Mike Castle’s 100 Days
From Americans United for Change:
“In the first 100 days of this historic presidency, as the country faced the toughest economic challenges in decades, Congressman Castle issued a chorus of “NOs” showing the people of Delaware who he truly represents: The party of Rush Limbaugh,” said Tom McMahon, acting director of Americans United for Change. “Congressman Castle had a chance to take part in the most transformational start to a Congressional session that this country has ever seen, setting the stage for quality, affordable health care, a clean energy future, and real economic recovery. Instead of working with President Obama, Mike Castle chose to stand with his conservative allies and act as a roadblock – or at least a speedbump – on the path to long-term economic growth.”
NO to the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will create or save more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years and provide tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans.
NO to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which ensures equal pay for equal work by protecting more women from wage discrimination.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROJECTS
NO to $400,000 to hire construction workers, building contractors and landscape architects to restore and build a permanent home for Lewes’ historic Lightship Overfalls, a tourist attraction and driver of economic development
NO to $10.9 million to make Delaware safer by hiring and equipping new law enforcement officers, such as boosting patrols in high-crime neighborhoods in Dover and hiring three new officers in Smyrna.
NO to $140 million and thousands of new jobs for projects including restoration of the Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk, two new E-Z Pass lanes at the 1-95 toll plaza in Newark, a new transit hub in Dover and creating 1,200 jobs paving, repairing and building roads other roads statewide, including, specifically, the following:
• Dover Transit Center. Build the first phase of a DART transit center on five acres on Water Street between Queen and West streets, two blocks west of an outmoded existing facility. $5.7 million.
• Replacement of deteriorating concrete medians along I-95. $1.2 million
• Old Lancaster Pike streetscape and drainage project, Hockessin. Install or improve sidewalks, curb ramps, decorative street lighting, crosswalks and landscaping along Old Lancaster Pike from Valley Road to Erickson Drive. $3.5 million.
• Centreville streetscape/ traffic calming. Replace temporary traffic calming features with permanent ones, including a roundabout at Center Meeting and Snuff Mill roads. $3.7 million
• Guardrail improvements, New Castle County. $1.2 million
• Rail cars, New Castle County. Would allow DelDOT’s Delaware Transit Corp., to buy four new Silverliner V rail cars from the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority to increase capacity for SEPTA service between Philadelphia and Newark. $8 million
• Buses, Sussex County. Part of a statewide program intended to replace road-worn buses with new ones. $1.9 million.
• DART Mid-County Facility, New Castle County. Construct six maintenance bays and parts storage for fixed route and paratransit buses. The maintenance facility is at Del. 1 and Del. 72. $7.2 million.
• Rehabilitation of epoxy pavement markings along several roadways to meet federal reflectivity requirements. $2 million, to be completed if more stimulus money becomes available.
• Newton Road railroad crossing, Bridgeville. Add gates and cantilever lights and controller and replace pre-cast concrete surface. $400,000, to be completed if more stimulus money becomes available.
NO to $38 million to help make Delaware homes and businesses more energy efficient through projects such as manufacture and installation of solar panels
CHILDREN AND HEALTH SERVICES
NO to $4.5 million to expand and improve childcare for Delaware’s children
NO to $664,808 to vaccinate Delaware’s children
NO to 62,000 Delaware children whose families are aided by the child tax credit
NO to $933,000 to preserve health care jobs and serve 5,207 new patients including 3,303 newly uninsured.
EDUCATION
NO to an increase of $2.5 million for Delaware’s elementary and secondary schools
NO to providing Pell Grants to help 451 more Delaware students to pay for college and increasing the average Pell Grant by $113
JOBS AND WORKING FAMILIES
NO to ensuring equal pay to the 195,115 working women in Delaware
NO to help for 62,458 struggling, unemployed Delaware workers
NO to tax credits for 335,000 Delaware workers of up to $400
NO to cutting taxes by $379 a year for the average Delawarean
NO to increasing food stamp benefits by $46 for 86,000 struggling Delawareans
ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
NO to 1.9 billion for Delaware over 10 years from reducing global warming emissions and requiring polluters to pay for allowances to pollute
NO to saving Delaware taxpayers $90 million by ending subsidies to Big Oil companies
NO to $9.8 million to reduce water pollution and ensure clean drinking water in Delaware.
Great ad!
NO to the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will create or save more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years and provide tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans.
There is no evidence 3.5 million jobs will be created or saved-none. Taxes are going up for those who pay taxes.
NO to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which ensures equal pay for equal work by protecting more women from wage discrimination.
There has been Federal Law for almost 50 years protecting Equal Pay, the Ledbetter Act went beyond that statute of limitations and brought in punitive measures which had nothing to do with Ms. Ledbetter.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROJECTS
NO to $400,000 to hire construction workers, building contractors and landscape architects to restore and build a permanent home for Lewes’ historic Lightship Overfalls, a tourist attraction and driver of economic development
Who cares about a Lightship?
NO to $10.9 million to make Delaware safer by hiring and equipping new law enforcement officers, such as boosting patrols in high-crime neighborhoods in Dover and hiring three new officers in Smyrna.
Why didn’t Governor Minner and Carper do something about this problem?
NO to $140 million and thousands of new jobs for projects including restoration of the Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk, two new E-Z Pass lanes at the 1-95 toll plaza in Newark, a new transit hub in Dover and creating 1,200 jobs paving, repairing and building roads other roads statewide, including, specifically, the following:
The Transportation Trust Fund was robbed by two successive Democratic administrations. If they had been honest there would have been more money for worthwhile projects.
