Partisan Outburst Against Florida High Speed Rail

Sour notes: In October, Republican Congressman John Mica sat smiling next to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at a transportation summit in Orlando that played out more like a revival meeting. Mr. LaHood had just called on the rail devotees there to get the Legislature to pass SunRail – something he suggested the state needed to do before Washington would consider funding a high-speed rail line for Florida.
The message was music to the ears of Mr. Mica, SunRail's most ardent supporter.SunRail passed. And on Wednesday, the Obama administration Washington will finance Florida high-speed rail.
Why then the sour notes from Mr. Mica on Thursday?

After complaining the train won't go fast enough, he said "The last thing the American people need is another bailout program with low-speed trains to nowhere."It's become reflexive for Republican lawmakers to bash Obama administration initiatiatives. But the prospect of high-speed rail helped bring about SunRail. And, Mr. Mica has long supported high-speed rail.

His rank, partisan outburst tarnished a record which till then showed Mr. Mica working responsibly with Republicans and Democrats to bring this region passenger rail serivce.


Suuuure, Mr. Mica has long supported hoih Speed rail in New York, but NEVER in Florida,.........I guess the Orlando Sentinel only just noticed!!

Lexus Lane Mica

More Road Taxes suggested by John Mica

In an about face Congressman John Mica who for years has blocked the idea, is now suggesting leasing out our public roads to private companies:

State and local leaders, he (John Mica) said, need to search for new ways to raise money because the national gas tax is falling thanks to higher prices and more fuel-efficient vehicles. The Obama administration and the Congress, he added, also are committing more money to mass transit and less to roads. Probably the least popular idea floated by Mica is leasing Florida's Turnpike or the 105-mile toll system in Orlando that's owned and operated by the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority."I just don't think that's practical," Orlando lawyer Marco Marchena said of turning over the 460-mile Turnpike owned by the state to a private company. Marchena is a member and former chairman of the FTC, which sets policy for the Turnpike.

This stupid idea will most likely lead to higher tolls on our toll roads:

Crotty and Marchena said they worry that leasing, which could raise billions of
dollars, would result in giving up control of toll increases to a private
company and that the money raised by the transaction could go to the general
needs of government rather than building and maintaining more roads

Mica Claims 9/11 Terrorist Boarded Planes OUTSIDE US

This is funny if it wasn't so deplorable:

Congressman John Mica has been a big supporter of body scanning technology,
just not domestically.
"It is the only thing that can give us protection, but I don't necessarily need that equipment in Orlando."
Mica says our biggest threat comes from outside of the US. When talking about how TSA screens before a flight right now, Mica had to laugh.

It's not at all like the 19 terrorists who caused 9/11 didn't board right here in the US!!

How in the world does he DARE say that our "biggest threat comes from outside of the US."

I guess John Mica forgot about what happened on 9/11 already!! Call it a senior moment ;)

This is the word on the steeet:

john mcnary - December 18, 2009
Let’s be honest. The remainder two-thirds of the country built the NE corridor system for the near-exclusive benefit of the people there. The NE corridor has had billions bestowed upon it over the past decades. Nearly HALF of the nation’s population live in the metro areas to be served by HSR in Californoa, Florida, and the midwest, where the next systems should be built. It’s time to let the rest of the nation reap the benefits that the NE corridor states have had for years. We in the rest of the nation have seen our rail infrastructure shrink while yours has been improved — dramatically — since 1972. It tales 12 hours by Amtrak to move from SF to LA … would that be acceptable to you?

Yet Mica is pitching privatizing the Acela with his NY homies here:

December 15 - U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and Congressman John Mica (R-FL) joined Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City today to announce the Department of Transportation's request for proposals for high-speed rail investment in corridors across the United States. Citing the energy efficiency, convenience, and economic competitiveness benefits of high-speed rail, the political leaders lamented the slow progress of the U.S. in implementing modern high-speed rail technology.

And dissing Florida, the state he represents:

February 26, 2009 -- The Florida High Speed Rail Authority will meet today in Orlando for the first time in almost four years. The authority will begin putting together a proposal to get its hands on some of the $8 billion in federal stimulus money that's been set aside for high-speed rail. One U.S. lawmaker who's been a huge proponent of rail projects -- both commuter and high-speed -- is Republican Congressman John Mica of Winter Park. But it turns out he's not so f ired up about spending that money for a system in Florida -- at least not right now. 90.7's David Pitman spoke with Mica from Washington, and he explained why.

Most Idiotic Congressman in America: John Mica

John Mica spoke to the teabagger anti-health care reform crowd gathered at the Bachmann Tea Party Overdrive in Washington Wenesday to try and stop progress. And while the Congressional Budget office issued a report critical of the Republican health care plan saying that it would reduce the federal deficit by $36 million less than the Democratic plan ( Republicans want to cover only 3 million uninsured vs coverage for 39 million uninsured in the Democratic plan), only one lone Congressman was illustrating the ethical obligation we have to enact health care reform.

