We Need To Invest In Public Transit…For The Veterans!
You’ve all heard of the “for the children” gimmick, right? It’s where some politician cloaks their policy agenda in the imagery of helping children so that anyone opposed to said agenda can, by extension, be accused of not wanting to help little kids.
Nationalizing health care is for the children, etc., etc.
Well politicians use a lot of variations of that gimmick. Things are for the elderly or for the middle class. Because who doesn’t want to help the elderly and/or the middle class? But Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood, on his official blog, is stretching the meme a little thin suggesting that public transportation investments (read: federal deficit spending) are being made for veterans.
“Every service member who returns home or relocates to a new community should have a reliable ride to earn a reliable paycheck,” Federal Transit Administration Administrator Peter Rogoff is quoted as saying. “Military families and veterans must be able to take full advantage of the transportation resources in their communities.”
Forget about questioning the wisdom of public transportation of policy. Forget questions about efficiency, reliability and expense. By saying that every veteran is entitled to public transportation, if you question public transportation policy then by extension you hate veterans.
What’s sad is just how effective this stuff is.