Truck Yourself, This is the NEW Politics Thread

by **jerseyhoya** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 10:48:37

My understanding of the new line item veto proposal is the president could object to individual earmarks, tax breaks and tariffs, and the Congress would be responsible for approving or rejecting the specific vetoes in up or down votes. It's written as a work around to the constitutionality issues, giving Congress the final say of sorts in the matter.

by **TenuredVulture** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:25:40

VoxOrion wrote:Doesn't "Bowling Alone" provide a pretty good historical perspective on the highway system? I know it was some significant book that wasn't exactly about that, but covered it anyway. My understanding is that lobbying had a lot to do with it, and that the highway makers and auto-manufacturers simply won the battle.

Sure lobbying went into it--but it wasn't just automakers. Cities themselves lobbied hard for highway dollars. They still do. In the fifties, no one really anticipated the effect of building all those highways. Remember, suburbanization really gets underway with the construction of trolley and rail lines. It's not called the Mainline for nothing.

To speak intelligently about these issues, one must distinguish between transit systems that serve commuters, and inter city transit systems. As security hassles increase at airports, short distances like NY-Washington or Dallas-Austin could be easily served by trains. Of course, using a train for such a trip instead of a car depends on some means of getting to where you're going once you arrive at that city.

There are stupid politics, as I've noted before. Folks from Seattle seemed to love sitting in running cars on I-5 for a long time, because they seem loath to build any kind of rail system. Dallas by contrast has a decent commuter rail system, though the fine folks of Arlington are opposed to having any transit service in their town.

Some Texans (and probably a small handful of Arkies as well) are a little pissed that they're not getting the high speed rail money going to Cali, Florida, and Illinois.

by **dajafi** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:31:38

Interesting little side thread on transit (and thanks to jh for posting that piece to bait pacino/kick it off).

A factor maybe difficult to quantify but IMO telling is that the nature of auto travel--in which you're on your own or with people you choose to be in the car with, able to set your own schedule, pick your own destination and put whatever you want on the radio--is simply better aligned with the "American character" than is mass transit, where you're jammed in with whoever, and subject to delays and breakdowns totally out of your control as well as the de-institutionalized schizo asking for money and/or the religious ranter shouting in your face. (This is cshort's point, I think.) Add to that the strong interest of the developers that built up the suburbs after WWII to have government cover the costs of getting people from where they (would) live to where they work, and it's not surprising that the system evolved the way it did.

You don't have to ascribe it to the greed or perfidy or malice of GM or whoever; no popular will was subverted here. A million middling early rock 'n' roll songs plus like a third of the Springsteen oeuvre suggest we Americans like us some cars.

Of course, there are what economists call negative externalities to car culture: emissions and the staggering amount of time "lost" in traffic. But--and this is the point PtK never, ever fucking gets--in our system, you can't solve them by diktat. Nobody likes traffic and nobody wants to breathe poison; at some point, the negatives of those factors presumably outweigh the positives of car travel for enough people that you can move policy in a different direction. (And, as jh's article points out, there are economic development reasons to privilege rail over autos.) I have some optimism that we're getting there.

by **TenuredVulture** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:48:07

I really do think people in Seattle like sitting in traffic. When places like Dallas have more enthusiasm for transit than you do, it's the only explanation that makes sense.

One advantage of transit though is you can use it after drinking, and you won't kill anyone else.

by **dajafi** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 14:08:23

So I just watched the Obama/Republican House caucus event.

I have to say that while I read a lot about it yesterday, on admittedly biased left-leaning sites, as "zOMG Obama kicked their ass!", that wasn't my read on it at all. Several of the Republican questioners, particularly jh's boy Ryan, were pretty strong and obviously thoughtful; others (Blackburn, Hanserling) not so much, but the whole tone wasn't really confrontational and I don't think the Republicans should feel ashamed or beaten or anything like that.

