The Lie That Is The Metro Tax Advertising

I've now heard radio commercials and seen television commercials for the Metro Tax increase we're supposed to vote on in April, and can say with a straight face it's not truthful.

Some of us ride it, All of us need it.

How very clever, but that's not what we're voting on in April.

No matter how the vote goes, we will still have Metro.  People will still ride it to Cardinals games.  Wash U students and Wash U faculty and staff will still get free passes, and those who use Metro to get around currently are still going to have the services.

The increase in funding is to be used for expansion.  Note that nowhere in the advertising do they discuss extending the line.  No one talks about the fact that Metro has been losing money for years, long before the economic crisis hit. Metro is a money-losing operation.  If they wanted the money to shore up the program, they should say so.

But they don't.  They want to take money and expand it, leaving us even further in the red in the future.  It's like being underwater on a house, and then using a line of credit to add a garage.  It's insanity, and the purpose is to shovel more of our money to the people building the lines and those running the campaigns.

Who do you think pays for those commercials?  Who is paying for the phone bank? Why is SEIU MO/KS State Council, the political arm of SEIU, in the Greater St Louis Transit Alliance?

It's because this is about taking more of our money, and giving it to their pals.

If the Vote Yes on Proposition A people won't even bother to tell you the truth about why they want the money, how can we trust them to take care of the money when they get it.  The loss in Metro services that will occur when the stimulus funds runs out is still going to occur.  This tax won't fix it.  It will instead be siphoned off for $150 million a mile expansion.  That means they will have to come back to us in a few years, demanding more.

Educate yourself.

Comments

[Jane]

I heard one of the stupid commercials on KMOX today. Utterly idiotic -painful. I hope they play the heck out of it and irritate people to distraction. Like Metro would disappear w/o more $$ -if only.

BTW: huge money waster at Metro was escalator at the Clayton station. What is wrong with stairs (there is an elevator also)? This escalator has out of service more than in-service. I heard something about it being some fancy German design that needed -surprise! -parts from Germany. Just another huge waste. Station is almost always deserted.

[Cherry Johnson]

I can't speak to the rest, but the reason the Service Employees union is involved is because hundreds of them are reliant on transit to get to work. That's a pretty big motivator to work for a cause.

Also, if you read the ballot language, the increase in funding is half for expansion, half for operating the system. Metro "loses" money the same way that other public institutions "lose" money. Nowhere is public transit a for-profit business, though a few very large cities in other countries come close. The funding will indeed prevent the loss of service when the stimulus funds run out, and will in fact put back the level of service that was lost in 2009.

Look, I agree with the Tea Party stance on most issues - I praise the heavens every night that Scott Brown's election saved us all from the behemoth of health care "reform" - but you're undermining your credibility when you're spreading blatant misinformation. The last thing this country needs is for the Tea Party to be taken over by people wearing tinfoil hats. Look how well that's gone for the Democrats.

[Jim]

Cherry, it's nit conspiracy, it's math.

How can they talk about expansion when they're so badly in the hole for current operations? The benefits alone represent an underfunded system we'll be called on to bailout, and that's before expansion.

They aren't coming to us and talking about fixing the problem. They're demanding more money rather than addressing fundamental economic problems and mismanagement.

Add to that the cash pouring into well-connected Democratic consultants and you see a repeat of Jefferson County.

I don't want to expose this two years from now with Subshine Requests. I want to stop it before they siphon tens of millions mire from the private sector to fund Democratic re-election efforts.