Tag: high speed rail

This is worth a read. Walker won and trains lost. He quickly moved to kill the Milwaukee to Madison part of the project, but he claimed to support upgrades to the Hiawatha line. Meanwhile, Talgo was already well along in the construction of two sets of trains to serve that…

If only Gov. Scott Walker weren’t so short-sighted… If you’re looking for high-speed rail with a Chicago connection, don’t look toward Wisconsin. Two high-speed train sets that originally were set to connect Chicago with Milwaukee and Madison, and eventually Minneapolis, look like they’re headed to Michigan instead. The Michigan Senate…

I’ll give former Gov. Tommy Thompson credit – at least he’s not afraid to buck his fellow Republicans now that his political career is over. “I agree with Gov. Walker that we do not want to place additional burdens on taxpayers, but I also am very much in favor of…

Surprise, surprise, surprise!  Nobody could have predicted! When you introduce austerity programs, the economy slows down! Typically, government spending rises when the economy turns down. That’s because the cost of safety net programs, such as unemployment insurance, go up. And sometimes governments deliberately boost spending to stimulate the economy. But…

Scott Walker’s enthrallment to the construction industry (to the tune of more than $1.2 million over the years) has now cost the state millions in federal dollars that would have been available to deliver needed (and mandatory) upgrades to the Hiawatha Line.  Wisconsin is one of the states which contributes…

In our continuing series of fiscal conservatives we now have a Wisconsin train edition. As reported Wisconsin taxpayers are now having to pay millions for passenger trains. Wisconsin taxpayers could wind up paying more to keep existing passenger train service from Milwaukee to Chicago than they would have paid to…

After turning down federal high-speed rail funds in a grand gesture of political theatre, Republican Gov. Scott Walker and state officials now find themselves in a bit of a pickle, as they have to figure out how to pay for hundreds of millions of dollars of work needed to keep…

Someday we might actually have a republican party that is fiscally conservative instead of one that just plays pretend. Unfortunately this week is not that time. While there is much uncertainty if this bill will stop any voter “fraud”, one thing is certain: First off, despite widespread opposition, the republicans…

In today\'s JSOnline, Chandler McKelvey, former secretary of development serving under Gov. Lee Dreyfus, lays into the ridiculousness of the Walker Administration and their claims of “open for business”. In the column, Mr. McKelvey decries the Governor’s “short-term” thinking and points out how detrimental that is to the long-term future…

I was amazed to read The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial “Closer Chicago Ties” supporting rail service and revealing claims that the MMAC raised its parochial head and surreptitiously proposed a plan to then Gubernatorial candidate Walker to spend $450 to $500 million of the railroad stimulus money for upgrades on the Milwaukee to Chicago Hiawatha route in lieu of the full Madison – Milwaukee – Chicago railroad plan. Their hypocrisy in not supporting the Madison – Milwaukee – Chicago route upgrade is amazing given the constant refrain that Milwaukee and Madison businesses and educational institutions should be working more closely together.