EmX doesn't really cost money, cuz its federal

On Sunday, Andy Vobora, a spokesman for the Lane Transit District wrote in the Register-Guard that the cost of new EmX bus station at Gateway was only $2 million and, most importantly, none of it was local money. It was being paid for by the federal government.

It's true in the sense intended, that the local transit budget is not being drained for pay for construction. But, just as all politics is local, so are excise taxes, and the federal dollars provided for mass transit are due to some driver filling up at some gas station. Or more accurately, it's a penny each from 200 million drivers, none of whom is specifically aware of the fact.

The same newspaper editorialized earlier that the impact of RideShare, which is LTD's program to provide public transit services to people who can't ride buses, should not fall on local taxpayers, even though the disabled are Lane County residents. Since the federal government noted the problem and required a solution, the argument goes, they should pay for it.

A reasonable idea on the assumption that the feds have unlimited cash. That seems to be the popular belief. It underlies the notion that we can run a trillion dollar deficit and it won't matter. The LTD money is a little different, since it comes from a designated source, but in fact that source is rapidly running out of cash. The treasury overall is broke and borrowing madly to cover Iraq and Wall Street, stealing the money that Social Security will need in future years for current consumption.

Foreigners are not amused. Which is too bad because we need $2 billion daily from them to stay afloat. The US dollar is in decline, and it has a lot farther to fall.