Matthew Falconer is running for Orange County Mayor, and his fiscal mind meshes with us here at FiscalRangers.com.
Falconer sends out periodic emails on stupid fiscal practices there, and the one below is important. He basically says that the State's plans for Sunrail spending and a number of other rail lines may drastically reduce education funding. It seems the Rail vendors have better lobbyists and State legislators are switching funds to rail that will reduce the pot of funds left for education.
The teacher's unions should be going after this issue - they went after SB6 on merit pay, but this may affect them more than any other issue. I would even suggest they closely watch local spending plans for a commuter rail from Orlando to Tavares/Eustis.
My experience from California is that rail systems are boondoggles that soak up HORRENDOUS amounts of funds and never payoff. They are corporate welfare for all the firms that subsist on building rail systems and equipment.
I don't spend much time on State issues, but Falconer does, so I suggest you get on his mailing list.
vj
From Matthew Falconer - candidate for Orange County Major:
The biggest
threat to education and public safety is funding. Last year the
State of Florida cut education funding by $500 million and will spend $534
million on commuter rail this year. I was in Tallahassee in December asking
legislators to "say
yes to education and no to commuter rail." They did not
listen and I guarantee there will be cuts to education this year. Now Orange
County is looking at laying off 1,600 teachers.
What most
people do not know is our "leaders"
have ten rail systems planned for central Florida. Below is a
link for the map showing the rail systems planned that will cost over $10
billion and forever adversely affect the budgets of public safety and education
in Orange County.
http://www.metroplanorlando.com/site/upload/documents/TransitVision_Aug2008-p.pdf
Now our "leaders" are pushing "high speed
rail." Below is a link for the entire system that will upon completion cost over $100 billion.
http://www.floridahighspeedrail.org/Rail_Corridors.html
What our "leaders" do not understand is there is a
limited amount of tax revenue we can extract from a local economy before we
reach the point of diminishing returns. Right now 75% of businesses are losing
money and 25% of mortgages are in default. We cannot tax more so they will be
forced to cut tens of
millions from the budgets of education and public safety to fund these rail
projects.
Please do not believe the claim these projects will create jobs.
That is what Buddy Dyer said about the construction of the arena and what Orange
County said when it gave $300 million to Burnham Institute to create 150 jobs.
The rail and corporate
welfare projects only benefit a few powerful special interest groups, who by the
way contribute to the campaigns of politicians.
As Orange County Mayor I
pledge not to commit to a spending project in excess of $50 million without
voter approval. I further pledge to end corporate welfare and
the "culture of corruption" in Orange County. I will focus our resources on the
core functions of government; education and public safety.
The coming election for Orange County Mayor will be the most important in our history.
It will determine if we spend billions on rail projects the taxpayer has not
asked for or remain focused on education and public safety. The employees of Orange County and
their families should be very concerned about our future. The fiscally irresponsible
policies of all of my opposition place our core services in jeopardy.
Please share this message with your friends and join my campaign
to protect funding of core services; education and public safety. I promise to put education, public
safety and Taxpayers First.
Please forward this email to all of your friends and consider a donation
to our campaign
by logging onto http://www.matthewfalconer.com/contribute.htm
www.MatthewFalconer.com
[email protected]
