Ronald Utt, Ph.D.
Heritage.org
WebMemo #2536
7/10/2009
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood remarked in May that his livability initiative “is a way to coerce people out of their cars.” When asked if this was government intrusion into people’s lives, LaHood responded that “about everything we do around here is government intrusion in people’s lives,” a sentiment that would have certainly surprised the authors of the United States Constitution, a document whose major purpose was to restrain government.
LaHood’s endorsement of government coercion comes as no surprise to those who have been tracking the Obama Administration’s incremental endorsements of the environmentalists’ smart growth strategies to slow growth, crowd development, and deter automobile use. And with LaHood’s most recent presentation, the Administration has formally embarked on an unprecedented and costly exercise in social engineering to alter the way Americans live and travel.
Getting the Facts Wrong
In justifying the necessity of coercing Americans out of their cars, LaHood added that “people don’t like spending an hour and a half getting to work. And people don’t like spending an hour going to the grocery store.” For LaHood, these exaggerations justify a new federal transportation policy in which “we have to create opportunities for people that do want to use a bicycle or want to walk or want to get on a street car or want to ride light rail.” Yet as the record reveals, LaHood’s statement is replete with errors and inaccuracies…
The article continues at Heritage.org
