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While we wait to see if the CTA will indeed make good on its threat to raise fares and cut services in an attempt to close a budget gap numbering in the hundreds of millions of dollars, at least one high-ranking government official is ready to do his part. With the RTA already supporting such a measure, Gov. Pat Quinn is also giving some thought to repealing the free CTA rides for senior programs infamously instituted by then-governor Rod Blagojevich. Speaking to WGN Radio today, Quinn supported the idea of reviewing program and possibly altering it to offer free rides to veterans, active military, and seniors whose income falls below a certain threshold. Said Quinn:
“If there’s a review and it finds the program should be based on ability to pay, that low-income seniors and definitely veterans and also our military personnel receive a break with respect to public transit, I think that’s where we’re headed...And under a crisis, sometimes, that’s what you have to do. If you are wealthy, then maybe you can make do with the…situation where you pay your way. But I don’t want to hurt folks who live from pension check to pension check."
Joining the CTA in proposing higher fares for 2010, Metra unveiled plans for their own hike; the last time Metra raised fares was in 2008. One-way fares would be raised by six percent while weekend fares would increase from $5 to $7. The biggest increase will come with the surcharge for those who purchase tickets on the train instead of at the station: from $2 to $5. This new hike, though, will apply only to stops where tickets are available at the station.
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Don't be timid, governor. Just scrap the whole program.
Can we stop with all the -pocalypses, please? It's 2009, not 2012.
God, what a spineless jellyfish Quinn is turning out to be. I can't stand these politicos who hide behind the military and more freebies for our beloved stormtroopers as cover.
I'm sorry you had to go to Iraq and get your head blown in, here's a free bus pass. Maybe if you hadn't graduated at the bottom of your class in high school you'd still have all your extremities Sgt.
Whatever, this is all a big show an they'll end up splitting the difference and making us feel grateful for avoiding another "DOOMSDAY".
This isn't the first time I've thought it but it'll be the first time I write it: You sir/ma'am are an asshole.
Please, tell me how much you "support our troops" and "honor their service"
The militarism and violence fetish Americans have is antithetical to democracy. I'm glad to be that kind of asshole.
Wow. Way to completely undermine what might have been a good point with a gross generalization that has almost no bearing in fact. You've been reading too many Masked Marauder posts.
I hate like hell that our military fights on behalf of ungrateful chicken-shit cowards like yourself.
You have a child's view of the military. You think that the war in Afghanistan is about "protecting freedom"? Horseshit. It's bout Oil. Iraq? Oil. The last time we were in Iraq? Oil. Wars to sustain our economic hegemony, wars about keeping the cars cheap and the rocks in your scotch.
You want to differentiate between the people who order the men to war and the people who do the killing? Tell that to the 85,000 or so dead Iraqis. I'm sure their loved ones will enjoy your moral abstraction.
Soldiers, sailors, murderers, thugs. A society that glorifies militarism is one in decline.
You have a child's view of the military.
Well, you condescending little prick, you're right. I do have a child's view of the military, because as a child, I watched my dad go away overseas for a year at a time. I watched moving vans full of our belongings pulling away from one house to drive to another. I listened to my mother's fears about my dad's well being. And I saw my dad serve his country for 20+ years with pride and love of country.
I don't think you understand what any of that means.
And my Canadian girlfriend is really really hot. Pull the other one son.
I pretty much agree with your sentiment here but why'd you have to make such a sweeping, classist, and incorrect statement regarding education? I've known enough people who've been in and out of the military to no that's not true.
Anyway, I too am sick of "the troops" being seen as sacred cows.
*"know" that is.
Maybe if you hadn't graduated at the bottom of your class in high school you'd still have all your extremities Sgt.
My god, you are an ignorant piece of shit. Have you even known anyone in the military, including NCOs?
Go fuck yourself, you whiny useless person.
Oh Bertha, did your imaginary Dad travel around with the Marines when you were a little (well, relatively) girl?
People who sign up for the military sign up to kill people. The allure of a free education, discipline, skills, all very nice. The modern military is about defendind strategic petroleum, and soon water, reserves. The illusion that it is a defensive force or, laughably, about peace-keeping, is one of the finest scams in American politics. Bunker-busers and aerial drones are all about nation-building.
Our army is all about killing people who have the grave misfortune of being born brown, poor and near things we need.
If the military is all about saving lives and building nations wither Darfur? Oh, no oil? Fuck them.
Volunteering to be a part of a thug brigade for Gangster Capitalism isn't some holy duty worthy of respect. It's a sad statement on just how ill-educated even our cannon fodder is these days.
