"Bill McKee" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Peter Aitken" wrote in message
. com...
"P. Fritz" wrote in message
...

"John H." wrote in message
...
On 1 Aug 2005 10:48:39 -0700, wrote:

A Year of Accomplishment for Special Interests

As he headed to his ranch in Crawford for the month of August,
President Bush gave himself a pat on the back. On his radio address
Saturday, Bush said, "this year Congress and I have addressed many key
priorities." The only problem is, this administration's priorities are
different from your priorities. Every major legislative initiative
signed by the president this year has been a boon to special
interests,
but ignored the real needs of the American people.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- HIGHWAY BILL: On Friday, Congress sent to
President Bush a six-year $286.5 billion highway bill which was
overflowing with wasteful pork spending. Take the $25 million "Bridge
to Nowhere," connecting two South Carolina towns with a combined
population of 2,000. Or the $95 million appropriated to widen a
highway
in Sheboygan and Fond du Lac counties in Wisconsin -- "a widening that
the state Department of Transportation says is unnecessary for 15 to
20
years and that legislators approved after bypassing the DOT and a
commission charged with developing major road projects." And thanks to
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), known as "Uncle Ted" for his willingness to
spoil his constituents with pork projects, the bill also includes $200
million for a one-mile span linking Ketchikan, Alaska, with Gravina
Island (currently, fifty people live on Gravina Island -- "they reach
Ketchikan by taking a seven-minute ferry ride") and $1.5 million for a
single bus stop in Anchorage, Alaska.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- CAFTA: President Bush hailed the final
passage
of the Central American Free Trade Agreement by saying that the House
"has acted to advance America's economic and national security
interests by passing the CAFTA-DR agreement." But the combined
economies of the six other CAFTA nations "only equal that of New
Haven,
Conn." and "account for barely one percent of U.S. trade." The biggest
winners in the so-called CAFTA victory are the drug and
telecommunications industries, not the American worker. Meanwhile,
"the
Bush administration's fiscal irresponsibility with tax cuts and
unnecessary spending priorities has crippled our ability to help
workers retrain and compete on the international stage." Furthermore,
President Bush "has tightened the eligibility requirements for [the
Trade Adjustment Assistance program], denying many workers even the
modest resources available under that program," "pursued policies that
leave many workers who qualify for TAA benefits without access to this
program," and essentially taken the safety net out from under real
workers with real families directly affected by CAFTA.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- ENERGY BILL: Next up was energy legislation
that lavished the fossil-fuel industries with $515 million in new
subsidies, including "$125 million to reimburse oil and gas producers
for 115% of the costs of remediating, reclaiming, and closing orphaned
wells." The House managed to add $35 billion of pork to the energy
bill
in just the last three weeks before it was passed - "a total of $88.9
billion in subsidies to industry over 10 years in the bill." Despite
these handouts, Congress admits the bill will "do nothing in the
short
term to drive down high gasoline and other energy prices or
significantly reduce America's growing reliance on foreign oil." A
2004
analysis by the administration's Energy Information Administration
found that the Bush-backed energy bill will actually raise gas prices
and increase oil demand nearly 14 percent by 2010.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- BANKRUPTCY BILL: Then came the "bankruptcy
reform" monstrosity, which made it more difficult for average
Americans
suffering from financial misfortune to declare bankruptcy. The credit
card industry, which took in $30 billion in profits last year and
doled
out more than $7.8 million to candidates in the 2004 election cycle,
lobbied relentlessly for the bill, pushing the fiction that
bankruptcies occur because of "irresponsible consumerism" (in bill
sponsor Charles Grassley's (R-IA) words). In fact, "ninety percent of
all bankruptcies are triggered by the loss of a job, high medical
bills
or divorce." In recent years, personal bankruptcy rates have shot to
record highs amid a weak labor market and declining health insurance
coverage. The bill created several "new hurdles" that will make it
harder and more expensive for Americans to recover from such episodes,
while failing to stop the actual abuses that plague the system.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- IRAQ SUPPLEMENTAL: Even the Iraq supplemental
spending was covered with special interest fingerprints. Though the
bills were passed without any provisions to hold the White House
accountable for its flailing Iraq strategy, and failed to deal with
the
equipment shortfalls plaguing our troops, they did offer major cash
for
questionable contracts and corrupt and incompetent corporations. At
the
same time, the Pentagon has pursued "back-door budgeting for the
wars."
Gordon Adams, director of security policy studies at George Washington
University, referenced "reduced training, exercises and operating
tempo, slowdowns in maintenance, [and] delays on maintaining
facilities" as ways that the Pentagon has tried to get around paying
for the bloated war costs. Other strategies appear to be not paying
soldiers what they are owed and deducting money for debts that do not
even exist.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- TORT REFORM: And finally, there was the
so-called "tort reform" legislation, pushed by conservatives who
claimed "the prospect of big jury awards in medical malpractice cases
was causing insurance rates to soar and doctors to abandon their
practices." If you scrape away the overheated rhetoric and look at the
reality, however, a very different picture emerges. The legislation
has
no real effect on the cost of health ca the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office found malpractice costs account for less
than 2 percent of health care spending, and that capping medical
malpractice would affect private health insurance premiums by a measly
one half of 1 percent. Moreover, the caps would "disproportionately
affect" children and seniors who live on fixed incomes. According to
the CBO, it also would "undermine incentives for safety" while at the
same time making it "harder for some patients with legitimate but
difficult claims to find legal representation."

