Banks Crashing Almost As Much As LA's Trains ; Tax Scam On Ballot

Someone remarked about the current state of the banking industry in US, that it's a "train wreck;" here in Los Angeles they've become a more than frequent occurrence from the "death machines" more commonly known as Metrolink and MTA trains.

For some time, in an effort to physically stimulate the transit nerds among us – but more importantly create new job opportunities for LA’s politically connected but otherwise useless public works contracting industry – the Mayor has pushed for a significant sales tax increase to build the ever so important “subway to the sea” to mollify Music Center bound Westside cranks but ship the bill to folks in Palmdale, West Covina, Agoura and East LA.

Now, as more trains run into each other, buses, cars and people, Measure R goes to the ballot with the same lack of foresight and non-corruption as a number of other shady tax increases on the ballot. The Governor has signed off on the enabling legislation.

In the meantime, the County’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency, hungry for new cash, has created a marketing campaign designed to pass the measure despite that the fact it is illegal for a public agency to spend taxpayer funds on political activities. However given how corrupt the system is, how inept our law enforcement bureaucracy has become and the fact that with the economy in a shambles anything local is way under the radar, don’t expect any repercussions for his shady move by the MTA’s bosses.

The only hope now is that a majority of the voters are smart enough to realize that LA’s killing machine doesn’t need any more cash nor is it a smart move to raise their taxes in the middle of an economic crisis.