Rodent Regatta

Seeing that the folks at SmartCity Radio are going to talk about promote light rail as a means of urban travel, I had to dig out some Cantoni wisdom.

Here’s the first tidbit, followed by the full rant:

Elvis Found Alive in Mesa Trailer Park
by Craig Cantoni

Many readers believe that the Arizona Republic did a great disservice to the public in its shameful coverage of light rail before Phoenix voted for the boondoggle. If it had covered the facts instead of unsubstantiated opinions in the news pages, the public would not have been convinced to waste a billion dollars. The costs and benefits are so overwhelmingly against light rail that those who tout light rail must also believe that Elvis is alive. Reporters claim that they were simply reporting both sides of the issue, but the fact is that the newspaper wouldn’t print this headline: ”Elvis found in Mesa trailer park.” However, it did publish equally ludicrous claims about light rail from proponents. That is not responsible journalism. It is lazy journalism. Anyway, pasted below my signature block are two factually-based policy papers on light rail, one by the Maryland Public Policy Institute on a proposed light rail line for the Washington D.C. area, and one by the Allegheny Institute on a proposed rail line for Pittsburgh. I’m sure that they are fighting an uphill battle in trying to blunt the unbalanced reporting on the issue in the Washington and Pittsburgh mainstream media, who also believe that Elvis is alive.

Regards,

Craig J. Cantoni

Light Rail: The slowest and costliest way to move people
by Randal O’Toole
Maryland Public Policy Institute

As traffic congestion builds in Virginia urban areas, many people ask, ”Why not relieve congestion by building light-rail lines like those built in San Diego, Denver, and Portland, Oregon?” Before Virginians get too filled with light-rail envy, they should take a close look at the experiences of those other cities.

The most important lesson is that this nineteenth-century technology completely fails to meet the transportation needs of twenty-first-century cities. Costing as much to build as a four- to eight-lane freeway, the typical U.S. light-rail line carries fewer people than one-third of freeway lane – and most of those people would otherwise ride a bus. Thus, $100 spent on light rail does less to relieve congestion than $1 to $4 spent on buses or road improvements.

Does light rail reduce congestion? No, it increases congestion whenever the rail lines occupy former street space and also because it is such an ineffective use of transport dollars. The Texas Transportation Institute reports that U.S. urban congestion is growing fastest in Portland, the Twin Cities, San Diego, and Boston – all areas emphasizing rail over highway transport. Congestion grew slowest in Houston, Phoenix, and other regions that emphasized road improvements instead of rail.

Does light rail improve transit? No, most cities that built light rail experienced a decline in transit’s share of travel. This is partly because the expense of light rail forced transit agencies to increase fares and/or reduce bus services to areas not served by light rail. A Los Angeles bus rider’s union successfully sued the regional transit agency for spending billions building rail into white suburbs while it let bus service to transit-dependent minority areas deteriorate.

Is light rail more attractive to transit riders than buses? No, transit riders are sensitive to frequencies and speed, and buses can run more frequently and faster than light rail.

• While most light-rail lines average just 20 miles per hour, many express bus routes average better than 30 miles per hour.
• While safety demands that light-rail vehicles be spaced several minutes apart, buses can run just seconds apart.

When Portland voters rejected funding for more light rail, the local transit agency increased bus frequencies and speeds along the proposed rail route and increased ridership by 20 percent.

Does light rail revitalize neighborhoods? No. Ten years after Portland’s light-rail line opened, city officials were dismayed to find none of the redevelopment they expected along the line. They now offer millions of dollars of tax waivers and other subsidies to attract developers to the area. Los Angeles, San Diego, and other cities have had similar experiences.

Is light rail safe? Far from it. Because they are so heavy, light-rail vehicles kill 11 people – mostly pedestrians – per billion passenger miles, while buses and urban freeways kill only about 4 per billion passenger miles.

So why do so many cities want to build light rail? One word: pork. The federal government gives cities billions of dollars to build useless rail lines. This creates a powerful lobby of interest groups to promote rail construction.

