News commentary

Republicans Caving on Reauthorization 0
- November 1, 2011
It would seem like Republicans hold all the cards in the debate over transportation reauthorization. It seems most likely that they will gain seats in both House and Senate next fall if not capture the Senate majority. House Republicans have said they want to spend no more money than is flowing into the Highway Trust […]
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LaHood Looks Forward to “Wonderful Opportunities”0
- October 31, 2011
Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood announced recently that he plans to step down from his post at the end of President Obama’s first term and that he is looking forward to some “wonderful opportunities” in the private sector. This naturally raises the question of what kind of opportunities await a bumbling has-been who betrayed his […]
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Getting Priorities Straight 0
- October 28, 2011
Facing a $12 million to $17 million budget shortfall next year, Portland’s TriMet transit agency is cutting bus service for lack of funds. But it has enough funds to spend $250,000 on a giant sculpture of a deer with a baby face. The agency has already cut bus service by 13 percent and light-rail service […]
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RIP Bill Niskanen 0
- October 27, 2011
The Antiplanner was saddened to hear that William Niskanen, who for more than two decades chaired the board of the Cato Institute, died yesterday morning after suffering a stroke Tuesday night. Niskanen was a tenured professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1975 when he took a job as chief economist […]
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Department of Irony 0
- October 20, 2011
Officials from Aurora, Colorado are in a tizzy because someone conducted some focus groups to see what taxpayers thought of a $300 million subsidy to a proposed hotel. Such focus groups “violate the ethics code for economic development organizations in the region,” said Tom Clark, the executive vice-president of Denver’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Apparently, […]
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Donor States? Recipient States?0
- October 14, 2011
Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation uses 2009 data to show that more than half the states send more gas taxes to the Treasury than they get back in federal transportation dollars. But the GAO uses 2005 through 2009 data to argue that, in fact, all the states have gotten back more than their residents […]
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