House Republicans have just put together a transportation bill so horrid, that even Obama’s Republican Secretary of Transportation has called it “the worst transportation bill” he had ever seen. The crux of this measure is gutting federal support for public transit, a slap in the faces of poor Americans, minorities and environmentalists, while providing benefits for Big Oil.
House Republicans have released a transportation bill that would eliminate the government’s dedicated funding stream for mass transit, instead counting on a plan that the Congressional Budget Office found would cover just 5 percent of transit costs. The New York Times called the bill “uniquely terrible,” while Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican, called it “the worst transportation bill I’ve ever seen during 35 years of public service.”
Cuts to mass transit fall hard on low-income people who count on public transportation to get to work, go to school, and go about their lives. And they fall hardest on low-income minorities, who, as the research organization PolicyLink noted, as disproportionately likely to not own an automobile:
As housing and jobs have moved farther apart, the distance has created employment barriers for anyone without unlimited ability to drive. Nineteen percent of African Americans and 13.7 percent of Latinos lack access to automobiles, compared with 4.6 percent of whites. Poverty complicates the problem: 33 percent of poor African Americans and 25 percent of poor Latinos lack automobile access, compared with 12.1 percent of poor whites. Cars owned by low-income people tend to be older, less reliable, and less fuel-efficient. This makes commuting to work unpredictable and more expensive, at best.
“Communities of color, low-income Americans and people with disabilities will be disproportionately impacted since they are the most transit dependent communities and negotiate their daily lives on mass transportation to reach employment, health care, and educational centers,” said the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “These funding provisions will impact the millions of Americans who rely on public transit systems to get to work, to school, or to the doctor,” agreed the American Transit Association.
In addition to shortchanging transit and those who depend on it, the bill would also open up nearly all of America’s coastal waters to oil drilling… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
As a disabled American, I depend on busses and the train pictured above to get around, but I used public transit exclusively, even before that was the case, because it reduced my own carbon footprint. As if the increased pollution and congestion from additional automobile use were not bad enough, Republicans have also slipped “drill, baby drill” into the bill as well. This measure must be defeated in the Senate.
Senate Democrats have begun preparing a backup plan to extend a tax cut for workers if a special congressional negotiating committee fails to reach quick agreement, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Friday.
The GOP is cultivating a staggeringly disdainful view of Americans who are struggling to get by in the wake of the Great Recession. Seeking to gut the social safety net programs on which 
TomCat (460)
Lynn Squance (133)
Patty (77)
SoINeedAName (55)
Phyllis (38)
Rixar13 (35)
Lee (29)
Jerry Critter (24)
Jack Jodell (23)
Lisa G. (19)
Jolly Roger (18)
mamabear (11)
Angelica (5)
Infidel753 (5)
John Dasef (5)
zada (5)
john gregoire (4)
A1A (3)
Ahab (3)
jon h. (3)
Recent Comments