Podcast 290

Southwest Light Rail. News that Minnesota Speaker of The House Kurt Daudt says the House will not consider funding for the Southwest Light Rail, leads this midweek update from the Bob Davis Podcasts. SWLR has caused headaches for the Minneapolis Park Board, Bicyclists, Residents of Western Suburbs, Mayors, City Councils and legislators since its inception, and it isn’t even built yet! Despite the fact that light rail does not carry more passengers than buses, doesn’t spur development without expensive subsidies, and doesn’t generate employment beyond construction crews (which is a small swath of the working population and short term) the unelected Met Council and transportation ‘activists’ plan as many as twenty of these light rail projects, with the Southwest Light Rail central to the overall plan. Moreover, media coverage of how the state funds transportation projects is very confusing. Senate transportation chair Scott Dibble wants to add a wholesale gas tax which some report could add as much as twenty cents to a gallon of gas, which is projected to raise almost a billion dollars, add a license fee increase and then borrow 576 million for ‘roads and bridges’. What’s the other 800 million plus a year for? And let’s not forget the transportation amendment, passed a few years ago, which generates God knows how much in revenue. Is there a sinkhole someplace where this money goes? Oddly enough people who a month ago were touting the lower gas prices as acting economically as a ‘tax cut’, now advocate raising the federal gas tax. Hint, there is plenty of money if they would just dedicate all of the money raised in gas taxes for roads and bridges. Furthermore, what about Obama’s trillion dollar stimulus? Wasn’t that for roads and bridges too? New economic numbers this week has the media touting the ‘booming’ Obama economy, and leftwing commentators laughing at Republicans for spinning the good news, bad. But, there are still some questions about employment, central bank policy, and worrisome signs. 2.5 to 3.5 percent GDP growth is good, but wages are not increasing and some say, this isn’t enough to sustain the growth. Don’t get too cocky. The Bob Davis Podcasts provoked a lot of reaction in Podcast 287 regarding tea party politics in Minnesota, chiefly that rhetoric does not win elections, or force politicians to do your bidding. Almost as proof is a new poll of registered republicans in Iowa. If there is a grassroots tea party movement, the poll doesn’t show it. Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush lead a field of GOP candidates in the first primary state. Shockingly, the White House says journalists should be careful what they say, since it might provoke attacks against US military personnel and in his role as Commander in Chief, President Obama might have to shut down journalists who write stories jihadists don’t like, or satire that might make them attack. Not making this up. And you wonder why the President didn’t go to Paris. Finally, the IRS head continues to bitch and moan about the lack of funding for the agency, saying fewer audits are in store, and they may not be able to collect taxes …The Nation Rejoices! Sponsored by Baklund R&D.

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Randal O’Toole – Podcast 189

Randal O’Toole talks about Light Rail, Street Cars, the Driverless Car, state and city planning, subsidies and the Highway Trust Fund, with The Bob Davis Podcasts. Cities all over the United States are spending billions, sometimes tens of billions to research, and billions more to build, light rail, streetcar and so called ‘high speed’ rail lines. Projects designed to serve centrally planned cities with subsidized high density housing. Millennials are interested in these cities, for now, but what happens when they start raising families? How did the Met Council come into existence? Do people really want this kind of life? Central Planners think so, but what if the future does not cooperate? What if the future is a dystopia with increasingly expensive transit systems, serving no one. In the second half of the Bob Davis Podcasts conversation with the CATO Institute’s Randal O’Toole we talk about driverless cars, the history of streetcars and the efficiency of today’s streetcar lines, and their costs. Why do a few elites make the working class pay for transit systems they use, expensive apartments they live in, in cities they design. They may not think they’re one per centers, but today’s Republican and Democrat liberals are creating what they think are utopian cities, but they’re not for the rest of the 99 percent. Hailing from Portland, O’Toole knows the folly of light rail and streetcar transit plans inside and out. If you want to learn how to argue against these plans at your city council and neighborhood meetings, listen to Randal O’Toole and learn how. Sponsored by X Government Cars!

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Randal O’Toole – Podcast 188

Randal O’Toole shares his knowledge about Light Rail, Street Cars, the Driverless Car, state and city planning, subsidies and the Highway Trust Fund, with The Bob Davis Podcasts. Cities all over the United States are spending billions, sometimes tens of billions to research, and billions more to build, light rail, streetcar and so called ‘high speed’ rail lines. These projects are designed to serve centrally planned cities with subsidized high density housing. Studies say this is what people want, but are the studies right? What is the history of this kind of thinking? O’Toole knows. Moreover, O’Toole is willing to debate, discuss, and write about the issue. Most of the time he doesn’t get enough time on talk radio, but he is a wealth of information. If you want to learn how to argue these issues, Randal O’Toole is the man to learn from. Do we continue to tax people, no matter where they live, to subsidize and maintain expensive transit systems for the elite, and to promote a vision of the future which may be dangerously wrong. Hear him as you have never heard him before, because The Bob Davis Podcasts will give him plenty of time in this podcast, and the companion podcast 189, to share those arguments with you. Sponsored by Baklund R & D.

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