Saturday, June 1, 2013

Stossel On Infrastructure

We’ve recently come across two reporting ‘segments’ from John Stossel, the well known challenger of ‘myths’ willingly swallowed by the general public.  Each of the items we pass along here have to do with the folly of ‘government help’ as it relates to infrastructure.

Particularly in the form of Amtrak expansion and subsidies, which is especially applicable to our town.  If you think about it, Cape Brunswick seems to be increasingly defining itself as a node on the great federal network of non-self-supporting rail routes.

Maine Street Station is seen as the crown jewel of our identity.  The danger, of course, is finding ourselves a one trick pony, just about the time that pony rides are no longer a favored federal enterprise, because windmills and hot air balloons have become the favored cuts of pork.

You know the old saying: live by the subsidy, die by the subsidy.  While we weren’t here for the events that led to it, we assume that the failure of the prior ‘Maine Street Station’ stems from a similar fickle transition in favored charitable community developments.

Unfortunately, we’re having trouble posting YouTube clips in the usual fashion, for reasons we can’t explain.  So we ask for your indulgence in clicking on the links we provide, and otherwise following our instructions.

Here’s the first one, which all of a sudden is working as we would like:

Here’s the second one; you’ll have to move the time marker to 30.15 minutes to start at the point we want you to see:

After you watch both, let us know what you think. 

And be sure to clean up after your pony.  There’s nothing less welcoming than stepping off a train and stepping on a pony-pie.

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