Hutchison Can Find All The Distance She Wants, But Her Record Speaks For Itself

Living in Virginia, it has to be hard to keep your finger on the pulse of Texas voters.

That must be why it’s taken so long for U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison to try and “distance” herself from the Trans Texas Corridor.

Her record, however, speaks for itself: In the U.S. Senate, she voted for bills to allow state toll roads and projects like the Trans Texas Corridor to gobble up miles and miles of land and result in double and triple taxation of citizens.

Here’s more:

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, apparently trying to distance herself from Gov. Rick Perry on the controversial toll road issue, said Wednesday she was “very concerned” about how Perry’s proposed Trans-Texas Corridor would route new highways across the state.

She said bypasses to major, congested freeways, including Interstate 35, are needed, but she said it was unnecessary to build a toll road connecting South Texas to San Antonio.

“I just don’t see the need for that, and I think the taking of property for that is a very serious matter that needs to be studied carefully,” she said after addressing the Texas Association of Counties.

You can call a Pop Tart “filet mignon” but that doesn’t make it so:

Opponent voted for Public Law 109-59, July 2005, which permitted tolls to be charged on a high-occupancy vehicle facility on the Interstate system (section 1121); established an express lane demonstration program to collect tolls (section 1604); and established an Interstate system
construction toll pilot program which permits a state to collect tolls on a highway, bridge, or tunnel on the system to construct interstate highways (section 1604).
This bill as applied to state projects such as the Trans Texas Corridor will permanently take public expressways away from Texas drivers, and tripletax drivers: once for the tax funds to build the highways, again with gasoline tax dollars to create the toll roads, and a third tax with the tolls themselves.
This will create more congestion on frontage roads with stop lights and other parallel roads, fail to provide important viability studies that investors demand with traditional toll roads, cost much more for construction, right of way, utility relocation, maintenance, and service than non-tolled roads, and create unfair taxation as one portion of a region pays a toll to drive an expressway while others drive their expressways free.

For the Aging Prom Queen, “distance” may not be enough. Like Todd Staples, Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison has flip-flopped on the Trans Texas Corridor.

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