The decision to take away Wisconsin’s high-speed rail money triggered a flood of media statements from elected officials and organizations.
Like the past few months’ public debate over the $810 million project, there’s little middle ground. Thursday’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Transportation is either a tragedy that benefits other states or a demonstration of fiscal sanity.
“It is to the Wisconsin taxpayers’ benefit that they will no longer be required to pick-up the additional tab for a high-speed train that the majority of residents will never ride,” according to a statement from U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Menomonee Falls).
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) opined: “I hope to be proven wrong, but I think this will build a fence around Wisconsin. We’ll be forced to watch economic development in Illinois and in Minnesota.”
State Rep. Tamara Grigsby called the move “economic suicide.” The MacIver Institute called it a big win for Gov.-elect Scott Walker and an avoided boondoggle.
True to form, the state Democratic and Republic party organizations issued the most aggressive statements.
Here’s what the Democratic party had to say:
“Having done nothing in Milwaukee to create jobs during his entire term, (Walker) now begins his administration having killed 13,000 of them, all to appease his core constituency, a group of extremists more committed to their narrow-minded ideology than to creating jobs.”
The Republican party’s answer?
“Instead of taking aggressive steps to position Wisconsin for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of race to the top funding to improve our education system, Democrats sold out to the teachers union while our schools lost out. However, Democrats put their hands out for a costly train Wisconsinites didn’t want and wouldn’t ride.”