No, you fucking asshole, you simply tossed out a propaganda point with no factual support. Based on your bullshit statement, is is clear that 1) you know, at best, a handful of people who've been in the military; 2) you have no knowledge of military recruitment and personnel data.
You implied that people in the military are dolts. You are the fucking dolt, as usual. This has nothing to do with politics--you are, as usual, trying to focus attention away from your bullshit--but rather your smear against a group of people.
Assumptions and stereotypes are not substitutes for thinking, you worthless half-wit.
Tell you what, cowgirl: Next time to see a member of the military, share your goddamn theories with him or her.
What, you don't have the guts to do so? Just what I thought.
Re: Politics and military fighting for oil, water, etc.
Societies fight over limited resources all the time. You are part of this process whether you like it or not (I assume you consume goods transported across the oceans, which means trade routes protected by our forces.)
Put down the cheap Leftism for Dummies shit and stop pretending that reality, and human nature, doesn't apply to you.
Or, go live in a fucking hut with the brown people you pretend to care about so much.
"Volunteering to be a part of a thug brigade for Gangster Capitalism isn't some holy duty worthy of respect"
Really nice use of buzz words that clearly come from others, by the way. What, you aren't smart enough to come up with your own descriptions? Seriously, "thug brigade?" What silly comic book did you dredge that one from?
Seems you are even dumber than the cannon fodder.
Jess,
"...Maybe if you hadn't graduated at the bottom of your class in high school you'd still have all your extremities Sgt."
Don't be a jerk and overgeneralize. That's like me saying you're fat and stupid.
I volunteer at the VA. I despise the current wars as one of the more tragic events we've been through. I wouldn't piss on Rumsfeld and company if they were on fire.
I would never in a million years knock any one who serves as being stupid. Yeah, "hero" is a term being thrown around too lightly for everyone who puts on the uniform, but that's two+ years of their lives that they give up to their country for whatever reason. Because they do that, I don't have to be drafted.
Oh I want a draft. I want a real, no hiding, no exemptions for flat feet (Limbaugh, Cheney and the rest) or other bullshit, draft.
I want people to see their loved ones mauled and mangled. I want it to be spread up and down the economic spectrum. Right now you have a poverty draft. The officers come from the educated while the poor and ill-educated make out the fodder.
No, get some of those middle-class zombie kids in uniform and dropped into a warzone. Let the helicopter parents see Tyler or Jaden come home without a leg or with permanent nerve damage or some wonderfully exotic infection that leaves him paralyzed.
Maybe some shock therapy will cure Americans of this addiction of cheap and easy war.
OK, I'll attempt to re-focus this discussion back to the issue at hand...whether the legislature and governor should repeal the "free rides for seniors" progam.
I agree that he should just do away with the free rides altogether. I'd bet that most of the free rides are taken by "lower income seniors" anyway, so I don't know that we would acheive the savings we are looking for by allowing "lower income seniors" to continue to ride for free. They can resume paying the discounted rate...which they did for years without complaint.
As for active military, I don't see too many soldiers on the CTA anyway, so it probably won't cost much to let them ride for free. Besides, it would be a nice gesture of gratitude to people who are willing to put their lives on the line for us.
"Besides, it would be a nice gesture of gratitude to people who are willing to put their lives on the line for us."
Thank you boys for liberating Tikrit for me! Now I have somewhere to store all my tennis equipment!
Really, when do we start giving Halliburton employees and other mercenaries discounts?
Jess, I agree with you as far as it goes for chickenhawks and all the bullshit they've dug us into, and the military industrial complex and the horrors perpetrated on others, by the thousands. And that a lot of poorer people end up in the military. Yep, all bullshit. All of it.
But here's the thing. You say "I want people to see their loved ones mauled and mangled.". I say get rid of the scum that run our country that sent them over in the first place. What do you think is the better way? Tell me how I'm wrong.
You're pissed, and I get that - I am too. When I see some kid, 10 years younger than me, fucked up for life because of George Bush it makes me ill. All I can say is I'm sorry, but Bush got elected twice and picked Rumsfeld and Cheney...you know the drill.
So instead of jumping all over people for expressing their gratitude for US soldiers, and how stupid and simplistic they allegedly are, let's talk about guys like Quinn who are the real root of the problem? Democrat or Republican, they're all bought and paid for. I can listen to you rant and rail, but others are going to turn you off in a hurry. Maybe their protected and complacent, and I can't stand it either but I don't wish harm on anyone to make a point.