The Tea Partiers are furious, furious I tell you, about the intrusion of government into their lives … about the burden of government taxation … about boondoggle government spending. They wave “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and hold forth on Randian virtues of self-reliance and personal responsibility and survival of the fittest, rather than stealing money from the the pockets of honest, hard workers to pay for socialistic government so-called-services.
Indeed, about 70,000 of those Tea Partiers gathered up in Washington, DC, last weekend in order to protest bloated budgets and the Evils of Government Spending.
So it is with no small element of irony that they’re now bitching that they didn’t get adequate government services while they were there.
Rep. Kevin Brady asked for an explanation of why the government-run subway system didn’t, in his view, adequately prepare for this past weekend’s rally to protest government spending and government services.
[…] The Texas Republican on Wednesday released a letter he sent to Washington’s Metro system complaining that the taxpayer-funded subway system was unable to properly transport protesters to the rally to protest government spending and expansion.
“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,” Brady wrote. “These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”
A spokesman for Brady says that “there weren’t enough cars and there weren’t enough trains.” Brady tweeted as much from the Saturday march. “METRO did not prepare for Tea Party March! More stories. People couldn’t get on, missed start of march. I will demand answers from Metro,” he wrote on Twitter.
Brady says in his letter to Metro that overcrowding forced an 80-year-old woman and elderly veterans in wheelchairs to pay for cabs. He concludes that it “appears that Metro added no additional capacity to its regular weekend schedule.”
Now, you would think that all these bold, bright, brave, independent souls would welcome the opportunity to thumb their noses on big government spending projects like the Washington Metro. You’d think they’d all supply their own transportation, without expecting a transit “hand-out.” You’d think they’d have worked together, like Texas frontiersmen of old, chartering their own private busses, or something similarly filled with libertarian virtue. You’d think they’d remember that government is the problem, not the solution.
(You’d also expect that if they read that Metro service was increased during an anti-war demonstration that they’d pitch a fit about taxpayer-subsidized protests. But I digress.)
No, instead these “Transit Queens” are pitching a fit because a government service didn’t increase capacity to meet all their needs. And they’re getting their government representative to complain that the government, effectively, didn’t spend enough money to take care of them.
Just savor that for a moment.
Indeed, it gets even zanier. The Metro has suffered terribly from underfunding over the years (esp. since its budget is a weird three-way dance between DC (i.e., the federal government), Virginia, and Maryland. (And one might, of course, ask why the people of Virginia and Maryland should be obliged to pay for the additional transportation needs of tourists from southeast Texas, but I digress again.) Has Rep. Brady always been so gung-ho to “maintain this public transit system” so as to make sure it can provide service to his constituents should the come to visit him? It is to laugh.
Back in July HR3288, a Transportation and HUD appropriations bill, came up for a vote. It included $150 million for emergency maintenance funding for the DC Metro.
Brady voted against it.
As did the entire Republican delegation from Texas.
Be sure and mention that to your outraged Tea Partiers, Rep. Brady.
They’re incapable of recognizing irony. Education has failed them!
\Irony, that’s a bit like bronzy, isn’t it\
— Edmund Blackadder
Hold on- they paid for it through Federal Taxes, correct? So they are the customer. They could argue that this just re-enforces their point: state industries are inefficient. In most large cities communal transport is the best way to get around, yet due to poor planning an industry that has pressure from competition relieved (how many cities run competing metros, plus the subsidy relieves pressure on profatibility, as well as the ‘too important to fail’ angle that no doubt this has) was unable to cope. The obvious arguement from them is let capitalism take its course- if company A is unable to cope, let Company B take over.
So, see, their inconvenience was part of the natural process of demonstrating the failure of government. It’s unfortunate that they were inconvenienced, but you can’t naturally select without breaking a few lives. The roots of the tree of liberty must be occasionally refreshed with the blood of transit chiefs and the citizens who cannot get to Tea Parties on time.