• If you hate automobiles and highways, you love light rail because every dollar spent on light rail is a dollar that can’t be spent actually relieving congestion. You hope that the increased congestion will lead people to stop driving – although there is no evidence that it does.

• If you are the mayor of a big, slow-growing city, you love light rail because building light rail means spending federal transportation funds in your city instead of in the fast-growing suburbs where those funds are really needed.

• If you are a downtown property owner, you love light rail because most light-rail lines go downtown rather than to the suburban office parks and shopping malls that compete against you.

In short, light rail is simply one more way to divert taxpayer dollars away from where they are needed to where they primarily benefit wealthy elites. In political campaigns where light rail has come before voters, the vast majority of contributions for light rail come from engineering firms, contractors, banks, and downtown business interests.

Subways and commuter rail transit work in cities with high-density urban cores, such as New York and Chicago. Yet even in dense regions light rail is not the answer: New Jersey’s new Bergen-Hudson light-rail line is one of the biggest failures in the country.

Building light-rail lines costs more than the federal and local dollars wasted on these boondoggles. It also reduces urban livability by increasing congestion, reducing pedestrian safety, and promoting more corporate welfare such as tax breaks for developments along the light-rail lines. Virginians who want to protect the livability of their communities should look for other solutions to transport problems.

Randal O’Toole (rot@ti.org) is the author of The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths and a member of the Board of Scholars of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, an education and research organization headquartered in Potomac Falls, Virginia. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided the author and his affiliations are cited.

This piece was originally written on March 15, 2002.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

In the Google IPO coverage, I read that another foundation will be established to work on ”the world’s biggest problems.” That’s good. Better that a foundation’s money goes to solve the world’s biggest problems than the taxpayer’s money via a bloated government, etc. If you want to see how those endeavors usually work out, just read my second post from Craig Cantoni for today: (Note: all emphasis is mine)

Loopy Thinking at the American Enterprise Institute
by Craig J. Cantoni
April 29, 2004

The president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Christopher DeMuth, has been in Washington, D.C. too long. As evidenced by his op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, his thinking has become as loopy as the Beltway.

The op-ed begins with straight talk about government spending and the economy. He correctly states that ”domestic discretionary non-security spending grew by 15% from 2001 through 2003 and will probably increase by more than 25% during President Bush’s first term—a much faster growth rate than at any time during the Clinton administration.” He continues by saying that federal spending now totals $20,000 per household and that Bush’s Medicare drug benefit will add $10 trillion to the government’s unfunded liabilities.

Proceeding with his straight talk, DeMuth goes on to say that the growth of the regulatory state has exploded under the Bush administration, and he expresses concern that the fondness for big government is undermining the economy, technological innovation and the nation’s long-term security.

But then DeMuth veers off course and starts his loopy thinking.

Having presented clear evidence that Bush and his fellow Republicans in the Republican-controlled Congress are not fiscal conservatives, he goes on to say that they really are conservatives. In other words, they should be judged on what they call themselves, not on what they have done.

DeMuth then attempts to square the circle created by his loopy thinking by hypothesizing that Bush has been too preoccupied with Iraq to keep Congress from giving free goodies to special-interest groups.

Whew, I’m getting dizzy from following his loops.

What DeMuth appears to be saying is that unless a conservative president has time to stand guard over the nation’s wealth, a conservative Congress will steal it.

He conveniently forgets that Bush spent a lot of time getting his Medicare prescription giveaway passed, that he made eleventh-hour calls to Arizona congressman Jeff Flake and a few other true conservatives to pressure them to vote for the largess, that he had time to enact steel tariffs in order to buy votes from steelworkers, that he increased funding for the Department of Education, that he enacted the unconstitutional ”Leave No Child Behind” program, and that he gave a State of the Union Address in which he made steroid use by athletes an important federal issue.

DeMuth is also silent about how Bush made his money. He made it the old-fashioned liberal way. Cronies of his dad let him in on a deal to mooch from taxpayers with taxpayer-subsidized baseball.