Thank God none of that money went to any Democrat developed projects,
right?

I love the misdirectional spin of the liebrals............wrt tort
reform.....while malpractice awards may only amount to 2% of overall
healthcare spending, the cost of defending suits, as well as the
countless
unneeded test etc ordered to avoid malpractice suits is
overwhelming........leave it to the liebrals to argue once
again...."it's
for the children" YAWN


Read the article before responding. Malpractice *costs* - all together -
are less than 2%, not just malpractice awards.

--
Peter Aitken
Supporting literacy lessons for conservatives.


A lot more than 2%. Lots of tests are now specified when going to the
doctor or the hospital to avoid malpractice suits. These are not counted.


Have any evidence for that? Any figures?

--
Peter Aitken

On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:59:08 +0000, Doug Kanter wrote:


Wait till they figure out what's been determined elsewhe Sometimes,
widening highways just leads the sprawl someplace else. Once that happens,
you can never build a big enough highway. It becomes impossible to stay a
step ahead of the ever-increasing traffic.

Yup, and with oil with oil supplies getting tighter and tighter . . .
Sprawl just doesn't seem to be the way to go, in the long run.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen I-75
in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the working
folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to sit in
1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that the money
is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a couple
of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were at it.
Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't want the
four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A lot of those
went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already overcrowded at
rush hour.

Wait till they figure out what's been determined elsewhe Sometimes,
widening highways just leads the sprawl someplace else.

Fortunately, the sprawl in Collier County is limited by the Everglades
National Park to the East.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen
I-75 in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the
working folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to
sit in 1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that
the money is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a
couple of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were
at it. Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't
want the four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A lot
of those went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already
overcrowded at rush hour.

Exactly. Immokalee Road was widened from 1 lane to 2. They just
completed it in 2002. Just a couple of months ago, they started the
process of widening it to 3 lanes.

If anyone cared to do so, they should find an ambitious reporter to look
DEEPLY into that mistake. There's a good chance it was NOT a mistake.

It's already been done. A County Commissioner, City Planning Manager, and
local developer are in jail over it.

"Scooby Doo" wrote in message
...
"Doug Kanter" wrote in
:

Wait till they figure out what's been determined elsewhe Sometimes,
widening highways just leads the sprawl someplace else. Once that
happens, you can never build a big enough highway. It becomes
impossible to stay a step ahead of the ever-increasing traffic.

The people who want to restrict "sprawl" are the most rabid supporters of
shipping schoolchildren 25 miles across town rather than permitting them
to attend their local neighborhood school.

Please explain this hypocrisy.

Can't explain it. I've never met anyone who held both views. If I had met
someone like that, it would be statistically insignificant.

"NOYB" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen
I-75 in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the
working folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have
to sit in 1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say
that the money is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a
couple of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were
at it. Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't
want the four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A
lot of those went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already
overcrowded at rush hour.

Exactly. Immokalee Road was widened from 1 lane to 2. They just
completed it in 2002. Just a couple of months ago, they started the
process of widening it to 3 lanes.

If anyone cared to do so, they should find an ambitious reporter to look
DEEPLY into that mistake. There's a good chance it was NOT a mistake.

It's already been done. A County Commissioner, City Planning Manager, and
local developer are in jail over it.

