{"id":6423,"date":"2010-05-23T07:32:51","date_gmt":"2010-05-23T12:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=6423"},"modified":"2010-05-23T07:32:51","modified_gmt":"2010-05-23T12:32:51","slug":"spend-it-if-you-got-it-or-dont-this-is-government-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/23\/spend-it-if-you-got-it-or-dont-this-is-government-after-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Spend It If You Got It. Or Don’t. This Is Government, After All."},"content":{"rendered":"

In St. Louis, the Metro mass transit authority has gotten a new sales tax it cannot wait to spend, so it’s increasing its budget<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Metro commissioners on Friday approved a $232.4 million transit operating budget that reflects the restoration of public transportation service following the passage of Proposition A.<\/p>\n

. . . .<\/center><\/p>\n

Still, the agency’s budget reflects growth over last year’s spending level of $204 million.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Friends, that is a whopping 15% increase in a recession<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Baer said sales tax collections already were down $5 million because of the recession. Passenger revenue also is down because of a recessionary drop in ridership. Further, Baer said, the state reduced the emergency appropriation it made to restore some service in August 2009. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Okay, so let me get this straight:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Existing sales tax revenues are down.<\/li>\n
  • The existing gap plugged by “emergency” one-time (ha!) stimulus funds is down.<\/li>\n
  • The amount collected from riders is down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    And Metro increases its budget<\/em> All the better to cry poverty again in five years when it wants to increase its sales tax, my dear.<\/p>\n

    Responsible government at its normalest.<\/p>\n

    Also, focus on this nugget:<\/p>\n

    Passenger revenue also is down because of a recessionary drop in ridership.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Never again let anyone promote light rail or mass transit by saying that it’s more economical than a car and helps move passengers in a recession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In St. Louis, the Metro mass transit authority has gotten a new sales tax it cannot wait to spend, so it’s increasing its budget: Metro commissioners on Friday approved a $232.4 million transit operating budget that reflects the restoration of public transportation service following the passage of Proposition A. . . . . Still, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-st-louis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6423"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6427,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6423\/revisions\/6427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}