Obama’s pick for transportation secretary, outgoing Illinois Represenative Ray LaHood, was a surprise, since the early rumors focused on liberals from large urban areas such as San Francisco or Portland. Instead, LaHood is a Republican representing Peoria, whose urbanized area population is only about a quarter million people.
Not counting Defense Secretary Gates (who considers himself Republican but is not registered in any political party), LaHood will be the token Republican in Obama’s cabinet, just as Norman Mineta was the token Democrat in Bush’s first cabinet. Though LaHood has called himself a “true conservative” — which could mean just about anything — he is highly praised by liberals such as Mark Shields.
In particular, as a member of the Illinois congressional delegation, LaHood is close to both Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, and is particularly known for his bipartisanship. As a former member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (the largest, most pork-laden committee in the history of Congress), LaHood has supported Amtrak and is not averse to using earmarks.
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LaHood’s resume includes degrees in education and sociology. But after graduating in 1971 he worked for the Bi-State Regional Planning Commission (Davenport, Iowa and Rock Island, Illinois). Since 1977, he has either worked for other politicians or been in elective office. Hard-core conservatives would point out that LaHood has never worked in the private sector in any capacity.
Not having any big cities in his district, LaHood does not have a history of supporting rail transit. But most observers agree that Obama plans to use transportation spending in a likely futile effort to stimulate the economy. Friends of the Earth frets that the “highway lobby” is going to “hijack” this stimulus package, and at least some liberals are not happy with Obama’s choice.
But supporters of cost-efficient transportation policies should not get their hopes up: LaHood is likely to follow whatever preconceived notions Obama has about the roads vs. rails issue, no matter how ill-advised they are. As one inside-the-beltway notes, “those of us who follow Congress closely know that the words ‘cost-effective government’ and ‘Ray LaHood’ have never appeared in the same sentence.”
Love me some change.
Here we have the first evidence of the influence of Rahm Emmanuel.
Though IMO, Chicago, Illinois has one of the better metropolitan-wide systems of (generally free) freeways in Cook County (with the exception of the I-90 Chicago Skyway, which the municipal government of Chicago privatized in the form of a long-term lease to the private sector) and generally tolled freeways in the suburban counties. And the toll road system has been expanded over the years, most recently in the form of the I-355 North-South Tollway (in spite of vigorous opposition from the Sierra Club and Illinois Smart Growth groups as Wendell Cox documented here).
And in spite of well-known corruption at the state and local government levels of Illinois, the Chicago-area highway network compares favorably with cities such as New York and Washington, D.C.
ROT:Friends of the Earth frets that the “highway lobby†is going to “hijack†this stimulus package.
THWM: Friends of the Earth are correct here.
We don’t need more money spent on pork.
So another cabinet post filled by someone unlikely to bring about change?
prk166 Says: So another cabinet post filled by someone unlikely to bring about change?
THWM: Though ROT’s objective is to maintain the highway lobby’s status quo at all costs.
“THWM: Though ROT’s objective is to maintain the highway lobby’s status quo at all costs.”
That could be but I haven’t seen any posts where he states this. Did I miss them?
You just have to follow the money to figure it out.
“You just have to follow the money to figure it out.”
What does that mean? Examples, please.
Sorry MJ, do your own home work!
prk166 Says: So another cabinet post filled by someone unlikely to bring about change?
THWM: Though what kind of change, for the better(restoring more transit & rail lines) or for the worse(more pork roads)?