Earmark Supporters Should Run for Local Office

CATO.ORG

If you are interested in national issues such as defense, foreign policy, and trade, and want to hold public office, you should run for Congress. If you are interested in roads, beaches, subways, and policing, you should run for city council or the state legislature.

The push to restore earmarks in Congress is led by politicians who got elected to the wrong democratic body. In a pro-earmark story today, the Washington Post highlights projects that members say justify the narrow spending set-asides:

“There is a 14-mile gap in Interstate 49 outside Fort Smith, Ark., and Rep. Steve Womack, who represents the area, would very much like to secure the estimated $300 million in federal taxpayer money needed to fill it.”
“Rep. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.), who is pushing a proposal that would allow Congress to earmark money for … a pair of water projects he said have been neglected in his district: a beach restoration in an area where the Gulf of Mexico is starting to lap at homes, and repairs to the massive Herbert Hoover Dike that surrounds Lake Okeechobee.
“The Second Avenue Subway in New York City, which opened last year, received more than $600 million.”
“Dozens of police departments received money to improve their equipment and communications systems.
I have questions for the members supporting federal spending on these projects:

Why doesn’t the Arkansas legislature fund the I-49?
If Florida beach restoration is important but neglected, why don’t landowners and city councils along the coast fund it?
New Yorkers may support their subway project, but why should taxpayers elsewhere pay for it? And when asked to vote on it, how could members from other states judge whether it made any sense?
Since policing is a crucial function of local government, wouldn’t citizens support local taxes to buy needed equipment?
The earmark issue is usually framed as a battle of the purse between federal politicians and federal bureaucrats. But the more important issue is ensuring that activities are funded at the level of government that makes the most sense. I discuss here why state and local funding makes sense for state and local activities. As for Congress, it suffers from structural failures that cause it to spend wastefully much of the time, so the less money flowing through it the better.

Students Ditch The Limo And Hop On Train To Get To The Prom

Los Angeles Times via California Rail

In  the run-up to prom, Golden Valley High School in Santa Clarita made its students a special offer. Whoever won a raffle would get to ride in a school-sponsored limo with their friends while the rest of the class took a Metrolink train.
It didn’t go as planned.
“It was hard just to sell the raffle tickets,” said Vincent Wheeler, an administrator at Golden Valley. “The students were like, ‘This is great, but, uh, we want to take the train.’”

Say what you will about Southern California’s car-obsessed culture, but for two high schools in L.A. County, public transportation was the vehicle of choice for that most American of rituals.

Two trains packed with glitzy commuters sporting corsages and boutonnieres departed for Union Station on Saturday evening. One carried more than 500 students from A.B. Miller High School in Fontana. Another ferried about 500 Golden Valley students who made their connection to the red line and traveled on to Madame Tussauds Hollywood.

Transit Museum in NYC shares MTA history, interactive exhibits

New York’s Transit Museum is in the former Court Street station on the corner of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn.

The station opened in 1936, but closed 10 years later because it wasn’t used enough, explained Regina Asborno, director of the museum. There were plans at the time to eventually connect the station to the Second Avenue line in Manhattan, but that never happened.

Since the museum is inside a former station, the entrance is just like any other entrance to a below-ground subway station. There is also a handicap-accessible entrance, but this is the main entrance.

In 2015, the museum had a record year with 170,000 visitors,

There was a shuttle train that operated at Court Street, but it only brought passengers to one other station about three blocks away, so it wasn’t necessary to keep. It was turned into a museum in the summer of 1976.

The first exhibit in the museum is called “Steel, Stone, and Backbone: Building New York’s Subways, 1900-1925.” It takes visitors through the stages of building the subways. Asborno said many of the pictures they have of the construction were taken for insurance purposes at the time. Since the construction was quite dangerous and could potentially affect the buildings above ground, photographers were hired to take pictures along the routes of the first tunnels, she explained.