It just felt like a good exchange, whatever comes of it. I hope they do it again.

by **TheBrig** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 14:54:38

dajafi wrote:So I just watched the Obama/Republican House caucus event.

I have to say that while I read a lot about it yesterday, on admittedly biased left-leaning sites, as "zOMG Obama kicked their ass!", that wasn't my read on it at all. Several of the Republican questioners, particularly jh's boy Ryan, were pretty strong and obviously thoughtful; others (Blackburn, Hanserling) not so much, but the whole tone wasn't really confrontational and I don't think the Republicans should feel ashamed or beaten or anything like that.

It just felt like a good exchange, whatever comes of it. I hope they do it again.

It was indeed great to see and it was plain that both sides got points across and were well-received in turn. I only wish Obama would take the same even-handed approach to sorting out his own party, since they have a lot more influence over policy than the Republicans do (although come to think of it, that may be likely to change.)

by **allentown** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 21:53:45

Philly the Kid wrote:
cshort wrote:
The Nightman Cometh wrote:
Philly the Kid wrote:The largest reason we have interstates and developed a radical car culture, is that GM built trucks and crushed the railroads after WWII

No.

In addition to lobbying by automakers, Eisenhower saw how useful the Autobahn was in Germany, and how it could contribute to national defense, providing easy transportation of equipment and supplies. Unlike European and most Asian countries, the US is immense, and 50 years ago congestion wasn't an issue. It wasn't radical, it was logical. And what is wrong with being able to go wherever, whenever? Trains have their place (urban areas), but in a country this size, it doesn't make sense for transportation across long distances (freight is obviously a different story).

I won't get in to the wherever whenever -- but GM made trucks, and railroads needed serious infrastructure renewal. They lost. Instead of having world class rail, and continuing the culture of rail travel, it got thinner and thinner -- as trucking blew up. Along with it, fuel consumption,, pollution and inefficiency. Imagine if the R&D had gone in to new rail? With light-rail for inner cities being more efficient, safe, etc...

Here in the Bay Area, we have CalTrain and BART and Muni-buses. But we are still overloaded on the freeways. One accident, or storm and its a mess. LA is impossible.

But don't think the auto-makers (truck makers/bus makers) did not have a big hand in killing viable rail. And only in America are we so arrogant to think that we have an inalienable right to just drive a big mf cadillac all over the open hiway at 10mph one person to a box.

Look who supports highway projects today. The support comes primarily from construction companies, construction unions, developers, investors who have already speculatively purchased farmland, and farmers looking to sell out at the best price. Wherever there is a limited access highway and and exit, there is development of houses, stores, warehouses. We've seen this in western Lehigh County with as minor a highway project as the original Trexlertown bypass. Automotive companies may well have lobbied against rail and for highways, but I don't think they were the primary motivators. Look at how highway jobs are always viewed, when government stimulus is considered. Post-WWII, post-Korea, I suspect Eisenhower was interested in creating jobs.

Mass transit works if you can get on a few blocks (most Americans won't walk to it if it is even 3 city blocks) and stops a few blocks from your destination. Carrying multiple grocery bags is a hassle. Unless you are on a heavily trafficked route, adapting your schedule to theirs is tough. Business meetings, dates, and general nights on the town ended with last bus or train our of center city.

I've lived a few blocks from a stop on a city bus line that went directly onto the campus of my employer out in the burbs. I rarely used it. There was a last bus and my bosses showed annoyance if you too often left to catch that bus. I had to go to satellite sites within a few miles of campus, fairly unpredictably, a couple times a week. If I took public transit that day, out of luck. I also had a few volunteer commitments a month that required me to be away from my employer at a time the buses didn't serve the campus, and going to a spot I couldn't get to without a transfer, not at all feasible. Then I had to make up that time, which ruled out the bus on those days. If you've need flexibility in your schedule, or your home/work/shopping center aren't really close to the transit routes, again you are out of luck.

by **cshort** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 22:08:43

Another point on mass transit. Because many use cars in the US, it's not overcrowded. I've had the "pleasure" of using both the London's and Tokyo's transit system (both in and outside the cities). During rush hour it's no picnic, and can be downright terrible. I think it's actually a nice balance in the US - but we can still improve both areas.

