Troy Done Well

Troy, Michigan, has declined to accept funding from the US Government to build a mass transit center within its boundaries. Led by Mayor Janice Daniels, the city government decided that the project would be a waste of federal dollars.

The counter argument, that someone else is just going to get the funding anyway, is exactly the kind of argument which has helped federal spending jump by the billions and trillions of dollars which is has in the last 70 years, and particularly in the last ten. That the Mayor and City Council of Troy are not accepting the cash shows the foresight necessary to reign in Washington: it doesn't matter that the money might be given to someone else. Someone has to stand up and say, no thanks.

It's time to call such projects what they are: pork barrel ideas intending to buy votes by appearing to shore up the economy. This isn't about mass transit except by a very small margin. It's about buying elections with taxpayer money. Especially as the kinds of workers who would almost surely vote for the Democrats currently in our nation's Capitol, it becomes fair to ask whose votes are being bought? Why spread the wealth anyway to folks who are already knee Democrats?

This is an attempt to garb the elusive middle vote, those relatively few who sometimes sway elections. Also, to shore up the President's chances of reelection in what promises to be a swing state. It's a political move which has been met with principled opposition.

Americans don't want mass transit anyway, as a group. They want to drive their cars. So let them, and indeed encourage them by not spending their money so readily for self purposes. The city of Troy has done a courageous thing, and deserves credit for it.