This morning, as I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and waited... and waited... to get moving again, I found myself thinking about Grover Norquist.
Grover Norquist, you ask? Isn't he the right-wing Republican demagogue and anti-tax zealot who is a close friend of President Bush? What does he have to do with sitting in Midtown Tunnel traffic with the windows rolled up to protect myself against the exhaust fumes from my idling engine?
Because it was Grover Norquist who once famously said his goal is "to cut government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
And it is exactly this kind of tunnel vision about the role of government that keeps Norquist's fellow demagogues in the Virginia House of Delegates from funding the kind of transportation improvements that would get traffic moving again.
Take Johnny "Roadblock" Joannou, for example. Please.
When it comes to fixing our traffic problems, Johnny Roadblock is "a leading opponent against doing something," the Virginian-Pilot has complained (October 25, 2002).
Johnny Roadblock has blocked every plan to add additional tubes to the Midtown Tunnel.
In fact, Johnny Roadblock voted to block every proposal Mark Warner made as Governor to fix transportation, and he has continued to block similar efforts by Tim Kaine. Meanwhile, as thousands of families and businesses know, traffic has gotten worse. Much worse.
And not just in the Midtown Tunnel. As the Virginian-Pilot noted on Thursday: The rush-hour commute through the Downtown Tunnel has dragged out from two minutes a decade ago to 11 minutes today, with an average speed that has plummeted from 45 miles per hour back then to eight miles an hour today.
"'This is what happens when you do nothing in the corridor and just advance economic development,' said Dwight Farmer" executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. http://content.hampt...
Doing nothing seems to be a common thread in Johnny Roadblock's career. Maybe it has something to do with his real political allegiances.
That's why Portsmouth Republican Chairman Bryan Meals has said about Johnny Roadblock "some of the core Republican issues that are near and dear to our hearts, guns and taxes, you can't get much more Republican than the positions he takes."
Johnny Roadblock was the only Democrat to vote against Mark Warner's plan for boosting public school, health care, and police funding.
He has an A+ rating with the National Rifle Association and "thinks of himself as Jeffersonian, often voting with Republicans for bills that limit or reduce government intervention." (Virginian-Pilot, Feb. 19, 2001)
Like intervening to get traffic moving again through the Midtown Tunnel. Or the Downtown Tunnel.
Grover Norquist, meet Johnny Roadblock.