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Monday, January 14, 2008

Giving free rides to seniors!!!

I could put this over at The Sixth Ward but I have to be biased for a minute. This whole business of an amendatory veto of the recently passed transit bailout legislation is all political. The governor may get some more seniors in his camp and all the while he's probably still not very popular.

Mayor Daley is right. Why didn't he do this come out with this much earlier? He could have been a hero whenever this bill was first proposed why add it after it passes? Why does he have the need to be a hero all the sudden when he could have already been a hero months ago?

Madigan said on his interview with FOX 32 that he expects this proposal to pass. Mayor Daley is not so optimistic. He thinks this little addition will kill this bill. That would be unfortunate since January 20th is just next week!

I don't know why this is a big thing. I can understand that we might want to take away the tax crunch from those seniors who are financially struggling. Let's understand not all are financially struggling and most aren't fooling around with public transportation anyway. At the same time senior citizens already get reduced fare riding the trains. Does this reek of another entitlement for senior citizens? I mean that's what it is.

This'll only beg another question...

Mayor Daley said Saturday he's concerned that the Illinois legislature won't find a way to fund it. Lawmakers finally passed a CTA bill based on a .25 percent sales tax increase in Chicago and the surrounding counties.

"All of a sudden, it's thrown in at the last minute – that's what you worry about, this bill has to pass," Daley said.
Oh since we're taking away some revenue by making it free for a select few citizens, where's the rest of that money coming from. How is the CTA and other transit agencies going to afford to allow senior citizens to ride for free on trains and buses?

So our fearless governor couldn't get health care. He couldn't afford to keep his plegde to not raise taxes on the people. So he did the next convenient thing and found him a new constituency to appeal to.

Worse than that he did this where? A black church and it seems they ate it up. I could have seen them on TV this morning too because this was Salem Baptist Church where State Senator James Meeks is the pastor there...

"Mayor Daley shouldn't be so pessimistic, maybe he needs to come to the House of Hope and have a little hope," Blagojevich said.

He says seniors in Chicago need a break.

"You're a senior on a fixed income; the mayor just raised your property taxes and bottled water," Blagojevich said.
It seems that when he wants to do something big he wants to find a black church. When he started his GRT campaign that went down in flames last spring, he was at a black church. It's almost as if blacks are an obvious target for his schemes.


I think Blagojevich wants to be this big hero but he doesn't know the first thing about that. It makes him look good but the way things have been going since he's been governor I don't think it'll help the old approval ratings. Even if he does find a receptive audience at Salem Baptist Church.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The foremost thing you wrote I agree with is, seniors normally don't use public transportation. This is true. For many seniors public transportation is unsafe, unreliable, uncomfortable and unnecessary. There are safer more dependable private transports for those who don't drive.
Now they want to increase everyone else's fare to subsidize these practically non existent riders.
All of involved agencies and departments are full of crap.
They know a frightened public has no recourse but to complain and go along with the program. They use fear to manipulate people who don't stop to think.

The fact is, the economy in the neighborhoods would increase without poorly organized city run agencies.
The CTA, RTA, PACE, METRA, NEWSPAPERS and CHURCHES, suck money out of a community.
If the CTA shut down today, the gap would create a vacuum of economic opportunity that would start filling tonight.
Theres no way the city would allow that to happen. The amount of money that would begin to circulate in the neighborhoods would be staggering.
Doomsday for whO?

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