It’s a shame that DeMuth has been infected with Beltway thinking. He should start a recovery program by walking a few blocks from his office to the Cato Institute, which, in spite of being headquartered in Washington, has not lost touch with reality and bashes both parties when they go against limited-government principles.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

The following piece on obesity was published as Craig Cantoni’s weekly point-counterpoint by the Arizona Republic on April 28. (Note to light-rail opponents: he took a shot at light rail.)

I’d Rather Have Skinny Government and Fat People
by Craig J. Cantoni

Contrary to what shift-the-blame lawyers and liberals say, Americans are not fat because of fast-food, bad genes or evil Republicans. They are fat because they eat too much

Eating unhealthy food is not a new American phenomenon. Old grocery ads show that the most popular foods in the early twentieth century were lard, bacon, salt pork, whole milk, sugar, eggs and butter. Genes haven’t changed in the intervening years, but waistlines of jeans have. That’s because most Americans used to do manual labor instead of sitting on their behinds. Also, kids used to walk to school, where, unlike today, there was not a school lunch program that served free food to chubby kids.

Before logging was mechanized, lumberjacks consumed over 5,000 calories a day and did not gain weight. With mechanization, lumberjacks would be the size of Ted Kennedy if they consumed that many calories.

To me, it’s great news that thanks to the market economy, families spend only 15 percent of income on food today, versus 43 percent 100 years ago. It’s also great news that life expectancy has increased by 30 years, real incomes have increased 500 percent and flush toilets have increased from 10 percent of homes to almost 100 percent.

The bad news is that the government has grown into a huge oinker. The ravenous federal government now consumes nearly 20 percent of Gross Domestic Product, versus three percent in 1900. Corpulent state and local governments devour almost as much GDP as their fat federal cousin. And because of socialism, costs have skyrocketed in K-12 education and health care.

In 1900, entitlements were nearly zero. They now comprise two-thirds of the federal budget, which costs each household an astonishing $20,000 per year. Locally, $2.3 billion in pork will be spent on a light-rail system that won’t reduce traffic or pollution but will fatten the pockets of fat-cat contractors.

Lawyers and liberals believe that the government has a right to tell us what to eat, because society pays for the health care of most Americans. Of course, society wouldn’t be paying if it were not for the socialist pyramid scheme of Medicare.

Since lawyers and liberals want fatter government and poorer and skinnier people, they should move to N. Korea. But if they don’t want to starve, they better take some Big Macs with them.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, public speaker and consultant. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

Stupid Cowards and Clean Elections
by Craig J. Cantoni
(originally published in the Arizona Republic on April 21)

Last May, the Arizona Daily Star of Tucson ran an editorial calling me a coward for being one of two plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Arizona’s clean election law. The editorial showed how the establishment, especially the left-leaning media, will try to discredit those who fight for free speech and other liberties.

The editorial lied…

...that I’m a front for right-wing organizations. Actually, I’m a private citizen with strong libertarian beliefs who, as readers of this column know, criticizes both Democrats and Republicans when they abuse government power. The true coward is the Star, which, like the rest of the establishment media, can hide behind clean election laws and engage in political speech that is outlawed for private citizens and groups.

The Star’s real beef is that I’ve founded and funded an organization called Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). HAALT’s mission is to stop the immorality of the government taking money from some citizens for the benefit of politically favored citizens or groups instead of for government services that benefit all citizens equally, such as national defense. Of course, as a left-liberal newspaper, the Star somehow rationalizes that when the government takes money from one person and gives it another person, it is something other than theft. To them, it is compassion, social justice, fairness or some other twaddle.

Over half of political and governmental activity is in stolen goods, whether it is rich corporate farmers getting subsidies from the rest of us, the elderly sending the bills for their medicine to their grandchildren, corporate employees receiving favorable tax treatment for health care at the expense of the self-employed, or riders of Phoenix’s planned light-rail line having non-riders pick up 88 percent of the cost of their ride.

The fatal flaw of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights is that it is legal for the government to take all of your money, if that is what the majority wants to do. That explains why John Kerry and other politicians openly advocate theft and class warfare without fear of being arrested or being called a thief by the likes of the Star.

