I just submitted this Letter to the Editor to the Tampa Tribune. Because it's just so tacky not to send a little thank you note.... (referencing this, btw.)
Dear Florida,
As a resident of Illinois, I just thought it would be rude of me not to pass along my heartfelt "thanks,” as well as that of my fellow Illinoisans.
When you elected Rick Scott, he promised to oppose President Obama's evil socialist agenda. And in February, he put his – I’m sorry: YOUR – money where his mouth was. The Federal Government tried to give you $2.4 billion to build a next generation high-speed rail corridor between Tampa, Orlando, and Miami. You know – the one that you voted for in a referendum all the way back in 2000. But your new governor stood up to Obama and said “NO!”
Thanks to him, and by proxy, to you (for electing him), most of that money was reallocated to build that corridor from St. Louis to Chicago instead of Tampa to Orlando It’s going to link two major economic centers in my region, and building and maintaining the infrastructure is going to create a whole buncha jobs in my state.
So seriously – thanks, folks. Electing Rick Scott was one of the nicest things you’ve ever done for me.
Updated by flowrider at Wed May 11, 2011 at 10:51 AM EDT
Check out bigtimecynic's rec'd diary for more on the various destinations of Florida's evil socialist high-speed rail money!
Updated by flowrider at Wed May 11, 2011 at 11:14 AM EDT
Dang, folks! You just can't post a diary bragging about your LTE writing, or any other activism, for that matter, without a thousand great suggestions on where ELSE it must be sent.... :-)
So I have now cc'd this baby to St. Pete, Miami, Tallahasee and Lakeland. And a friend of mine sent a great one to Orlando yesterday.
Now here's the fun part... Dan Savage said that people often email him asking stuff like why the the bi/trans/hispanic/deaf community isn't represented in "It Gets Better" videos. His response: "Okay... so make a video..."
In other words, on this particular issue, my out-of-state snark can only go so far...
If you live in Florida, you've gotta make sure people know that this is the cost of Tea Party governance. How many conservatives complain day in and day out that their tax money is being spent on frivolous crap? Well - this is $2.4 billion of their tax money, and the feds just wrote me and my state a big old check with it. So write your LTE's, write your congresspeoples, write your governor, write your conservative friends - pass this thing along!
Thanks for reading and for all the great comments. It's been a little while but perhaps I'm back from hiatus :-)