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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (19017)	5/17/2006 4:51:26 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543487

Speaking of Texas: Texas could accelerate to 80 mph By Larry Copeland USA TODAY Wed May 17, 7:01 AM ET The nation's top legal driving speed soon could rise to a long-forbidden 80 mph as Texas moves toward increasing the limit on parts of two interstate highways. The proposed increase on Interstates 10 and 20 in West Texas is opposed by some national traffic safety advocates, who say speed contributes to many crashes. "That's not good news for safety," says Richard Retting, senior transportation engineer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an industry group. "When states raise speed limits, they're trading lives for faster travel times." But a study by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) found that 85% of drivers on the affected highways already drive 76-79 mph, says Carlos Lopez, the agency's traffic operations chief. TxDOT has been studying the proposal since the Legislature last year authorized increasing the speed limit from 70 or 75 to 80 mph in 10 mostly rural counties. The five-member Texas Transportation Commission, which has the final say, is expected to consider the proposal May 25, TxDOT spokesman Mike Cox says. If it approves, the new speed limit would be posted within a week. "Our folks are working right now on fabricating signs," Lopez says. The move comes amid soaring gas prices. The Department of Energy says that gas mileage drops sharply at speeds over 60 mph, and that drivers can assume that each 5 mph over 60 is like paying an additional 20 cents per gallon of gas. American drivers have not seen a "Speed Limit 80" sign in more than three decades. The Kansas Turnpike had an 80-mph limit beginning in 1956, and Nevada and Montana had no numeric limits on some rural highways at times in the past. In 1974, Congress instituted a national 55-mph limit, which it lifted in 1995. States now set speed limits, even on federal highways. Thirteen states in the West and Midwest have 75-mph limits. Some Texas officials oppose higher limits. "If the speed limit is raised to 80, everybody is going to be doing 85 or 90," says Hudspeth County Judge Becky Dean-Walker, the top elected official in one county facing the move to 80. "That's just human nature."

To: Dale Baker who wrote (19017)	5/17/2006 4:55:41 PM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 543487

i have to go back to those running this year are local elections. folks may not like the way the country is being run but that doesn't mean they do not like their senator or representative. of course we through a bunch here in pa. those who voted themselves a huge pay raise in the middle of the night. some long time conservatives are now out in the street.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (19017)	5/17/2006 5:02:52 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543487

The critique Bush is getting from the Right is that he's not far enough to the Right.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (19017)	5/17/2006 5:02:55 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543487

People want "another direction" and they think they want solutions to the problems the US faces, but they don't really. Solutions to our nations problems are going to entail some pain. We need to pay more for infrastructure, and we desperately need to jump start our education system to promote math and science - so we have the engineers we need for the future. We need to do something about health care, before it swallows the rest of the economy, and we need to PAY for the things we want- which either means we need to want less, or we need to pay more. We need to pay less for pork- which congressmen and women just can't seem to do. We have a war in Iraq that we aren't going to get out of easily. We have a crisis WRT international goodwill. I suspect we'll soon enter a period of even greater inflation, due to competition with China and India for resources. There is no way a "good leader" could make the solutions to these things sound palatable, and the American people probably can't vote for anyone who tells them a painful truth- which is why the American people get such pitiful leaders. The problems the US faces will take years to solve, and bipartisan commitment - because we need to stay some sort of sensible economic course to get our house in order, and with the presidency potentially changing every 4 years, and congress potentially changing sooner, we don't have the stability we probably need to make the profound changes which would set America on a more stable fiscal and social course. I think even if we had someone get us started (which I don't think we will) the minute the measures we would need to implement started to bite, another administration would come in and scuttle the program.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (19017)	5/17/2006 5:07:23 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543487

I don't see any way that someone could stand up and say I am as conservative as Bush or moreso and I want your vote and get 51% tomorrow No argument from me. So I am inferring that this large majority wanting another direction are looking back toward the center. I think you have to infer that about a third of them are die-hard traditional conservatives, the ones who are complaining now about his immigration plan, which is quite centrist . And then there are the cats and dogs like me who always want a different direction, some other different direction, in my case a libertarian one, which ain't the center, either. If you want to call what's left a "large majority," I won't make a big deal out of it. <g>