A recent newspaper editorial urged Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to sit down and o iron out differences on high-speed rail.”
Iron out differences on the Madison to Milwaukee line?! LaHood wants it, Walker doesn’t. We can’t build it to Lake Mills and quit, the $810 million comes all or none por todos de enchilada. There can be no ironing this whale of a difference. It’s all or nothing, they tell us. If that is true, then nothing makes more sense.
Imagine Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) freeze-dried 5.6 million cubes of choice effluent, gift wrapped them with a top-of-the-line Presto slowcooker made in Eau Claire and a recipe for “Succulent Stewage” [just add lake water, diced carrots and potatoes, and the seasoning packet included], sent them to each and every Wisconsinite, with a bill for only $150. Would you not fume incredulous?
Even without the inappropriate bill, illegally charging for something you didn’t order … Even if it was free … Any way you look at it, a Milwaukee-to-Madison train is just a crock of crapola!
To be useful at all, the train must go efficiently where roads don’t already go. I have suggested a roughly diagonal line connecting tribal casinos from Chicago to Beloit to Milwaukee to Eau Claire to Minneapolis, where it becomes someone else’s problem. But that would surely cost more than $810 million. That’s what Shirley said.
The Doyle administration plummeted into spending the $810 million, counting their weasels before they’ve popped, in an attempt to blackmail Gov. Walker into continuing the project, lest he be personally responsible for all the jobs that would end almost before they’ve started. That would certainly fuel a lovely spin war. Seems there is no season for political tornadoes.
Indeed, the Racine Journal Times applied the opening spin. The Times’ editorial, “Hubris, stubbornness from Doyle on high-speed rail,” warns pursuing the unpopular line “may make the concept a political third rail for years to come. Politicians won’t come near it.”
That’s why it makes more sense to “Stop right there! … before we go any further.” We must be smarter than Meatloaf. We must waive paradise by this train’s headlight. It is another eternal commitment on one-time funds. If the line cannot be bent to some unique purpose or the money usefully re-directed, high-speed rail deserves to be shut down.
Tim Haering, a former speechwriter and policy advisor to former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, now resides in Concord, Calif.
