The Rejected Windfall by Florida - NYTimes.com

 

Gov. Rick Scott of Florida thoughtlessly rejected $2.4 billion in federal aid for a high-speed rail line, he claimed last month that he was doing a huge favor for the national Treasury, which he expected would give away the money in tax cuts. That was nonsense, of course; Mr. Scott was really doing a favor for train passengers in the Northeast, Midwest and California, which were given $2 billion of his money on Monday for better service.

Republican governors so rigidly opposed to the Obama administration that they are willing to harm their states to score points. The result is a crazy quilt of state relationships with Washington, stitched more with ideology than reason.

Instead… a sliver of the Acela line and the Empire line through upstate New York. The Chicago-St. Louis corridor will be improved, and $300 million will be invested in the high-speed project between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Texas is accepting $15 million to start work on a fast line between Dallas and Houston.

Read the rest of this opinion piece by clicking on the following:    The Rejected Windfall by Florida - NYTimes.com

FirstElectricNewspaper: Complaints Already Growing Over 2010 Tax Bills

Boone County taxpayers be ready—the tax bills are in the mail--lower assessments do not mean lower rates or lower taxes for many of us.

Kane County residents, many of whom saw big increases in the tax bills they just received.  They may get more when McHenry County taxpayers get their bills due to hit the mail Thursday.  "It's just a massive tax burden shift,"

the tax bill crunch comes is in taxing district levies, how much money the districts asked to receive.  Mostly that went up 2.7 the officially certified measure of inflation.

 

Click on the following for more details:  http://www.firstelectricnewspaper.com/2011/05/complaints-already-growing-over-2010.html

Did Bishop Doran speak on behalf of the “Catholic community” in opposing President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame ?

March 31, 2009

Reverend John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President
University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Dear President Jenkins:

I wish to express in my own name and on behalf of the Catholic community of this Diocese, my dismay and outrage at your decision to invite the current President of the United States to address the 2009 graduates of the University of Notre Dame and to receive an honorary degree.

This decision of your flies in the face of the expressed directive of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in the year 2004, that Catholic institutions not so honor those who profess opposition to the Church’s doctrine on abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

I would ask that you rescind this unfortunate decision and so avoid dishonoring the practicing Catholics of the United States, including those of this Diocese. Failing that, please have the decency to change the name of the University to something like, “The Fighting Irish College” or “Northwestern Indiana Humanist University.” Though promotion of the obscene is not foreign to you, I would point out that it is truly obscene for you to take such decisions as you have done in a university named for our Blessed Lady, whom the Second Vatican Council called the Mother of the Church.

I sign myself

Very truly yours,
The Most Reverend Thomas G. Doran, D.D., J.C.D.
Bishop of Rockford

Printed from:  http://catholicism.about.com/b/2009/04/02/bishop-doran-to-notre-dame-change-the-name-of-the-university.htm