It is shocking news that Florida Governor Rick Scott has joined Ohio Governor John Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in the rejection of billions of dollars of high speed rail train funds for future Infrastructure economic growth! 🙁
This all comes after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has rejected the building of new interstate roads between the high traffic states of New Jersey and New York.
Building and expanding transportation infrastructure is crucial for future economic growth and prosperity and the continued rapid growth of our population, and many European countries and Japan and South Korea are way ahead of us in that regard.
And yet these four Republican Governors, already infamous for attempting to crack down on public service employees and destroy labor rights, including collective bargaining, are so short sighted that they will reject federal funding, which will simply go elsewhere.
The Democratic Governors of New York and California has open arms extended to accept money rejected by these other states. Andrew Cuomo and Jerry Brown are not about to reject the chance for further long range economic growth, and it is essential for the future that the nation rely more on trains to cut down automobile traffic and save energy.
Florida could have had $2.4 billion to develop high speed train traffic between Orlando and Tampa, the high traffic corridor of I-4, and even many Republicans in the state, along with Democrats, including Senator Bill Nelson, are going to work to get the project done by working around the state government.
Scott took the lead of his Tea Party supporters, and is rejecting the future. In six weeks in office, Rick Scott has come across as a total “train wreck”, no pun intended, and yet there is no state mechanism to push for his recall, as only 18 states allow recall, and Florida is not one of them! 🙁
It is clear that Scott is going to be a very controversial and divisive Governor, and the question is how much his own party in the Florida legislature will fight him before he destroys the future of the Sunshine State! 🙁