WHY DOES THE TEABAG MAYOR HATE CAPITALISM?
Um, I thought it was evil freedom-hating liberals who wanted to sabotage business:
... In what could be a new high water mark of anti-Washington sentiment, the city of Troy, Mich., is rejecting a long-planned transportation center whose construction would have been fully financed with federal stimulus money.
The terminal, which would help Troy become a transportation node on an upgraded Detroit-to-Chicago Amtrak line, was hailed by supporters as a way to create jobs and to spur economic development. But federal money is federal money, so with the urging of the new mayor, who helped found the local Tea Party chapter, the City Council cast a 4-to-3 vote this week against granting a crucial contract, sending the project into limbo.
"There's nothing free about government money," Mayor Janice Daniels said in an interview. "It's never free, and it's crippling our way of life."
... The Troy transit center's construction ... required no local contribution, and its predicted annual maintenance cost of $31,000 was, in the context of the city's $50 million budget, "de minimis," said Mark Miller, the assistant city manager....
Look who's upset:
Taking Tea Party reasoning to the local level has outraged supporters of the transit center, which has been in the works for a decade. Michele Hodges, the president of the Troy Chamber of Commerce, which supports the transit project, said that her organization "will be a pit bull for what's best for this community."
Hey, way to go, Chamber of Commerce geniuses. At the national level, you got on board the tea party crazy train in 2010, and look what happened: when your proteges aren't putting the full faith and credit of the U.S. at risk in D.C. or endeavoring to reduce the take-home pay of 160 million Americans in a recession, at the local level they're doing the likes of this. You get what you pay for.
"I am drafting a memo to all Magna group presidents and our Magna corporate executives strongly recommending that Magna International no longer consider the City of Troy for future site considerations, expansions or new job creation," wrote Frank W. Ervin III, the company's manager of government affairs. "I have also recommended that where ever and when ever possible we reduce our footprint and employment level in Troy" in favor of communities that act in the best interests of residents and business and that do "not simply use their public position to advance their own private agenda."
Yes, but the dirty hippie Democrats are the ones who hate business.
And yes, the mayor has made the national news before:
The transit fight is not Mayor Daniels's first brush with controversy. Earlier this month, it was revealed that she posted a message to her Facebook page last June, after New York State approved same-sex marriage, stating, "I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there."
Look, I have seriously mixed feelings about the old-school chumminess between business and government. But I'm just asking the good burghers of the business establishment to recognize what they were doing to themselves when they threw in with the Ayn Rand Fan Club. Maybe they should ask themselves who's helping them more, the president who insults them occasionally but hasn't thrown a single one of them in jail, or people like Janice Daniels who love capitalism the way a stalker loves a celebrity.