Let me guess: It would've obviously been cheaper to go from 1 to 3 lanes,
but the contractor felt otherwise, and "convinced" the other 2 of his
views.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen
I-75 in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the
working folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have
to sit in 1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say
that the money is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had
a busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a
couple of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were
at it. Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch
didn't want the four as it would infringe on their smaller parking
lots. A lot of those went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is
already overcrowded at rush hour.

Exactly. Immokalee Road was widened from 1 lane to 2. They just
completed it in 2002. Just a couple of months ago, they started the
process of widening it to 3 lanes.

If anyone cared to do so, they should find an ambitious reporter to look
DEEPLY into that mistake. There's a good chance it was NOT a mistake.

It's already been done. A County Commissioner, City Planning Manager,
and local developer are in jail over it.

Let me guess: It would've obviously been cheaper to go from 1 to 3 lanes,
but the contractor felt otherwise, and "convinced" the other 2 of his
views.

No. The Commissioner and City Planning Manager should have put the brakes
on the PUD's out to the East until the infrastructure caught up. Instead,
they built a road based on a 12 year old study that said 2 lanes would be
sufficient to carry the traffic load. The county did not have the money
needed to build 3 lanes without imposing the necessary impact fees on the
developer. The developer bought the county officials, and the road was
built using 2 lanes instead of 3...making it obsolete before it was
completed.

That particular area has several other problems too right now.
Environmentalists are fighting the expansion of a major north-south artery
(951) that has been on the drawing board for years. Most of the PUD's out
that way were approved under the premise that 951would have already been
built by now...but they haven't even started it yet.

It's a total cluster **** out there. To make matters worse, a Walmart
SuperCenter is weeks away from opening, and construction of a Super Target
is just getting started less than a half-mile away. To screw things up even
further, they're completely redesigning the on-off ramps from I-75 in that
area...at the same time the road widening is taking place *and* the
construction of the Walmart and Target stores (and a county park) are going
in.

Thank God I moved to an already-developed area well west of there that's
closer to the water and my office. It's 4 minutes to work now...and 7
minutes in tourist season with traffic.

When I lived out East of I-75 just last year, a 9 mile run to work was
taking me 45 minutes...and that was *before* the Walmart and Target
construction, and the Immokalee Road widening. I can't even imagine how bad
it is now...or will be once snowbird season starts in November/December.

"Peter Aitken" wrote in message
. com...
"Bill McKee" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Peter Aitken" wrote in message
. com...
"P. Fritz" wrote in message
...

"John H." wrote in message
...
On 1 Aug 2005 10:48:39 -0700, wrote:

A Year of Accomplishment for Special Interests

As he headed to his ranch in Crawford for the month of August,
President Bush gave himself a pat on the back. On his radio address
Saturday, Bush said, "this year Congress and I have addressed many
key
priorities." The only problem is, this administration's priorities
are
different from your priorities. Every major legislative initiative
signed by the president this year has been a boon to special
interests,
but ignored the real needs of the American people.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- HIGHWAY BILL: On Friday, Congress sent to
President Bush a six-year $286.5 billion highway bill which was
overflowing with wasteful pork spending. Take the $25 million "Bridge
to Nowhere," connecting two South Carolina towns with a combined
population of 2,000. Or the $95 million appropriated to widen a
highway
in Sheboygan and Fond du Lac counties in Wisconsin -- "a widening
that
the state Department of Transportation says is unnecessary for 15 to
20
years and that legislators approved after bypassing the DOT and a
commission charged with developing major road projects." And thanks
to
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), known as "Uncle Ted" for his willingness to
spoil his constituents with pork projects, the bill also includes
$200
million for a one-mile span linking Ketchikan, Alaska, with Gravina
Island (currently, fifty people live on Gravina Island -- "they reach
Ketchikan by taking a seven-minute ferry ride") and $1.5 million for
a
single bus stop in Anchorage, Alaska.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- CAFTA: President Bush hailed the final
passage
of the Central American Free Trade Agreement by saying that the House
"has acted to advance America's economic and national security
interests by passing the CAFTA-DR agreement." But the combined
economies of the six other CAFTA nations "only equal that of New
Haven,
Conn." and "account for barely one percent of U.S. trade." The
biggest
winners in the so-called CAFTA victory are the drug and
telecommunications industries, not the American worker. Meanwhile,
"the
Bush administration's fiscal irresponsibility with tax cuts and
unnecessary spending priorities has crippled our ability to help
workers retrain and compete on the international stage." Furthermore,
President Bush "has tightened the eligibility requirements for [the
Trade Adjustment Assistance program], denying many workers even the
modest resources available under that program," "pursued policies
that
leave many workers who qualify for TAA benefits without access to
this
program," and essentially taken the safety net out from under real
workers with real families directly affected by CAFTA.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- ENERGY BILL: Next up was energy legislation
that lavished the fossil-fuel industries with $515 million in new
subsidies, including "$125 million to reimburse oil and gas producers
for 115% of the costs of remediating, reclaiming, and closing
orphaned
wells." The House managed to add $35 billion of pork to the energy
bill
in just the last three weeks before it was passed - "a total of $88.9
billion in subsidies to industry over 10 years in the bill." Despite
these handouts, Congress admits the bill will "do nothing in the
short
term to drive down high gasoline and other energy prices or
significantly reduce America's growing reliance on foreign oil." A
2004
analysis by the administration's Energy Information Administration
found that the Bush-backed energy bill will actually raise gas prices
and increase oil demand nearly 14 percent by 2010.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- BANKRUPTCY BILL: Then came the "bankruptcy
reform" monstrosity, which made it more difficult for average
Americans
suffering from financial misfortune to declare bankruptcy. The credit
card industry, which took in $30 billion in profits last year and
doled
out more than $7.8 million to candidates in the 2004 election cycle,
lobbied relentlessly for the bill, pushing the fiction that
bankruptcies occur because of "irresponsible consumerism" (in bill
sponsor Charles Grassley's (R-IA) words). In fact, "ninety percent of
all bankruptcies are triggered by the loss of a job, high medical
bills
or divorce." In recent years, personal bankruptcy rates have shot to
record highs amid a weak labor market and declining health insurance
coverage. The bill created several "new hurdles" that will make it
harder and more expensive for Americans to recover from such
episodes,
while failing to stop the actual abuses that plague the system.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- IRAQ SUPPLEMENTAL: Even the Iraq
supplemental
spending was covered with special interest fingerprints. Though the
bills were passed without any provisions to hold the White House
accountable for its flailing Iraq strategy, and failed to deal with
the
equipment shortfalls plaguing our troops, they did offer major cash
for
questionable contracts and corrupt and incompetent corporations. At
the
same time, the Pentagon has pursued "back-door budgeting for the
wars."
Gordon Adams, director of security policy studies at George
Washington
University, referenced "reduced training, exercises and operating
tempo, slowdowns in maintenance, [and] delays on maintaining
facilities" as ways that the Pentagon has tried to get around paying
for the bloated war costs. Other strategies appear to be not paying
soldiers what they are owed and deducting money for debts that do not
even exist.

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- TORT REFORM: And finally, there was the
so-called "tort reform" legislation, pushed by conservatives who
claimed "the prospect of big jury awards in medical malpractice cases
was causing insurance rates to soar and doctors to abandon their
practices." If you scrape away the overheated rhetoric and look at
the
reality, however, a very different picture emerges. The legislation
has
no real effect on the cost of health ca the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office found malpractice costs account for less
than 2 percent of health care spending, and that capping medical
malpractice would affect private health insurance premiums by a
measly
one half of 1 percent. Moreover, the caps would "disproportionately
affect" children and seniors who live on fixed incomes. According to
the CBO, it also would "undermine incentives for safety" while at the
same time making it "harder for some patients with legitimate but
difficult claims to find legal representation."

Thank God none of that money went to any Democrat developed projects,
right?

I love the misdirectional spin of the liebrals............wrt tort
reform.....while malpractice awards may only amount to 2% of overall
healthcare spending, the cost of defending suits, as well as the
countless
unneeded test etc ordered to avoid malpractice suits is
overwhelming........leave it to the liebrals to argue once
again...."it's
for the children" YAWN


Read the article before responding. Malpractice *costs* - all together -
are less than 2%, not just malpractice awards.

--
Peter Aitken
Supporting literacy lessons for conservatives.


A lot more than 2%. Lots of tests are now specified when going to the
doctor or the hospital to avoid malpractice suits. These are not
counted.


Have any evidence for that? Any figures?

--
Peter Aitken



Ask any doctor. Especially the emergency room Doc, what they do when a old
lady comes in complaining of pains.

NOYB wrote:
"John H." wrote in message
...

