In This Issue:
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1. High Speed Railroad
2. Walkers Grassroots
Green
3. Pigs for Rent II
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High-speed Railroad
 The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted to accept $822 million in federal stimulus money for high speed rail. The committee voted unanimously to accept the $12 million earmarked for rail improvements from Chicago to Milwaukee. The vote to accept $810 million to build a high speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison passed along party lines by a margin of 12-4. Republicans on the committee wanted to know how much money state taxpayers would have to pay to operate and maintain the rail line every year. Republicans also rejected the notion that there was populist support for the proposed rail service with an estimated ticket price of more than $40 per round trip.
"This is not mass transit. This is elite transit," said Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon.
Last October, the state’s Department of Transportation formally accepted a financial plan for the project and it isn’t pretty. The plan includes a profit-and-loss estimate from Amtrak, which would run the trains. Amtrak estimated that the cost of continuing its seven daily round-trips between Milwaukee and Chicago and adding six daily round trips between Milwaukee and Madison would generate annual losses up to $15.6 million.
In the world of high-speed rail and the people who love to promote it, those losses are not viewed as a deterrent. Amtrak notes that the project would shave an estimated two minutes off the travel time between Chicago and Milwaukee. That run would be accomplished in an hour and 27 minutes, while the new Milwaukee-Madison leg would take an hour and 26 minutes, which isn’t much longer than it takes to drive the route via I-94.
Meanwhile, the Doyle administration’s estimate that the project would create 13,000 jobs collapsed when it was discovered that the figure was produced by double counting.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Construction of a planned high-speed rail line between Wisconsin's two largest cities will employ a maximum of 4,732 people at its peak in 2012, state figures show, despite earlier claims from Gov. Jim Doyle's administration that the project would create some 13,000 jobs.
The difference between the figures is a reflection of how state and federal officials count jobs created with federal stimulus dollars, a process that has drawn criticism for double-counting jobs that continue over time.
In the end, the project will create only fifty-five permanent jobs to operate and maintain the trains, tracks and stations and the $40 per round trip ticket won’t be nearly enough to cover the cost of operating and maintaining the line.
So much for free stimulus money.
Walker’s Grassroots Green
 Campaign finance reports filed with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board tell an interesting story about the three major candidates for Wisconsin governor.
Filed at the beginning of this month, the reports show Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett took in just shy of $812,000 during the second half of last year. More than 40% came from lawyers and political action committees.
Former GOP Congressman Mark Neumann topped Barrett’s efforts. His campaign collected $1.3 million during the six-month reporting period, however, more than $1 million of that was Neumann’s own money.
Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker led the pack rasing almost $1.8 million.
A Journal-Sentinel analysis noted that the Walker campaign received contributions on virtually every day of the reporting period. In addition, Walker’s contributor base was far broader than that of either competitor. Walker collected his $1.8 million from nearly 18,600 individual donations. That’s more than 11 times as many as Barrett reported and almost 18 times as many as Neumann said he received.
Count on Democrats, stung by electoral defeat in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts to pour massive resources into retaining the governorship they’ve held for the past eight years.
Pigs for Rent II
 Five years ago, Club for Growth told you how Governor Doyle and the legislature created a Regional Transit Authority to fix the transportation mess in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha, placing a $2 tax on car rentals to pay for it. How much of the money collected went for roads or buses or trains? As far as we can tell, none of it.
In 2007, we noted that $496,000 of the car-rental tax proceeds—nearly every penny—was being spent to pay five lobbyists and a public relations guru to lobby the legislature to increase the rental car tax from $2 to $15.
After Wisconsin Club for Growth ran its successful “Pigs for Rent” campaign, the legislature killed that plan. The rental car tax stayed at $2 until it expired last year.
But last week we learned that there’s money left and the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority has a plan to spend it. For roads, buses and trains? Get serious!
The authority approved a three-month, $18,000 contract for former Acting Governor Martin Schreiber to lobby the legislature to raise Milwaukee County’s sales tax by a half- cent. Public relations wizard H. Carl Mueller will be paid $25,500 a month for four months, plus thousands more for direct mail to tell you how nice another tax increase would be. The total lobbying cost is nearly $200,000 and it doesn’t fill one pothole.
Once again, your tax dollars are being spent for to lobby for higher taxes.
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