So with the transportation fund $90.7 million in the red, where does the extra $100 million come from that it will take for Scott Walker to kill high-speed rail?
Patrick Marley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel dryly notes (but does not directly address) the long unanswered question in the debate over high-speed rail in a new story:
The transportation fund is also expected to take a hit because Governor-elect Scott Walker has said he will stop a passenger rail line from Madison to Milwaukee.
Marley hints that toll are probably coming.
So since we still don’t know, it only seems like a fair question: Will Scott Walker use tolls to pay to kill the high-speed rail? The money to kill the project has to come from somewhere. (A reminder here why stopping the project isn’t a smart budget move.)
And you can bet Walker will avoid answering the question for as long as possible, because if voters knew they’d have to open the door to tolls to kill this project that would create thousands of jobs, they’d be outraged.
The only real question is whether anyone is going to ask him how he’s going to pay to kill the project before he does it.
maybe he is not as dumb as he makes out to be. He knows we are in a mess, and he keeps having his lackies throw out ways they can raise taxes and not take a beating from the fringe right.
The possibility of special toll roads has been raised by Walker’s “team” before, and I think it’s likely we’ll see them before the end of his term.
I suspect you’re right.
From my understanding though, the proposed toll roads wouldn’t be put into effect on all roads; they’d be special roads for those who’d be willing to pay the tolls. Perhaps we’ll see special “toll lanes” on the freeways or something to that effect.
Think if the shoe was on the other foot and say Jim Doyle had proposed tolls. The argument would be that this is just a way to get tolls started, and in five years they will be everywhere.