Senator Bill Nelson (D) of Florida was recognized as The Tyrant of the Week yesterday, by weighing in on Governor Scott’s putting the brakes on the high speed rail scheme with the following tyrannical statement:
” We are exploring with the Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, how we could keep this project going forward since the state of Florida will not participate. We have the lawyers researching it,” Nelson told The Palm Beach Post.
Definition of a Tyrant: An absolute ruler, unrestrained by law or constitution. A usurper of sovereignty. A ruler who exercises absolute power oppressively or brutally. Mr Nelson fits all 3 definitions to a tee here. There is such a thing as a Florida constitution that lays out the duties ands authority of the Florida Governor. In the above statement our Tyrant of the Week, Senator Bill Nelson, somehow thinks he can ignore the governor’s decision and round up a group of lawyers along with transportation secretary RayLaHood to do an “end around” on Governor Scott here.
Lets look at the background to this whole situation here. In 2000, when the economy was rolling along nicely, several groups of city and state politicians started exploring the possibility of a high speed rail system to go from Tampa, to Orlando Florida. That was 11 years ago and the economy has deteriorated drastically since then. They held a vote and the people of Florida approved moving forward with this rail plan in 2000. Fast forward to 2010, during the mid-term elections the people of Florida, faced with rising taxes and huge State deficits, voted NO to this rail plan. These same people elected Rick Scott to lead Florida out of the recession as their Governor. Mr. Scott looks over all the bloated revenue projections and possible costs to the Florida tax payers while going over the state budget plan, and decides that this is a disaster waiting to happen. Mr. Scott then announces that the high speed rail plan will be stopped. Enter Senator Bill Nelson, my Tyrant of the Week with the above statement. The people said no, the Governor says no, yet the Tyrant says he will do it anyway, the rule of law be damned!
Today Florida has a $3.6 Billion dollar deficit. This isn’t free money from the feds here, if the plan fails Florida taxpayers are on the hook to pay back 3.2 billion dollars. I live near Tampa. I worked in Orlando and traveled between the cities for years. Those saying this rail plan will increase tourism are living in a world of fantasy. Gov. Scott asked if these funds could be used to widen the I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando, since congestion is one of the reasons they use when pushing for this plan. The Feds said NO. Why do you think that happened? Another fact is that every rail system in North America operates at a huge loss to the taxpayers. Look at Amtrak for an obvious example. The Washington Times* shows us just what happens when the Federal government gets into the train business.
“What authorities ultimately unraveled was that two former Amtrak officials, in fiscal 2001, either booked false or incorrect accounting entries in Amtrak’s monthly financial statements or else failed to report the activities.In turn, these same misleading accounting entries helped make Amtrak’s monthly financial results appear closer to budget than they really were. What’s more, the “inappropriate entries” were being made when Amtrak was sending monthly and quarterly financial reports to its own board of directors, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Railroad Administration and others, records show.” (emphasis mine)
Former congressman Ray LaHood, now the Secretary of Transportation, was also caught securing 60 million tax dollars in earmarks for his district in 2008, with 9 million of that going to campaign donors, as was reported in The Washington Post. Now he is wheeling and dealing in Amtrak. Amtrak received 1.2 billion tax dollars in 2005. Amtrak had also submitted a request to congress for an addition 1 billion in funding annually for the next 10 years at one point. Can you say money pit? So now we hear that the Transportation Department, along with our Tyrant of the Week, Senator Bill Nelson are going to illegally bypass the people of Florida and their elected Governor, and shove this high speed rail boondoggle down out throats anyway. That is the action of a tyrant, not a U.S Senator elected to serve the people.
Here we see The Tyrant of the Week with our new freshman Senator Marco Rubio. This represents the past, as Nelson is up for reelection in 2012, and the future of Florida, in Marco Rubio. Look at that picture. The Tyrant’s sunken eyes, bulging neck vessels, red face and clenched jaw are the exact opposite of Marco Rubio’s calm attentive demeanor. A tyrant is also someone who runs and hides from the very people he was elected to serve. Soon to be ex-Senator, Mr. Nelson excels at this part too. I have on record over 50 phone calls and many, many emails and letters sent to the Tyrant of the Week without receiving one reply. That right there says all there is to say, about the fact that this Tyrant needs to be fired next year. He could care less what the people want, and refuses to listen to them. When researching the Florida high speed rail plan, there is also a quickly seen pattern within the reporting on this issue. The first 47 out of 50 Internet searches were all bashing Rick Scott with lies and misinformation about this situation. The real reasons Gov. Scott stated for his stopping this boondoggle are very rarely reported. The true costs to the taxpayers of Florida are ignored. History proves these projects to never come in under budget, and have proven to lose money for decades, yet the crony-capitalists in bed with the politicians pushing this burden onto the people of Florida are controlling the message. That message is deep in misinformation and based in unrealistic revenue projections. Leading that pack of liars is our very own Tyrant of the Week, Senator Bill Nelson. My hope and change for 2012 starts with getting this Tyrant out of office, and electing a true representative of the people. That’s what I call “Winning the Future.”
* https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/31/amtrak-misled-congress-on-finances/