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- HIGHWAY BILL: On Friday, Congress sent to
President Bush a six-year $286.5 billion highway bill which was
overflowing with wasteful pork spending.

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen I-75 in
Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the working folks
in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to sit in 1-2 hours
of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that the money is hardly
"wasteful pork spending".

The Highway Bill had 6,000 pork additions to it. 6000!!!! BILLIONS of
the dollars for the Highway Bill is used up by the pork. Do you think
that those below are "hardly wasteful pork spending"? Its just a few of
them:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Consider these items: construction of a $7 million
''Renaissance Square'' performing arts center in Rochester, New York; a
$1.5 million improvement for the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn,
Michigan; and the $1 million renovation of a historic bus station in
Jessup, Georgia.

There's money for all three -- and much more -- in the new highway
construction bill.

Many people may not understand what such projects have to do with
highways. But that's "How It Works."

Lawmakers of both parties use the massive bill to earmark funds for
local projects that appeal to the folks back home. That's especially
important in election years. Because there's something for everyone in
the bill, it routinely sails through Congress.

The $275 billion dollar transportation bill that the House approved
last week contains at least $11 billion worth of local pet projects.

Rep. William Lipinski, D-Illinois, who pushed through a $4 million
parking garage, wanted an even bigger bill. Last year, he introduced a
$375 billion highway bill -- a full $100 million more than the one
passed last week.

Lipinski may be a Democrat, but pork is bipartisan. Kingston, the
sponsor of the historic bus station renovation, is a conservative
Republican.

Democrats and Republicans defended the spending. "If you don't keep
good highways, you can't keep and grow good jobs," Sen. Christopher
Bond, R-Missouri, said on the Senate floor.

Others see the spending as fiscally irresponsible. "How far and
disgraceful a path we have tread in this pork-barrel laden piece of
over-spending at a time when we have all-time deficits," declared Sen.
John McCain, R-Arizona.

The White House agrees and is threatening a veto -- which both houses
of Congress have enough votes to override. In the end, that means
President Bush will be able to take a stand against pork-barrel
spending, but House and Senate members will still get the pork they so
desire

"NOYB" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen
I-75 in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of
the working folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers
have to sit in 1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd
say that the money is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had
a busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a
couple of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they
were at it. Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch
didn't want the four as it would infringe on their smaller parking
lots. A lot of those went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is
already overcrowded at rush hour.

Exactly. Immokalee Road was widened from 1 lane to 2. They just
completed it in 2002. Just a couple of months ago, they started the
process of widening it to 3 lanes.

If anyone cared to do so, they should find an ambitious reporter to
look DEEPLY into that mistake. There's a good chance it was NOT a
mistake.

It's already been done. A County Commissioner, City Planning Manager,
and local developer are in jail over it.

Let me guess: It would've obviously been cheaper to go from 1 to 3 lanes,
but the contractor felt otherwise, and "convinced" the other 2 of his
views.

No. The Commissioner and City Planning Manager should have put the brakes
on the PUD's out to the East until the infrastructure caught up. Instead,
they built a road based on a 12 year old study that said 2 lanes would be
sufficient to carry the traffic load. The county did not have the money
needed to build 3 lanes without imposing the necessary impact fees on the
developer. The developer bought the county officials, and the road was
built using 2 lanes instead of 3...making it obsolete before it was
completed.

That particular area has several other problems too right now.
Environmentalists are fighting the expansion of a major north-south artery
(951) that has been on the drawing board for years. Most of the PUD's out
that way were approved under the premise that 951would have already been
built by now...but they haven't even started it yet.

It's a total cluster **** out there. To make matters worse, a Walmart
SuperCenter is weeks away from opening, and construction of a Super Target
is just getting started less than a half-mile away. To screw things up
even further, they're completely redesigning the on-off ramps from I-75 in
that area...at the same time the road widening is taking place *and* the
construction of the Walmart and Target stores (and a county park) are
going in.

Thank God I moved to an already-developed area well west of there that's
closer to the water and my office. It's 4 minutes to work now...and 7
minutes in tourist season with traffic.

When I lived out East of I-75 just last year, a 9 mile run to work was
taking me 45 minutes...and that was *before* the Walmart and Target
construction, and the Immokalee Road widening. I can't even imagine how
bad it is now...or will be once snowbird season starts in
November/December.

Like authors on the web, town officials often give the illusion of
competence, until suddenly they don't for some reason.