On the House floor this week, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) read off the estimated number of people represented in Republican congressional districts who will die next year due to a lack of health insurance.

Here are Grayson’s numbers for congressional districts in Florida:

Florida District 1, Jeff Miller: 130 dead
Florida District 4, Ander Crenshaw: 116 dead
Florida District 5, Ginny Brown-Waite: 200 dead
Florida District 6, Cliff Stearns: 152 dead
Florida District 7, John Mica: 143 dead
Florida District 9, Gus Bilirakis: 129 dead
Florida District 10, Bill Young: 138 dead
Florida District 12, Adam Putnam: 133 dead
Florida District 13, Vern Buchanan: 160 dead
Florida District 14, Connie Mack: 159 dead
Florida District 15, Bill Posey: 152 dead
Florida District 16, Thomas Rooney: 165 dead
Florida District 18, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: 199 dead
Florida District 21, Lincoln Diaz-Balart: 195 dead
Florida District 25, Mario Diaz-Balart: 195 dead

Here is John Mica's Most Idiotic response:

He said Democratic leaders were "well-intentioned" but "missed the mark" in part
because the bill did not include tort reform for malpractice lawsuits."They
[doctors] practice defensive medicine, and they cover themselves with tests and
paperwork to protect themselves against lawsuits," said Mica, who added this
approach drove up costs. "People should get payment when there's malpractice,
but you do have to get a handle on that [lawsuits]."

It's such a tired old response, just directed at the uninformed. A quick look at the list of unnecessary and wasteful medical expenses ( over $800 billion per year), which make up one third of all medical expenditures in the US, shows that the bulk is due to overuse of antibiotics and lab tests (37%)......."Medicine has become a pig trough", fraud (22%), administrative inefficiencies (18%) and medical errors (11%):

The U.S. healthcare system is just as wasteful as President Barack Obama says it is, and proposed reforms could be paid for by fixing some of the most obvious inefficiencies, preventing mistakes and fighting fraud, according to a Thomson Reuters report released on Monday.
The U.S. healthcare system wastes between $505 billion and $850 billion every year, the report from Robert Kelley, vice president of healthcare analytics at Thomson Reuters, found.
"America's healthcare system is indeed hemorrhaging billions
of dollars, and the opportunities to slow the fiscal bleeding are
substantial," the report reads.
"The bad news is that an estimated $700 billion is wasted annually. That's one-third of the nation's healthcare bill," Kelley said in a statement.
"The good news is that by attacking waste we can reduce healthcare costs without adversely affecting the quality of care or access to care."

Making our healthcare system more simple and efficient will help us cover the uninsured without incurring additional expenses, but too many vested interests are making money of this corrupt system.

John Mica Reads Teabagger Scroll on House Floor!

Late yesterday news broke that the moderate Republican Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, candidate in the hard-fought special election in New York's 23rd Congressional district, had been driven out and the Republican party was throwing their weight behind the Palin/Limbaugh/Glen Beck endorsed radical tea party candidate instead.

Today, the moderate Republican threw her support behind our proud Democratic candidate Bill Owens.

It has never been clearer that the Republican Party has been hijacked by extreme right wing ideologues with a radical agenda that would effectively dismantle Social Security and Medicare, and are out of step with a vast majority of Americans.Eight extreme right wing groups spent more than $1 million on this campaign including the Minute Men, Club for Growth and the Family Research Council.

Now comes word that John Mica Has Read the Teabagger Manifesto in a really theatrical presentation with a Scroll no less, on the House Floor. Video here:

Rep. Mica Reads Teabagger Scroll on House Floor!

John Mica Votes Against Defense Spending

Obama this week signed the Hate Crimes Bill into law:

More than 77,000 hate-crime incidents were reported by the FBI between 1998 and
2007, or "nearly one hate crime for every hour of every day over the span of a decade," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June.
The FBI, Holder added, reported 7,624 hate-crime incidents in 2007, the most current year with complete data.

The Hate Crimes Act was included in the Defense Spending Bill, and was the sick reason John Mica for the first time in his life voted against defense spending:

After decades of defaming every Democrat, every liberal of any kind, progressive politics in general and anyone who opposes their party’s line, as “weak on defense” or “soft on crime”, often using the most convoluted rhetoric to make the defamatory claims, 28 Republican senators and 131 Republican House members have now voted to cut off funding for the US military in order to give special rights to violent criminals driven by hate.
These 159 Republicans in Congress voted against the Defense funding authorization bill, because it included the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expands federal hate crimes law to punish attacks motivated by bias against gays.