D.C. liberals apparently find it incongruous that 9/12 protestors were upset about Metro’s performance last weekend. After all, they argue, how can you say you’re against paying for big government and then complain when all that big government you were forced to pay for ends up being a lemon?
Umm…actually, that complaint makes perfect sense.
I don’t know how Metro did on Saturday — I only rode the train twice that day, very, very early and then well after dark. But if the 9/12 protestors are upset about the system’s performance, they have every right to complain. As federal taxpayers, they have poured billions into a system they usually don’t even get to use (most of them being from out of town), and apparently the system worked poorly when they tried to use it just once.
Those of us who live in the District — the fortunate ones whose daily commutes are subsidized heavily by taxpayers in Iowa and Maine — know that Metro is constantly demanding more money from taxpayers. And the more they get, the worse service they seem to provide. We are reminded of this fact as Metro employees and riders keep getting killed and gravely injured this year (not counting suicides) due to incompetence (e.g., texting and reading while driving, keeping bus drivers on the road even after they get into multiple, “preventable” crashes) and failure to perform basic maintenance in a timely fashion (see also MetroRail crash of 2009).
Over several years, Metro was paying up to $70 million in overtime annually, and with more than 400 hourly employees making over $100,000 per year under a padded union contract. Workers were also padding their pensions by gaming overtime (pensions are based on total earnings, not base salary), locking up tens of millions more annually.
Meanwhile, Metro let billions of dollars accrue in deferred maintenance. Metro defends the practice by pointing out that it segregates its budgets for compensation and maintenance. It does not address the real issue of why it would dedicate excessive money to the one budget and dramatically underfund the other.
No real business would ever agree with its union to an arrangment of dramatically overpaying employees and allowing capital to deteriorate so much. Well, except maybe for those two auto companies — you know, the ones that just went bankrupt and got a huge bailout from the federal government.
Speaking of which, tell me again why 9/12 protestors shouldn’t complain about Metro?
