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Today the President announced the nomination of Mary Peters, "an advocate of user fees, or tolls, for building new highways". In a recent interview Peters was quoted as saying "You just can't depend on the federal government to bring the money in that was around when the interstate system was first built." Higher and higher user fees will be part of price we all must pay to provide the rich with more tax-cuts. The other price will be more impoverishing. Our interstate highway system will, bit-by-bit, be privatized and the enormous investment we funded over the years with our tax dollars will be handed over to private intestests at a deeply discounted value.
The same this is happening with our National Parks.
The same thing is happening with our public education.
The same thing is happening across the board.
The appointment of yet another free-market ideologue to a Cabinet position represents the next step in the Corporate Takeover of Everything.
SEE RELATED: Moving Down the Privatization Tollroad
Scott
"The most predominant problem we have today is capacity and
congestion," says Federal Highway Administrator Mary E. Peters. "One of
the ways to deal with that is to bring the . . . market-based economy
into this equation and determine where the private sector may be
willing to invest." - Mary E. Peters
PS... For those who'd like to see the DIRECT ANALOGY between the specific actions bringing about the privatization of our National Parks and the specific actions that will bring about the privatization of our National Highways, I offer up the following weblink. It will take you to a brief description of the book Street Smarts: Competition, Entrepreneurship, and the Future of Roads --- a book for which Mary Peters has provided the foreword. The privatization tools and techniques she will bring to our Highway System are the privatization tools and techniques that are destroying so much of what once was good in America.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4164010.html
Sept. 5, 2006
Bush Makes Transportation Secretary Pick
By DEB RIECHMANN - Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — President Bush has chosen Mary Peters, a former federal
highway administrator, to succeed Norman Mineta as secretary of
transportation, a senior administration official said Tuesday.
Bush was to announce his choice in the Roosevelt Room of the White House later in the day.
Peters spent three years directing the Arizona Department of
Transportation, where she worked her way up through the ranks during a
16-year career there. Since November, Peters has been national director
for transportation policy and consulting in the Phoenix office of
Omaha-based architectural, engineering and consulting firm HDR Inc.,
according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because
the official announcement had not been made.
Peters, who was chief of the Federal Highway Administration from 2001
to 2005, fills a Cabinet seat left open when Mineta left the job in
July after six years on the job. Bush wanted to announce his choice as
the Senate returned from its August recess so the confirmation process
could begin.
Peters is an advocate of user fees, or tolls, for building new
highways. In a recent interview, she said that the federal highway
program will run out of money by decade's end without substantial
changes and, rather than raise taxes, some states are turning to toll
roads already to fill gaps.
"You just can't depend on the federal government to bring the money in
that was around when the interstate system was first built," Peters
said.
A year ago, there was speculation that Peters would be a GOP candidate
for governor of Arizona. She said then that while she believed she
would have been a strong candidate, and was eligible to run despite
having lived in Virginia, the issue would have been a distraction from
the race.
Peters spent four years in the Washington serving in the Bush
administration as head of the Federal Highway Administration. Peters
registered to vote in Virginia but she has said repeatedly she always
intended to return to Arizona after her federal service.
Peters said then that while she believed she could have made a solid
case to prove her eligibility to run for governor, the issue would have
been a costly and time-consuming distraction. A constitutional
provision requires candidates to have been Arizona "citizens" five
years before the election.
Mineta was the only Democrat in Bush's Cabinet. There had been
speculation for years that he was on the verge of quitting, sometimes
because of his health and sometimes because or rumors about a cabinet
shake-up. Instead, Mineta became the longest-serving transportation
secretary since the department was formed in 1967.
After the Sept. 11 hijackings, Mineta oversaw the hasty creation of the
much-maligned Transportation Security Administration, which took over
responsibility for aviation security from the airlines.
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