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by Free Market Duck

Leftist Boise Mayor Dave Bieter in secret meetings to blow $560 million of federal welfare dollars on downtown Boise streetcar named “Desire”… or is that a streetcar named “Huge Deficit?”
Sep 18, 2009

How did a 2.3-mile Boise Trolley Car Project, initially estimated at $40 to $65 Million, suddenly escalate into a $560 Million project in less than a year?

Marxist Idaho Statesman news rag invents new math number:  “450,00” (so, is it a whopping four hundred and fifty thousand riders, or a paltry forty-five thousand riders as a “projected number of trips taken on the streetcar in its first year?”)

Boise, ID – Whoa, girl friends, gather around, pull up the floor, shut up, and listen to the Boise North Enders’ Socialist Sweatheart, Mayor Dave Bieter, as he blows our mind with another multi-million dollar socialist spending proposal called, A Streetcar Named Desire… or, should we say, A Streetcar Named Huge Deficit Spending?  This Boise Economic Fairytale is reminiscent of the failed $136 Million University Place fiasco of 1998-2005, complete with many of the same University Place fiasco players, such as our Boise Urban Renewal Agency -- Capital City Development Corporation (CCDC) -- and all the other usual local government suspects.

   So, what exactly is our Democratic Socialist mayor up to now?

   Under the guise of using Keynesian inflated “stimulus” money pouring out of the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury in Washington, DC, our local yokel politicians have fallen for the Marxist Fairytale that one can actually increase the wealth of a nation, or our local Boise community in this case, by inflating our Pulp Fiction Dollars to create a “Multiplier Effect” -- $1.57 in new wealth for every federal dollar spent, says Treasury Secretary Little Timmy Geithner, our Top Dog IRS Chief who blamed TurboTax as his excuse for not paying $46,000 or so in past income taxes – that can enrich our nation and solve unemployment.  Calculating with the New Socialist Math, i.e., dividing the mirage of New Socialist Wealth (created by inflation of the money supply) by somebody’s guess of what the wage rate of the total unemployed should be, Mayor Dave Bieter arrives at the number of unemployed people who can be put to work on “shovel-ready,” make-work government projects, such as Bieter’s Streetcar Named Deficit.

   Nor is Bieter alone in this view.  Idaho U.S. Senator Mike Crapo chimed in with, “This is exactly the type of project that the stimulus was created for.”

   So much for Idaho’s U.S. Congressmen understanding basic Econ 101A.

   Econ 101A Review:  You cannot enrich a nation via the federal printing presses.  There are no such things as “multiplier effects” and “stimulus” packages that can solve unemployment.  Every nation that has tried to enrich itself by inflating its currency has gone broke.

   Unless the Idaho Statesman newspaper got it all wrong, the facts and figures reported by them in their daily rag suggest an unprecedented level of federal Welfare State money asked for in a 135-page request by Boise Mayor Dave Bieter:  $60 Million in federal grants to start and $560 Million to finish off the project, including $1.2 Million a year for maintenance.

  Listen to the Q & A by the Statesman and Hizz Honor, Mayor Bieter:

Q:  When could it be built?

Bieter:  Soon.  Very soon.  And if Boise don’t receive da dough, it will still be built, just delayed a fortnight or two.

Q:  Who will pay for it?

B:  Who do you think, dummy?  A TIGER cartoon character named Pooh, oops I mean a federal government entity with a nickname of:  Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER), or “Up Yours Taxpayers,” for short.  The Feds got $1.5 Billion to blow on the entire nation for highways and junk, so we want to get our share of the next Depression money, right?  Plus, $5 Million from da Urban Renewal Boyz.  And $15 Million in city taxes and parking fees and other forms of government extortion from the non-existent businesses that ain’t gonna be there after this thing is built.

Q:  Is the city required to hold an election to create a local improvement district?

B:  No, the state legies create the district.  And we got ways to get around the state Constitutional requirement of two-thirds of the voters needed to go into multi-year debt, like we can do a fake rent-purchase deal like we done to build the Ada County Courthouse wid a fake 99-year lease, or we can just claim that a New Urban Renewal District can go into multi-year indebtedness to over-ride the Idaho Constitution somehow.  Ha Ha.  We got ways, know whut I mean, Jellybean?

Q:  Where will it go?

B:  2.3 miles up and back on Main and Idaho streets.  That’s only a $243 Million cost per mile.  What a deal, huh?  We’ll never be able to pay this back, at least not at par value, heh heh heh.  And that’s the idea, right?  Socialist Work Programs forever because the cost for riding on my Streetcar Named Deficit is:  da-da, free.

Q:  Will any lanes or streets be permanently closed to traffic?

B:  Naw, we plan to rip up and lay Trolley tracks right where da cars drive, only we will be stopping the Streetcar every whipstitch minute to pick up and let off the two homeless wino riders (hey, it’s free, remember) creating a traffic jam every day on these One Way streets.  Plus we lose 15 parking spots so’s the Trolley can make a U-Bee at the end of this Merry-go-Round to all the empty business buildings downtown where nobody ain’t gonna buy nothing because we will still be in a Depression.

Q:  What about parking spaces?

B:  Hey, I already told you.  Wasn’t you listening?

Q:  When will it run?

B:  All da time, honey.  8 days a week, ha ha, just like the Beatles’ tune.

Q:  Who has been working on this project?

B:  Shhh, it’s a secret and the meetings ain’t open to da stupid taxpaying public.

Q:  When can the public comment on this secret project?

B:  Never.  Do we look that stupid to run this Socialist Fairytale by those who are going to be taxed for it?  Duh…  The City Council will pretend, of course, to hold hearings at midnight after the NFL Monday Night Football Game but, other than that, nada, zip, zero, never gonna happen, baby… .

   Hey, we at Free Market Duck have an idea.  How about letting the free market take care of whether there is a demand for streetcars in downtown Boise?  Wow, what a concept?  Freedom.  A private company already runs trolleys on regular vehicle tires, not expensive railroad tracks, all over downtown Boise.  We’re sure that if demand was really there, the owner would increase the number of trolleys to earn more money.  And all of this without one dime of taxpayer money.

   But then, that’s the point isn’t it, Mayor Bieter.  The politicians and Urban Renewal District and other special interest groups wouldn’t be tapping the federal government for “free” federal dollars to stuff into their pockets if we allowed the free market to work.  And the Federal Reserve central bankers wouldn’t be charging us interest on their manufactured National Debt by issuing inflated Government T-Bills, which they then turn right around in 3 weeks and “monetize” that debt created out of thin air with another debt created out of thin air:  freshly printed U.S. Dollars.  Follow the money.  It’s all a game, a monetary game to enrich the central bankers, to transfer your wealth into their pockets, under the guise of saving the poor downtrodden masses.  Mayor Bieter and Da Boyz of Boize, they’re just “useful idiots” in the Bigger Picture. – FM Duck

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