Wednesday, April 9, 2014

A Real Politician

The consummate Democrat pol is the sort of person who can take any constituent complaint and immediately recognize how it can be turned into a revenue source. Without fixing the problem of course.

Went to a meet-n-greet of the local precinct leads which was attended by some of the local pols as well, and buttonholed some of them over my pet peeves.
Spencer Swalm, the current Representative for House District 37, south of me, when I complained about an HOV lane that was going effectively unused, declared that the lane should be turned into a toll lane to help ease congestion. This would accomplish essentially nothing at a cost of putting in gantries every mile or so, taking readings and photos of all the care, figuring out who was in the lane because they were trying to turn left, and extracting the last dollar from everyone.

Hard to believe Spencer's got an R after his name.

This will be his last term, but the time to primary him is alas, passed. Need to watch those weasels more closely.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Spencer Swalm, the current Representative for House District 37, south of me, when I complained about an HOV lane that was going effectively unused, declared that the lane should be turned into a toll lane to help ease congestion...Hard to believe Spencer's got an R after his name.

Wow, you have no idea what Republicans believe, do you?

Republican politicians and pundits have been in favor of turning HOV lanes into HOT (high occupancy / toll) lanes for as long as I can remember.

It has always been the Democrats who called the idea "Lexus Lanes" ie, a Republican plan to favor the rich.

Of course, Republicans also believe that a growing population is good for economic growth. Having more people compete for fewer jobs may improve the bottom line, but when was the last time you were in heavy traffic and thought, "Gee, what the economy needs is more people".