LET'S GO FORWARD BACKWARDS

Running on campaigns that promised job creation, at least two Republican governors elect have decided that the way to do that is to reject jobs that were created by Democrats. Both governors in Ohio and Wisconsin have rejected the high speed rail money that has already been awarded to their states. Let's examine Wisconsin's governor elect Scott Walker who campaigned on the promise that he would stop all progress on development of a high speed train between Milwaukee and Madison. This would eventually link up with existing train service between Milwaukee and Chicago and would also provide the basis for high speed trains continuing on to Minneapolis-St Paul. Sure enough, as he won election, he got outgoing Governor, Jim Doyle, to stop any additional work on the high speed train project. Governor Doyle not only supported the project, but had previously gotten a train manufacturer, Talgo Inc, to locate in Milwaukee and they had hired employees and were actively building train cars!

Walker originally wanted to divert the $810,000,000 that Wisconsin had been awarded to road building, but found out that this money was approved by Congress for high speed trains only. The US Transportation department indicated that if Wisconsin (and Ohio) did not want their share of this money, that it would be distributed to other states that did. And, other states immediately indicated that they wanted the money from these two states, totaling $1,200,000,000.

Walker said that the state would be on the hook for maintenance costs and he did not want to burden Wisconsin taxpayers with that extra cost, which he put at $7.5 million a year. That ignored the fact that the federal government currently picks up 90% of the maintenance costs on the existing service between Milwaukee and Chicago which would leave Wisconsin responsible for only $750,000. Now since it was reported that nearly 5,000 jobs would be created in building new tracks and upgrading existing tracks over several years and that there would be about 100+ permanent jobs running trains, stations, and other railroad duties, doesn't that mean that "I'll create jobs" Scott Walker is immediately losing jobs? Plus, some communities saw that a new train station and/or new train service in their towns would mean new development around that new traffic that would mean possibly new businesses locating near this new transportation, in the form of offices, restaurants, and shops. Then we have Talgo Inc. who just this morning announced that they would leave Wisconsin for a more train friendly state and take their 100-200 jobs with them. Illinois, which is planning to build a high speed train line between Chicago and St Louis, is interested in the company moving to their state. Wouldn't all these jobs have people paying taxes to Wisconsin? Isn't it possible that revenue would offset the $750,000 cost of maintenance for the state? Walker has said that he is going to create 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin. Since he is starting at a minus 5000, he'll need to create 255,00 jobs to reach his goal. After going backwards, maybe we can start going forward. Hopefully Scott Walker knows the right direction.