people who owned those large corporations. The stimulus bill is helping provide jobs the fact that it is left up to the states to decided where that money is spent may be the problem.
I'm not sure what that other article was you posted it wasn't clear, and I understand questioning of the projects, but the money was given to states for them to spend as they see fit and the Tallahassee tunnel has been in the works for a decade, it's not something that was conceived with stimulus money. It has had the had support of government, their state department of transportation, and huge public support, for that period of time.
I'm more concerned that Big Pharma just pulled off the biggest PR coup of them all and our president fell for it.
What a pigheaded title.
I'm pretty sure 'The Republicans' wasted a ton of Money for AIG...but hey, I'm not complaining.
Do you know how long it takes to build an overpass? Much longer than one month. Do you know how many people that would employ? How many companies would be needed to build it? Do you know if there is another reason why the overpass is needed?
Do you even know what you're talking about? You sure didn't convince me with this one.
Just because I feel like badgering a perceived idiot:
Did you research this beyond the basics: The effects of a low toad population in the area, the toad migration season (thousands of toads can pose a risk)? Did you see if it really was ONLY democrats that chose this project? I'm pretty sure at least one Republican was involved...or how about the unemployment rate in the area and the projected outcome of jobs from this project?
NO! You didn't! And that's why this article is just a bipartisan rant that has no reason to ever be read by anyone that is intelligent and can see that there is more to life than Republicans VS. Democrats.
Wasteful spending is not party specific.
I think even many Republicans would agree that the examples you cite pale in comparison to the wasteful stimulus that was given to Halliburton and death in the mess that is Iraq.
Wow Liza, how mature of you..of course, you are in the "Politics" section, you realize that right? More to life? Of course, probably doesn't fit the category though.
Thanks for the name calling though, the sucker punches really drive your points.
Are republicans wasting money as well? Are there more projects out there that are wasting money besides this?
Yes, and I address those things continuously in my blog.
Stop cherry picking one piece and resorting to emotional responses.
Thanks
Chris, I like sucker punches. Sometimes its what someone needs to realize that they just wrote an awful piece of literature.
If you want to talk about politics, you should do it on an intelligent level. On your website you claim that you look at both sides, but how can you when you when half your pieces have us vs. them (Rep. vs. Dem.) arguments. Have you written a piece about something the Democrats have done that is positive?
A few excerpts from your so awesome, and politically 'fair' and 'from both sides' of the parties blog:
"Liberals are supposed to be the party of tolerance, yet, when it comes down to it, all they spew is hatred towards the Right."
I'm sorry, only the left has hatred for the right? It doesn't go both ways?? Isn't this a hatred piece?
"John Kerry, the Jackass IS A Symbol For Him in More Ways Than One: Well he is just this ignorant politician who has probably stuck his foot in his mouth just as many times in his political career as Joe Biden since the primaries... and that is a lot of mishaps!" -Fabulous sucker punch, by the way.
I'd put more up, but I'll be nice and let other people browse through it themselves.
Honestly, if you want to intelligently write about politics, you really do have to use FACTS, and ALL of them in order to show that your point of view is valid and should be considered. Otherwise, you just look like an idiot. I think for you being such a smart politically charged guy, you would know that.
Liza,
Talk about what those topics were about instead of the reaction to what happened.
The party of tolerance piece was talking about Janeane Garafalo calling all the TEA Party protestors "racist" a blanket statement that has been pushed by the mainstream media along with false details on the sizes of the parties. Do republicans resort to name calling and blanket statements? The only thing I hear is peace loving hippies, big whoop.
The John Kerry statement is just one to add to the books on the long list of the Left wishing "ill will" on the Right. His statement was that he wishes Palin had gone "missing" instead of Sanford, care to debate that he meant "death" when he said "missing"? Kind of goes along with Wanda Sykes wishing that Rush Limbaugh's Kidneys would fail and that he should be waterboarded...have republicans wished death publicly on any leftist politician? How about referencing to torturing them?
Find me on any liberal's blog post resorting to immature name calling. Matter of fact I have a friendly relationship with those like Tim Weaver and Andrea Zak off of the website. We engage in friendly policy debates, not character assassination. Character demeaning is a method to take the focus off of the real issues and place it on the person.
Maybe you are all too young (joke!) but clearly you haven't read enough about the new deal, used to pull our country out of the great depression (along with World War II, but that is another story).
There is a wonderful colorful recounting of the new deal by an author I enjoyed in highschool. He said that the program would have men dig a ten foot ditch. Then another group of workers would come and fill the ten foot ditch.
Stimulus money is meant to create jobs. If a town sees that building a special passage for turtles, and maintaining it, will generate jobs, then by all means they are stimulating the economy.
I drive a particular highway quite often to go home. It always has construction going on. Except during the real high point of this recession. The last time I went home, the construction workers were out of force. I don't know if they really needed to repave that section of the road that slowed my travel time significantly, but I was glad they were repaving it. Because their jobs impact my job. And it impacts your's too!
Liza, you sure know how to make a point (and I'm referring to Chris's, not your venomous overreaction).
@ Beth: You've got it backwards. WW II pulled us out of the New Deal and the Great Depression.
Dude, life is tough for those toads. Even if they do make it across the street, they then have to jump on moving logs and lily pads (and occasionally crocodiles backs) to make it across the river into a little niche on the other side.
One thing to think about is that it's possible that these tunnels are designed to improve the safety for drivers on the road as well. Toad guts probably make the asphalt a tad slippery and hitting a turtle shell at 70 mph must seriously eff up your tires.
Phalange, thank you for the humor, I laughed out loud and we needed that breakup from the tone here.
I understand the safety issue but there are more accidents from other things in the area I am sure. We can't go around safety netting everything for everyone at the expense of tazpayers, especially those that drive at a reasonable speed that could maintain a turtle hit.
@Ricardo @Beth WWII is the only reason we got out of the Great Depression. The New Deal was "an irresponsible and/or over-regulatory welfare state".
I read that just one indicator of a depression is an unemployment rate of 10% and that has been surpassed in many states so far. I don't think that there is any way that things can be brought under control at this point. It's like closin the door after the horse has fled! I encourage everyone to tap into their own creativity and try to remain as independent as possible. Prepare for layoffs by adding to your day by doing something extra like writing etc. Be proactive. I recommend Meditation as a key for unlocking your creative potential and you will experience peace in all of the outer turmoil.
Can we drop the toad discussion? It has nothing to do with the project under scrutiny. The Lake Jackson Ecopassage accomplishes several things: (1) it corrects an environmental problem created by the feds when they built a road through the middle of an aquatic preserve - they need to fix it; (2) wildlife on this stretch of road (the part that goes through a lake) has a lot more wildlife crossing than a typical stretch of road in other areas of the country (based on 9 years of data); (3) motorist safety is at issue when you have this tremendous array and number of species continually moving across the highway; (4) and yes the project will create jobs for the year it will take to construct the ecopassage - God knows the construction industry in this area could use the work badly. Not only is the project in the spirit of the stimulus package, it also saves lives - human and otherwise and helps mitigate a federal blunder that occurred many decades earlier.
Come to think of it, these wildlife projects could actually SAVE the government money from a risk management point of view. Knowingly letting wildlife traipse across the highway seems like it opens the government to lawsuits from 2 angles:
1) Wildlife causes accident, motorists sues government.
2) Traffic causes damage to wildlife/natural habitat, environmental group sues government.
The cost of building a turtle tunnel doesn't seem that great when compared to either of those options.
Let's go back to where you said the money could be better spent elsewhere. What types of projects (if any) would you suggest?
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