Lobbying has also hindered some of the highway system. A good example is the Blue Route. Because of intense local pressure in the area south of Rt 3 (primarily Swarthmore I think) , the highway was reduced from the original planned 6 lanes to 4 (even though there's still room for 6), which now creates a bottleneck during rush hour.

by **pacino** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 04:39:05

There's simply a tendency in our nation to think of the automobile and highway system as the 'norm' and mass transport as the outlier. I just get that sense even throughout this thread. I'm not simply talking about inter-city travel, I'm talking intra-city. To think that fairly large cities have disgustingly pathetic transport systems just saddens me. That's all.

by **drsmooth** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 12:31:09

Atown I quite agree with everthing you noted, but would suggest reconsidering one of your aptly chosen examples of how transportation alternatives impact people individually:

allentown wrote:...Carrying multiple grocery bags is a hassle...

....If you've need flexibility in your schedule, or your home/work/shopping center aren't really close to the transit routes, again you are out of luck.

re: groceries - our "multiple grocery bag" world is one brought by cars and refrigeration.

If your world is built on a pedestrian platform (and, ok, an icebox), your shopping is more frequent, and for smaller quantities. You aren't ordinarily lugging multiple sack of chow in that scenario you proposed.

More to the point, an important element of the routine of your daily life and those you live with is markedly different - but so humdrum neither you nor I nor many people routinely register it when thinking about what would be different if things are done differently.

As to your inconvenience scenario (transit too far away, too infrequent, etc), with more relying on it, there would presumably more locations, more frequency, a better usability. Plus higher population density. Changing things would not be just about getting from here to there.

by **dajafi** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 13:15:58

Eh. As one of those urban, carless, frequent grocery shoppers, I can tell you that it's still a fucking pain in the ass even to carry two small bags of purchase items along with a work or gym bag, onto a jammed stinking subway car, with a ten minute walk in freezing temperatures on the far side of that unpleasant ride.

If resenting this makes me a bad person/bad liberal, okay.

by **TenuredVulture** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 14:22:19

When I lived in Queen Village, my girlfriend and I had this car that she had bought for a dollar. (I think she might have overpaid.) Pretty much the only thing we used this car for was to go to the Pathmark on Oregon Ave.

by **drsmooth** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 16:46:32

dajafi wrote:Eh. As one of those urban, carless, frequent grocery shoppers, I can tell you that it's still a $#@! pain in the ass even to carry two small bags of purchase items along with a work or gym bag, onto a jammed stinking subway car, with a ten minute walk in freezing temperatures on the far side of that unpleasant ride.

If resenting this makes me a bad person/bad liberal, okay.

so, delivery...?

by **drsmooth** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 22:10:01

Not sure if this is exactly politics or not, but The Jihadist Next Door has a Philly connection:

NY Times Mag wrote:....(Hammami) set out to deepen his study (of Islam) and soon fell under the influence of Tony Salvatore Sylvester, a 35-year-old convert and preacher who was new in town.

Sylvester wore a thin blond beard and was missing his two front teeth. Brought up Catholic in the rural town of Doylestown, Pa., he found Islam in his early 20s while working as a jazz-fusion guitarist in Philadelphia. He had come to Mobile with his wife and six children, hoping to land a job at the Islamic school. By then, he was considered a prominent voice in the American Salafi movement.

by **jerseyhoya** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 23:58:01

by **dajafi** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 11:31:02

Lousy do-nothing Congress...

