Editorial Built on Mistakes, Myths, Incorrect Assumptions
Editorial Built on Mistakes, Myths, Incorrect Assumptions
Editor,
Regarding the Free Lance editorial “Empty Buses Aren’t Doing the Job” (Feb. 7), the mistakes, myths, false premises and incorrect assumptions it contained makes me think it was written by VTA marketing, or AMBAG advertising, not by a news man.
Limousine service would be cheaper than what COG is making us pay. Truth in transportation demands a reply to the falsehoods you gave.
Socialists mass transit is especially damaging in rural, impoverished counties like ours because:
It wastes tax dollars for no good – 98.6 percent of bus seats are moved empty in San Benito County.
It competes with private-sector carriers (e.g., taxis, shuttles), which violates federal law prohibiting government from competing with private sector.
It requires taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars to subsidize 99 percent of total costs – while motorists are also paying 100 percent of their own costs.
It has unremunerative fees that cover only 1 percent of fully amortized costs – a violation of California’s Unfair Business Practices Act.
It adds congestion to our streets and highways, and adds air pollution – while moving less than one person per bus most of the time.
It causes street and road maintenance expenses to increase. Axle weight of buses is far greater than taxis, and axle weight is the single largest factor in road surface and bridge support deterioration, according to the Transportation Research Board at Georgetown University, where I’ve done postdoctoral study.
It causes additional tax burdens on county residents since public-sector union employees are employed to conduct operations, and their pension burdens on government are unsustainable. (And why do we have two transit agencies when all 57 other counties only have one?)
It relies on fraudulent financial reports in violation of generally accepted accounting practices to deceive the taxpayers about the full extent of the losses being sustained by taxpayers’ subsidies.
It will deny future generations of disabled and handicapped and elderly any transport whatsoever because its policy, like Soviet Union’s policy, is unsound and unsustainable in the long run.
If other towns, cities and counties around the U.S. are saving hundreds of millions of dollars by privatizing transit, why do you want us to worsen San Benito’s economy and penalize small business and very small business, and taxpayers, with socialist mass transit?
The invisible hand of Adam Smith is preferable to the iron fist of Karl Marx, and the only way America can succeed in the long run. Every country that has tried Marxist policy has either denationalized their industries, including transport, or fell in revolution in the last century.
If COG’s directors fail to reform COG’s policy, then COG ought to be indicated by the county grand jury in the same way that Santa Clara County’s grand jury indicated VTA.
Without effective reform, COG should be dissolved as the Editorial Board of the Gilroy Dispatch has called for the dissolution of intransigent VTA in Santa Clara County.
Without reform, we will ensure insolvency and bankruptcy for our county, and the condemnation of future generations for making San Benito an unlivable socialist hell.
Joseph P. Thompson
Tres Pinos