On the original platform and tracks of the station, the museum features vintage trains that were used starting in 1904. The train doors are open so people can go inside.

Asborno said there are also vintage buses, but they are too large to be shown at the museum. They are kept in various MTA bus depots and brought out for special occasions, such as the annual Bus Festival in September.

Take a step back to 1904 by walking through the oldest trains at the museum. The trains were used on the elevated tracks at the time, Asborno said. They are made of wood, which makes them lighter and more functional on elevated tracks but not practical for underground tracks.

These trains only had doors at either end of the cars, and at each stop, the gates had to be manually opened by an operator on each car. The operators communicated with the conductor using bells on each car to let him know he could start the train again.

The term straphangers, used to describe commuters, comes from the straps that hung from the top of these original cars.

Advertisements have always been a part of the subway system. While the ads on each of the cars are replicas of originals, they give visitors an idea of the time period. Asborno said trains have a 40- to 60-year life span, so the ads would have changed many times in each of the cars.

A 10-car trial train was built in 1949 in anticipation of the Second Avenue subway line. Each car cost $100,000 to build, which is how it got its name, The Million Dollar Train. At the time, “The New York Times” deemed it the “car of tomorrow” because of its modern look, including new fluorescent lighting. But the train was never in full operation, as the Second Avenue line has yet to be built, and the cars were redesigned to operate with existing trains.

The newest car in the exhibit is just like many that run today. Asborno said this car is a favorite for kids because they usually aren’t allowed to explore the cars when they ride the subway. It’s also used for programs to help people with social or intellectual disabilities learn social skills to help them ride the subways, Asborno said.

Remember when the subway fare was only 15 cents? Neither do we, but you can see what the turnstiles looked like when it was that cheap. The earliest turnstile from 1904 didn’t even have a spot for coins, tokens or cards. Commuters would buy their tickets, hand them to an operator and the operator would allow them through the turnstile by pressing a pedal.

The “Bringing Back the City: Mass Transit Responds to Crisis” exhibit gives visitors a behind-the-scenes look at how the MTA operates. There are first-hand experiences from MTA employees about the attacks on 9/11, the 2003 Northeast Blackout, the Blizzard of 2010, Hurricane Irene and superstorm Sandy. Asborno said people often don’t realize how many different jobs there are in the MTA, which employs over 60,000 people.

The Transit Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for children and senior citizens.

By Nicole Brown

Classic Christmas Song Gives A Little Extra to St. Lawrence University

“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” remains one of the most beloved Christmas songs of all times, and it gives more to St. Lawrence University than just a special holiday feeling.

Written by J. Kimball “Kim” Gannon, a 1924 graduate of St. Lawrence, along with Walter Kent and Buck Ram, the song was popularized by Bing Crosby in 1943 and became a top-10 hit. Recorded by Decca Records, the song touched a tender place in the hearts of Americans while it was embroiled in World War II, and it earned Crosby his fifth gold record. Because of its personal yet widely appealing lyrics, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” has lasted well beyond the tumultuous period of war and separation.

Since its debut, more than 250 artists and groups have recorded “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, Ann Murray, and Michael Bublé. Last year, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) named “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” the 10^th most-performed holiday song of the century.

Born in Brooklyn in 1900, Gannon went on to write a number of popular songs during the swing era. He also penned St. Lawrence’s alma mater, “Alma Mater.” Campus lore has it that he wrote in the fall of his senior year on his landlady’s piano.

Gannon went on to a successful career as a lyricist, with some 200 popular songs to his name and three Academy Award nominations. Some of his more popular tunes include big-band standards “Moonlight Cocktail,” recorded in 1942 by Glenn Miller; “A Dreamer’s Holiday,” recorded in 1949 by Perry Como; and “I Understand,” recorded at different times by Nat King Cole, Dave Brubeck and Jimmy Dorsey.

– See more at: http://www.stlawu.edu/news/classic-christmas-song-gives-little-extra-st-lawrence#sthash.wDqBoG1O.dpuf