• Dover Transit Center. Build the first phase of a DART transit center on five acres on Water Street between Queen and West streets, two blocks west of an outmoded existing facility. $5.7 million.
• Replacement of deteriorating concrete medians along I-95. $1.2 million
• Old Lancaster Pike streetscape and drainage project, Hockessin. Install or improve sidewalks, curb ramps, decorative street lighting, crosswalks and landscaping along Old Lancaster Pike from Valley Road to Erickson Drive. $3.5 million.
• Centreville streetscape/ traffic calming. Replace temporary traffic calming features with permanent ones, including a roundabout at Center Meeting and Snuff Mill roads. $3.7 million
• Guardrail improvements, New Castle County. $1.2 million
• Rail cars, New Castle County. Would allow DelDOT’s Delaware Transit Corp., to buy four new Silverliner V rail cars from the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority to increase capacity for SEPTA service between Philadelphia and Newark. $8 million
• Buses, Sussex County. Part of a statewide program intended to replace road-worn buses with new ones. $1.9 million.
• DART Mid-County Facility, New Castle County. Construct six maintenance bays and parts storage for fixed route and paratransit buses. The maintenance facility is at Del. 1 and Del. 72. $7.2 million.
• Rehabilitation of epoxy pavement markings along several roadways to meet federal reflectivity requirements. $2 million, to be completed if more stimulus money becomes available.
• Newton Road railroad crossing, Bridgeville. Add gates and cantilever lights and controller and replace pre-cast concrete surface. $400,000, to be completed if more stimulus money becomes available.
None of the above is necessary for Delaware.
NO to $38 million to help make Delaware homes and businesses more energy efficient through projects such as manufacture and installation of solar panels
Delaware has incentives in place which are not being fully utitlized.
CHILDREN AND HEALTH SERVICES
NO to $4.5 million to expand and improve childcare for Delaware’s children
NO to $664,808 to vaccinate Delaware’s children
NO to 62,000 Delaware children whose families are aided by the child tax credit
NO to $933,000 to preserve health care jobs and serve 5,207 new patients including 3,303 newly uninsured.
The above numbers are pure speculation and based on wishful thinking.
EDUCATION
NO to an increase of $2.5 million for Delaware’s elementary and secondary schools
NO to providing Pell Grants to help 451 more Delaware students to pay for college and increasing the average Pell Grant by $113
Delaware is in the top 10 for spending and the bottom 10 for results, money is not the problem it is how we spend it.
JOBS AND WORKING FAMILIES
NO to ensuring equal pay to the 195,115 working women in Delaware
NO to help for 62,458 struggling, unemployed Delaware workers
NO to tax credits for 335,000 Delaware workers of up to $400
NO to cutting taxes by $379 a year for the average Delawarean
NO to increasing food stamp benefits by $46 for 86,000 struggling Delawareans
There exists law for equal pay, there is 6 months of unemployment insurance, tac checks for those who don’t pay taxes is fraud.
Sorry but endless government money does not solve anything, Pres Bush tried it and came up short and Obama is doubling down and will have worse results.
Sorry but endless tax cuts for the rich does not solve anything, Pres Bush tried it and came up worst president ever.
Fixed
Am I the only person who is just delighted that Protack just wrote all of this down? Forever — on the Internets?
I know. Hahaha.
Rush Limbaugh. Michael Savage. Glenn Beck. Bill O’Reilly. Sean Hannity. Ricky Jenson. Has it occurred to anyone that FM talk radio, a bastion of conservative “talk”, spewing militias, regiments, violence, anti-gay, anti-women, anti civil rights, anti black, anti social rhetoric is either now completely irrelevant to the average American or actually helping the democrats soldify their base? If conservative talk was relavent to anyone not living in a trailer park or RV, how did the republicans get killed in the last two elections? If conservative talk show hosts had any real impact on how people thought – or voted – that wouldn’t happen. Today, only 21% of Americans identify themselves as republicans. Could it be that FM talk radio has actually helped lead the move away from the GOP with their hateful oratory? Maybe we don’t need the fairness doctrine after all. Americans have moved to the center and rejected right wing ideology and social issues. Radio will move with it or continue to preach to an ever diminishing choir.
Ceding the leadership of their party to the talk radio crew, the GOP leaves itself in the hands of the hands of people primary objective is in getting ratings. The talk radio crowd could not give a damn about policy, governing, electoral politics or any of the real civic business. They are completely at the mercy of the folks who need to get paid for what they say, and get paid for being completely outrageous.
The business of building Arbitron ratings is way different than asking for votes.
Uh, dude…it’s AM radio, not FM, that devotes itself to talk.
The Protack responses are incredibly weak. “None of the above is necessary for Delaware.”
And that describes the “new direction” Protack wants for the GOP — we’ll pay for nothing we deem “not necessary,” even if it’s just federal money we’re spending.
Here’s a quick reality check for you, Mike: There are about 15,000 knuckle-dragging savior-huggers out there who’ll back you because you stand up for zygotes (you’re about as sharp as one, too). Everyone with any more brains than that takes one look at how bravely you carried the Independent Party banner — I still can’t believe what a narcissistic ass you were towards them — and sees a guy who doesn’t even have the courage of his goofball convictions.
To quote Yukon Cornelius: “Even among misfits, you’re a misfit.” Do us all a favor and go Galt.
Oh good, Geezer — give the guy a new spam name: Going Galt for the GOP.
Well, Castle has said YES to 7 years of victory in afghanistan.