PA House vote on Transportation Funding Bill FAILS (Pittsburgh, Lebanon: 2013, chapel)

[Impala26]

From the Post-Gazette:

Push by Corbett, Rendell and others for House to vote for transportation bill fails - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Not even Rendell stepping in to drum up bipartisan support could get this bill to pass. I am basically neutral when it comes to unions, but local democrats voting in lock-step AGAINST this bill because of the union-wage provision is deplorable and shows how out of touch they are with the REAL issues of Western Pennsylvania. There goes our bridges and the Port Authority, way to go and stick up for your union constituents!

Next question: Just HOW screwed are we now?

[doo dah]

"The mass transit portion of the bill was lambasted by a number of Republicans and rural representatives, such as Rep. Brad Roae, R-Crawford, who urged a “no” vote. “I have a lot of dirt roads in my district. I live on a dirt road … it’s not right that people who live out in the country have to pay a higher gasoline tax to subsidize mass transit.”

It's not right that people in urban areas who rely on mass transit have to subsidize lower gas prices.

[airwave09]

Originally Posted by doo dah

"The mass transit portion of the bill was lambasted by a number of Republicans and rural representatives, such as Rep. Brad Roae, R-Crawford, who urged a “no” vote. “I have a lot of dirt roads in my district. I live on a dirt road … it’s not right that people who live out in the country have to pay a higher gasoline tax to subsidize mass transit.”

It's not right that people in urban areas who rely on mass transit have to subsidize lower gas prices.

Hahaha even the maintenance of those dirt roads are heavily subsidized by the cities. Does the average Billy Joe Blob redneck in central pa pay anywhere close to a fair share for their local state-owned infrastructure?

Yeah, right.

People in Fox Chapel and Mt. Lebanon are paying to keep Billy joe's personal dirt road from returning to nature and allowing him access via heavily subsidized roads to come spout his inane diatribe at the Capitol.

[Lobick]

Pretty good synopsis in the comments section of the PG (posted by a familiar name):

I would have voted for the bill, but let's be clear on what happened. The Republicans control both houses and the governorship and could pass bills by themselves. Moreover, the Senate Bill passed 45-5 on a broadly bipartisan vote. But the House Republican Tea Party-types don't like the fact that the Senate Bill raises new revenues and allocates a minority of those new revenues to transit. So in an effort to placate the Tea Party-types, the House Republican leadership keeps trying to change the Senate Bill--first they tried cutting a bunch of the transit funding, and now they are trying putting in an anti-union provision. But the Tea Party-types refuse to vote for the bill anyway. So the House Republican leadership is coming to the House Democrats and asking for help to pass the bill. But many of the House Democrats are asking why they should vote for a bill with these Tea Party-type changes to the Senate Bill when the Tea Party-types are still voting against the bill anyway.

The obvious solution is to bring a clean version of the Senate Bill up for a vote, which likely could pass with a combination of almost all the Democrats and enough moderate Republicans to make a majority. But apparently the House Republican leadership is refusing to stop trying to appeal to the Tea Party-types even though they can't get those votes, and are now hoping to get away with blaming the House Democrats for not supplying enough votes to bail them out of this self-made mess

Seems to me to be a version of the same story that's gumming up Washington. There is a moderate, bipartisan majority that could get a lot accomplished if only the Republican leadership would allow them to do so.

[Clint.]

“For that reason [the inclusion of prevailing wage], it won’t get my vote,” said Rep. Mary Jo Daley D-Montgomery, speaking on the House floor Monday night. She called the inclusion of that provision “an attack on working families.”

Read more: Push by Corbett, Rendell and others for House to vote for transportation bill fails - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

That barely makes any sense at all. If she is worried that too many projects will fall under the new threshold, I doubt there would be many. $100,000 is not much for this sort of construction work - plus, the current threshold is in 1961 dollars! Or, is she more sinister in her concern that non-union workers would get higher wages? Either way, if that is the nonsense Democrats are bringing to the debate, combined with 'wisdom' like that of Brad Roae, it's no wonder our state is doomed.

[Drover]

I suspect characterizing your rural fellow citizens as "Billy Joe Blob redneck" isn't going to do much to foster future cooperation on issues such as this.

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by Drover

I suspect characterizing your rural fellow citizens as "Billy Joe Blob redneck" isn't going to do much to foster future cooperation on issues such as this.

It's no worse than characterizing everybody who uses public transit as a "welfare recipient."

[Lobick]

Originally Posted by Drover

I suspect characterizing your rural fellow citizens as "Billy Joe Blob redneck" isn't going to do much to foster future cooperation on issues such as this.

That's true...as long as we can all agree that the political orientation of the Tea-Party types is not prone to being "cooperative", since any compromise is a capitulation.

[AaronPGH]

I just called Brad Roae's office and had it out with a woman in his office for 10 minutes. As suspected, she made totally clueless arguments about how PA's tax dollars are spent. Y'all can call too: (717) 787-2353

Me: "If PA has $10 million dollars to spend on a rural road project, and all PA residents pay the same amount in tax dollar percentages, then is it safe to say that a much larger portion of urban residents are paying for this rural road project than rural residents?"

Her: "No, everyone pays the same in taxes"

Me: "You're not getting this. Is it fair that a rarely used rural road project should be paid for by a majority of urban PA residents?"

Her: "That's Brad's position. Sorry".

I seriously want to choke these people.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

It's no worse than characterizing everybody who uses public transit as a "welfare recipient."

If you've seen anyone make such a characterization in this thread, please let me know because I must have missed it.

Originally Posted by Lobick

That's true...as long as we can all agree that the political orientation of the Tea-Party types is not prone to being "cooperative", since any compromise is a capitulation.

There are intractable people on both sides of the aisle. This is nothing new. You get stuff done around them.