There seems to be little to endear citizens to their legislature or to the president trying to influence it. It's too bad, because even with the wrench thrown in by Republican Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts, this Democratic Congress is on a path to become one of the most productive since the Great Society 89th Congress in 1965-66, and Obama already has the most legislative success of any modern president -- and that includes Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson. The deep dysfunction of our politics may have produced public disdain, but it has also delivered record accomplishment.

The productivity began with the stimulus package, which was far more than an injection of $787 billion in government spending to jump-start the ailing economy. More than one-third of it -- $288 billion -- came in the form of tax cuts, making it one of the largest tax cuts in history, with sizable credits for energy conservation and renewable-energy production as well as home-buying and college tuition. The stimulus also promised $19 billion for the critical policy arena of health-information technology, and more than $1 billion to advance research on the effectiveness of health-care treatments.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has leveraged some of the stimulus money to encourage wide-ranging reform in school districts across the country. There were also massive investments in green technologies, clean water and a smart grid for electricity, while the $70 billion or more in energy and environmental programs was perhaps the most ambitious advancement in these areas in modern times. As a bonus, more than $7 billion was allotted to expand broadband and wireless Internet access, a step toward the goal of universal access.

Any Congress that passed all these items separately would be considered enormously productive. Instead, this Congress did it in one bill. Lawmakers then added to their record by expanding children's health insurance and providing stiff oversight of the TARP funds allocated by the previous Congress. Other accomplishments included a law to allow the FDA to regulate tobacco, the largest land conservation law in nearly two decades, a credit card holders' bill of rights and defense procurement reform.
...
Certainly, the quality of this legislative output is a matter of debate. In fact, some voters, including many independents, are down on Congress precisely because they don't like the accomplishments, which to them smack of too much government intervention and excessive deficits. But I suspect the broader public regards this Congress as committing sins of omission more than commission. Before the State of the Union, the stimulus was never really sold in terms of its substantive measures; it just looked like money thrown at a problem in the usual pork-barrel way. And many Americans, hunkering down in bad times, may not accept the notion of "countercyclical" economic policies, in which the government spends more just when citizens are cutting back.

Most of the specific new policies -- such as energy conservation and protection for public lands -- enjoy solid and broad public support. But many voters discount them simply because they were passed or proposed by unpopular lawmakers. In Massachusetts, people who enthusiastically support their state's health-care system were hostile to the very similar plan passed by Congress. Why? Because it was a product of Congress.

by **jerseyhoya** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 13:00:30

I laughed at this Jim Geraghty tweet

Pro-amnesty crowd considers importing Mexican legislators, since legalizing illegal aliens is another job Americans won't do.

Also from Chuck Todd

Is there a scandal cliche not included in Edwards story? Maybe it's a hoax. About the only plot twist that hasn't come to fruition.

I should probably join Twitter

by **dajafi** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 13:15:40

This probably isn't a "politics" post per se, but what I find fascinating about the Edwards story is that seemingly before this whole thing, he wasn't a skirt-chaser.

So if you think about it, he took the biggest risk at close to the worst possible time (being a viable presidential candidate and with a terminally ill wife who was perceived as a near-saint), AND did so with a woman, Rielle Hunter, who's neither a raging super-babe nor, from most accounts, a particularly appealing human being. Weird.

by **Bakestar** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 13:31:42

jerseyhoya wrote:Video: Don Draper dancing

That's not funny.

by **traderdave** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 13:33:21

dajafi wrote:This probably isn't a "politics" post per se, but what I find fascinating about the Edwards story is that seemingly before this whole thing, he wasn't a skirt-chaser.

So if you think about it, he took the biggest risk at close to the worst possible time (being a viable presidential candidate and with a terminally ill wife who was perceived as a near-saint), AND did so with a woman, Rielle Hunter, who's neither a raging super-babe nor, from most accounts, a particularly appealing human being. Weird.

What is incredible to me is that it is almost news when a politician IS NOT having an affair yet John Edwards' situation seems to have him in a class by himself. And, FWIW, I thought the Hamm/Brown skit was pretty good.

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