It is illogical for the Star and other do-gooders to endorse government theft and then to wail about the corrupting influence of money in politics. The Star is worse than a coward. It is a stupid coward.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, public speaker and consultant. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

Arizona Republic Awarded Wurlitzer Prizes
by Craig J. Cantoni
April 25, 2004

The Arizona Republic was awarded two Wurlitzer Prizes for its coverage of economics and business in its Sunday, April 25, 2004, edition. The Wurlitzer Prize is awarded to the newspaper that spreads ignorance the most by playing the same canards over and over again to a brainwashed public, similar to how an old jukebox plays a broken record over and over again to tattooed patrons of a biker bar who are too drunk to notice that they are listening to repetitive nonsense.

One Wurlitzer was awarded for a two-page story that began above the fold on the front page with the following headline:

Phoenix-area jobs in jeopardy
Offshoring risk higher in Valley than in other areas

The story claimed that ”Metro Phoenix appears more vulnerable to jobs moving offshore than much of the nation because of its base of office support work and high number of computer professionals.”

The Wurlitzer committee thought that the story was brilliant in its deception. ”It didn’t tell the other side of the story,” said committee member Dee Seet, ”and that’s the first thing we award points for.”

Committee member P. Nochio added, ”The Republic didn’t say that the United States has a growing trade surplus in the jobs most represented in the Valley’s base. And committee member Bea Gile continued, ”Nor did it say that the Department of Labor is projecting 35 to 60 percent increases over the next decade in the numbers of network systems and data communications analysts, computer software engineers, database administrators, computer systems analysts, network and computer systems administrators, and computer and information system managers.”

Based on the projections, those metro areas with a high number of computer professionals and other service jobs will see a net gain in jobs with increased globalization. The Republic was awarded the Wurlitzer for reachng the opposite conclusion, thus keeping with the mission of the Wurlitzer Foundation to spread ignorance about globalization and the market economy in order to get Democrats elected to office.

Foundation president Ann Ecdote was particularly impressed with how the Republic took up more than half of the article with three human-interest stories about people losing their jobs to outsourcing. ”We always advise that when the facts aren’t on your side, appeal to the emotions instead of the intellect.” She noted that the Republic did not have one human-interest story about someone getting a job because of globalization.

The second Wurlitzer was awarded to Republic business columnist Jon Talton, who almost always reaches conclusions that are at odds with the facts. Talton won the award over the runner-up, the leftist New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, by writing this line: ”Business competitiveness appears to go hand-in-hand with job insecurity, stagnant wages, falling benefits and two-thirds of America’s corporations paying no income tax.”

”What a masterpiece of false logic and falsities,” exclaimed Wurlitzer Foundation spokesperson, Ann Anias, who changed her name five years ago to honor Ananias, the early Christian who was struck dead for lying. She explained that according to Talton’s logic, we could increase job security by being uncompetitive. ”He makes the case for socialism better than anyone on the staff of the Daily Worker,” said Anias.

She went on to praise Talton for not saying that consumers pay corporate taxes through higher prices.

Paul Krugman was complimentary in defeat. ”Even I wouldn’t have the audacity to say that benefits are falling,” said Krugman. He went on to quote from a Wall Street Journal article published on August 18, 1997 and written by Craig J. Cantoni.

”The cost of all fringe benefits has soared to 40% of total compensation, compared with 17 percent in 1955. Corporations spend almost 12% of total revenues on employee benefits, vs. 4.4% in the 1950s. The average employee’s benefits package (including payroll taxes) costs just under $15,000.”

Cantoni’s article also said that because the government killed a consumer market in health insurance 60 years ago, the cost of employer-provided health insurance is skyrocketing and will continue to replace cash wages as a form of employee remuneration. Of course, Cantoni will never get a Wurlitzer for telling the truth about health care and wages, since the truth will not lead to more socialism and to Democrats being elected to office.

In an award ceremony to honor the Republic, Wurlitzer Foundation spokesperson Anias said that the founder of the foundation, Will Wurlitzer, is spinning with delight in his grave over the newspaper’s special talent at spreading economic ignorance.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com