Governor Rick Snyder cares how your precious state tax dollars are spent. Your federal dollars? Not so much.<\/p>\n
Michigan’s CEO has earned applause for a long overdue tightening of Lansing purse strings. So why was he playing deputy to Transportation Chief Ray LaHood this week as Big Ray announced yet another Big Government scheme to swindle Americans of their tax money and send it to Michigan unions?<\/p>\n
Call Snyder Deputy Boondoggle.<\/p>\n
In May, Snyder played elf to Santa LaHood as LaHood (and Santa Levin and Mrs. Stabenow Claus) came with a $200 million “high speed rail” set for Democratic unions to build. As the Cato Institute’s Randall O’Toole reported for MIView, LaHood’s rail is a fraud (the average speed\u00a0would only increase<\/a> from 60 to 64 mph saving a mere 12 minutes of travel time) based on\u00a0fraudulent accounting<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now comes LaHood with more millions to prop up Detroit’s bus unions as well as convert their buses to the green religion. “The troubled Detroit Department of Transportation will receive $6 million of the $46.7 million in funding statewide to replace buses,” reports The Detroit News. “Troubled” is an understatement. And it has nothing to do with old buses. DDOT’s unions are famously intransigent, idling while half the department’s rolling stock is in disrepair.<\/p>\n As The Detroit News has editorialized, the solution is to eliminate the dysfunctional DDOT and contract with the suburban SMART system. No DDOT, no intransigent unions. But LaHood’s DDOT gift will only reward union tactics and waste taxpayer money. It is something Sheriff Snyder would stop as governor. But since its federal tax money, well – SOOOOOEEEEE!<\/p>\n This is the downside of the “businessman governor.” The green eyeshade Snyder fights for what’s good for his “company” \u2014 the state, in this case \u2014 regardless of how irresponsible that may be for the nation’s fiscal sanity. Like the $2 billion the drowning-in-red-ink feds are using to buy off Snyder to build the new Canadian bridge across the Detroit River.<\/p>\n Deputy Boondoggle also gets an eco-halo courtesy of your wallet.<\/p>\n