John McCain Voted Yesterday Against Crucial Metro Funding

By: Lowell
Published On: 10/2/2008 8:22:09 AM

As the country struggles to deal with an energy crisis and is finally starting to push "smart growth" and "transit-oriented development" as a means to get us off of Saudi oil, what does John McCain do?  That's right, Mr. Straight Talk votes against crucial funding for the Washington, DC area's "cash-strapped and aging Metro system."  

By the way, kudos to Tom Davis, who "began the effort two years ago to secure a reliable source of financial support for Metro." But ZERO thanks to John McCain, whose only answer to our energy problems is apparently "drill drill drill" (which will produce no oil for many years - a decade or more? - to come, and even then not much by world standards).  What's even stranger is that this was NOT a controversial bill, passing by a margin of 74-24 in the US Senate.  And even stranger still, McCain voted against a bill that was "part of a major rail safety reform package with billions of dollars for Amtrak."

In sum, John McCain voted against Metro AND against rail safety for Amtrak in one fell swoop! Maybe he would have been better off staying away from the Senate, as he did for much of the past year or two?

Comments



Wasn't this an EARMARK? (Teddy - 10/2/2008 9:00:17 AM)
Certainly it was a lot of money for a local project, money which should have gone to the military and anti-terrorist private contractors like Blackwater. You just don't get it, you lousy inside-the-Beltway libruls.


Ha, good point! (Lowell - 10/2/2008 9:03:04 AM)
:)


This should be an AD on WTOP (Pain - 10/2/2008 9:35:51 AM)

For the next 30 days, this should be hammered in radio ads in NoVA.  That alone could go a long way to making the 60% mark in NoVA.


ABSOLUTELY!!! (Doug in Mount Vernon - 10/2/2008 3:51:05 PM)
If an ad like this were run in Northern Virginia incessantly, I think the Obama campaign would conceivably up its margin in the DC burbs in Virginia from 60% to at least 65%.  That would represent several thousand votes less for McCain, and that many more for Obama!


I agree. (Lowell - 10/2/2008 3:51:43 PM)
This would be deadly in NOVA.


Sometimes I wonder about age... (TurnPWBlue - 10/2/2008 10:52:12 AM)
You know, when I see decisions like this, I really start to wonder about John McCain's age.  It's not because I think he's got dementia or he's frail, but rather that his advanced age means he really doesn't have to think about living with the consequences of his decisions.  Given his admitted penchant for "shooting from the hip," the fact he will never face certain consequences of his actions leads me to pause.

At 72, he, statistically, won't be around when those oil wells he's pushing to have drilled, drilled, drilled come online and start producing (life expectancy for an American male is around 77 years).  When scientists point to evidence that we'll start seeing some really bad stuff related to global warming in the next two decades, again, why should McCain care?  When it becomes clear that this huge bailout and the war in Iraq and irresponsible spending coupled with bad tax cuts is going to leave the next generations saddled in debt, John McCain has no real vested interest.

I really wonder how he can have a long-term vision for the future when, well, his "long-term" future (statistically) is just a few more years.