Another example of "Obama Deal"...

At the risk of another "New Deal" meltdown, let me give another current example of why I feel Obama is failing to justify his spending agenda at the expense of the nation.

I live in Northeast Pennsylvania (abbreviated here at the Bund to NEPA), but my "home" will always be Wisconsin. I grew up there, most of my family and many of my friends still live there, and it is our dream to someday be able to go back there to retire in our "twilight" years. As such, I try to stay abreast of the latest news in WI, hoping to hear good news that might usher our return to the Dairy State just a little sooner. That news is rarely good, lately, though...

With some of the highest taxes in the nation, and a cost of living that ranks 8th highest out of 50 States, Wisconsin is a State that was particularly hard-hit by the Great Recession, which still has a choke-hold on the economy of the region.

It is also a State in which the GOP hopes to make great gains in 2010... possibly beating Feingold out of his Senate seat, winning the Governor's Mansion, and at least two Congressional seats are showing themselves to be "in play". A State that has been solidly "blue" since Bush ran in '88, Wisconsin is getting more and more vocal in its conservative aims, it seems.

Therefore, it is no surprise that WI is the site of some serious Obama stumping. Yesterday, in front of more than 17,000 students, Obama and the Dems held a rally for Democratic candidates at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Part of the goal seemed to be to convince the crowd (and the State) that "change" was still coming, and "hope" was still alive... despite evidence to the contrary.

One of the topics that is being hotly debated by both sides is the construction of a high speed rail link between Milwaukee and Madison, which will need nearly $1 billion in Federal stimulus funds to be completed. The lowest estimate I have seen for the Federal cost of this train is $860 million, but most that I have seen add nearly 20% to that bill in cost overruns due to weather (always a challenge in chilly Wisconsin winters) and local labor issues (unions in WI are notoriously expensive organizations to work with).

I'm not opposed to public transportation at all... in fact, I'm in favor of it in most cases... but I do feel that, in most cases, it should be a State issue and NOT a Federal one. If the cities of Milwaukee and Madison really feel that both they and the State can benefit from such a railway, then they should pay for the bill in exactly the same way they pay for anything else... local and State bonds.

Let's face it... the chances of Ryan actually riding this railway is pretty slim, so why should he have to see even one penny of his tax money go towards the construction (and upkeep) of this link? If that were the case, and the Feds were to front the money (as opposed to simply giving it to the State of Wisconsin), then any revenues made off the link should be applied to paying it back in as short a time as possible... so that Ryan (and every other Federal tax payer outside of WI) doesn't feel their money is going into things they see no benefit from.

Now, many would argue that this is no different than the New Deal era agencies that built roads, dams and bridges in the '30s... but it is different. The main goal of those efforts in the Depression were to put many of the 23% unemployed to work, temporarily, and the most expedient way to do that was to put them to work building local or state projects that benefited both the State and local communities AND the workers themselves. Overblown Democratic estimates put the number of people employed on THIS construction project at 5500 over 3 years... but DON'T tell you that most of them would come from OUT OF THE STATE, and that these jobs would all cost far more than hiring locally due to the expense of union labor.

If this train is a good thing (and I'm not saying it isn't), then why not let the State of Wisconsin take the bids for its construction and maintenance, from local companies and firms, and hire local workers (union or otherwise) to do the construction? That way, the revenue generated by the link can stay in the State, and the benefits to the local economies feel the gains all that much quicker.

I'll tell you why not: Because the Federal tax bill that each and every resident in the State of Wisconsin is going to pay is NOT going to go down in relation to what they are paying in State and local taxes... thus, raising the State tax to pay for the construction will add an additional burden that the politicians in WI don't want attached to their record come November. Hell, even the comparison is biased... in 1934, the average (adjusted 2004 dollars) annual income was $11, 700 with an average marginal tax rate of 11% (up from 6% in 1930). In 2010, the average income is more than $48,000 and the marginal tax rate is 25% (and is going to go up in 2011). I don't have numbers, but I can assume that a corresponding increase in State and local taxes is also evident... and also makes the comparison even more skewed. This simply is NOT a "New Deal" program... and can't be compared to them.

Nope... Feingold and the other WI Democrats are going in front of crowds with Obama to show the Democratic voters in WI that they are working very hard to get someone else to pay for programs and projects within the State. Otherwise, they'd follow the same pattern of avoiding an unpopular Obama like the plague in these months leading up to the very critical November midterms. Otherwise, the only course of action open to them would be to call for LOWER Federal tax bills so that State taxes could be raised accordingly. I'm no fan of high State taxes either, but at least then I know that my tax dollars are staying local. That, at least, is something, isn't it?