Smirk opens his mouth: about Michigan pot holes

http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/columns-1/1084202579159430.xml

State Democrats are a little steamed at some jesting "advice" President Bush made during his campaign appearance in Kalamazoo last week.

Bush, who was traveling by bus across southern Michigan, told the crowd: "Thank you all for taking time out to come by to say hello. I'm proud you're here. My only advice is fill the potholes."

Dems shot back with a press release from state Rep. Alexander Lipsey of Kalamazoo and state Rep. Julie Dennis of Muskegon saying the president's remark was "not very funny considering that Bush has proposed to slash federal highway funding for Michigan by $50 million per year."

The White House and Congress are jousting over the size of future highway and transit spending. The Bush administration is proposing spending $206.3 billion through 2009 which, according to road industry lobbyists, would be $10 billion less than needed to keep up with the projected rate of inflation.

"The president should be focused on helping to provide us with the resources we need -- not cutting them and then joking about it," Lipsey said.

Let's hope that the president's jarring ride through the state will give him more generous thoughts about federal road funds for Michigan.
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what a shit smirk is - goes to Mich. sucking up money for the election and badmouths the state. probably smirking the whole time.

somehow I can buy that one over the "war" president.

Now we have pResident Pothole--or should I say, pothead! :evilgrin:

:)-Lori

He IS one. That's not a brain in his skull. It's a pothole. That's all he is. A pothole with arms and legs.

I guess he didn't run his statements by Rove.

What a great guy.

He spoke at the Day of Silence festivities in Kalamazoo, and now he's speaking about this. Makes me pumped to have helped elect him.

-C

I hear Michigan has some sort of automobile industry...

:(

A while back some mayor told Bush that his main concern was keeping the potholes filled. Ever since then, Bush has milked this wherever he goes, thinking that it makes him look like a "regular" guy because he knows about potholes. It is kind of sad, really. The guy is really shallow.

It's Bush's standard speech wherever he goes. It's supposed to impress the local officials that he understands their problems.

It's very patronizing, typical Bush crap though. Guess it backfired this time.

in Florida when he came for the Nascar race....he said it about Clearwater.Tampa roads...this must be a line he plans on using often....

nt

Bush cannot even make a wisecrack without contradicting his actions. The guy must be cursed.

I drive I-94 all the time, from Jackson, Michigan all the way to Benton Harbor or even Detroit. The potholes ARE bad.

And he can make his little "local-yokel" jokes about the potholes, but real people are spending real money out of their minimum-wage paychecks to repair transmissions that get all fucked up on shitty roads and highways that state and local governments can't afford to fix because Bush fucked up the economy and the federal government won't fix because Bush has his head shoved so far up his ass he's using his belly button as a periscope.

I feel better now.

that should not have worn out as quickly as they did. And then there's the lady last week who's car was eaten by a sinkhole. Yeah, real funny.

Thanks, Giovanni - I needed that this morning. "...head shoved so far up his ass he's using his belly button as a periscope." I'm going to spread that one around a LOT.

I really needed that this morning. Badly. I feel a little better now. At least it helped me stop crying.

Yeah, granted, his cuts in fed highway funding hasn't helped, but somebody getting all steamed because some "outlander" says "Geez, you people oughta DO something abought these roads of yours" is like a Hoosier getting steamed about corn jokes...

You should get all your ducks in a row, now excuse me while I chase your ducks around the yard.

You should count your eggs before they hatch, now excuse me while I chuck a few eggs into this field.

You should patch your roof when its not raining, now give me those tools.

Getting the picture yet? Yes, Michigan roads bad. Not getting any better when he takes the money away to fix them.

We have huge, heavy trucks, especially on I-94, making the trip from Canada or Detroit to places like Chicago and beyond and they tear the roads up something fierce. And before Chimpy was sworn in, we had Governor Engler, who also had HIS head shoved up his ass. But things have gotten noticably worse in the last few years, and a lack of road/highway funding is a large reason why.

Lowest bidder means you get what you pay for.

When Blanchard (and all governors before him, repub or dem) was governor, the DOT had road crews and unionized employees. They also bought better materials to do the work.

Privatization always looks cost effective on paper, but it isn't in reality. If you have to redo everything the cheap guys do, it doubles the expense.

How long have they been building the 1-96 connector south of Grand Rapids? I heard that a little over a year ago, they had to take down and rebuild the ramps on the Hudsonville side of it because they had used such a poor grade of cement that there was fear of collapse once it opened to traffic.

The winters were hell on the highways.

Engler cluster F-ed the fixing of our roads. He paniced in the face of an angry mob and ordered up a horrible job of it.

He was in Western New York a few weeks back and did the same thing. His humor is very degrading. Bad humor tells a lot about a person.

Steroids. Chuckholes. Fuck you George! If you lived here, maybe you'd have a little more compassion for the folks who have to travel on our shitty roads. I go 60 miles a day over some of the crappiest roads this side of Kabul!

shrub et al provide lots of ammo...

any WMDs here? well maybe under here?

yah i put in my time

well i wish i could think of an answer but with all this pressure I just can't

fixing the short road that runs down the side of my house (I live on a corner). It has literally been a rocky shambles for NINE YEARS with pits that are Hell-deep. The freeze/thaw cycle absolutely destroys roads up here. Normally, I'd be thrilled that they've finally ripped it up and are preparing to lay down a new one. But I know for a fact that this repair means that somewhere in Michigan, children are starving, or a classroom doesn't have the books it needs, or a senior citizen doesn't have an aide, just so my neighbors and I can drive down this short little road without destroying our cars. Rotten trade-off if you ask me.

when they are almost finished cleaning out treasury



O8)

I think we should all get to work on creating more. Sure it's a rough ride to work in the morning, but I think we'll all learned to dodge them pretty well.

They're so bad, even an idiot notices!!! Seriously, this state has some of the worst roads around.

Broken cars mean you buy more cars. We also have the worst public transportation system around. Making sense yet?

selling all those replacement parts for those broken cars - what's not to understand? ;-) They don't call it designed obsolescence for nothing!