Gov. Schwarzenegger, Democrats in the Legislature Agree: Let’s Continue to Frak Mass Transit, Right When We Need It Most…

The next time you hear Gov. Schwarzenegger talk about how frakking “green” he is, or hear some local Democratic member of the Assembly or the Senate blather on about how they’re a green clean energy whateverthefrak, remember this: as of today, once again, the state of California has agreed to gut MORE money from mass transit agencies around the state. (They have done so for the last few years – why stop now?)
They keep screwing over local agencies like MUNI, the LA MTA, and so on, and do so with no punishment. No one will throw out our local Democrats who voted for these cuts. Tom Ammiano is getting a promotion to the Legislature this year, and we can only hope one of the few electeds who actually rides MUNI as part of his daily life will come through for us. But he’s only one guy. He can’t change a Legislature full of Democrats and Republicans who seem to literally get off on killing transit funds. WTF?
When MUNI has its daily failwhale, remember – as much as we can blame the Board of Supervisors and Our Mayor, the fact is that by cutting off stable funding from the state (i.e. our tax dollars) ensures MUNI is going to go down the drain of “cut service” and “raise fares.”
We really need to give the Legislature and the Governor a kick in the backside and remind them that their short sighted plans to get a “balanced” budget with gimmicks is going to hurt our state and our local transit systems in the long run. This is not fiscal responsibility in Sacramento – it’s fiscal insanity.