Now we can add another piece of the puzzle to Bush's hidden agenda. Popward mentioned his concern about this, I did a search and found the following. It certainly looks like Bush wants to leave his footprints all over the backs of North Americans from Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. Read on!
Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.
Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.
As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.
Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.
NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.
Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”
The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road. The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.
A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.
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This is very interesting. Recently, Indiana passed legislation that leased Indiana toll roads to a Spanish-Australian company, can you guess who? Cintra-Maquarie. The deal was completed this week for $3.8 billion dollars, and they lease the roads for 75 years. A quick fix for the republican dumb asses in the Indiana House. The income from these toll roads will go far beyond $3.8 billion dollars in 75 years, but as republicans always do, they think of the quick fix and sell yet another piece of our country. This is going on all over the country. Not only has this Cintra-Maquarie leased toll roads in Indiana, they also have the lease to the toll roads in Chicago. This NAFTA super highway situation is something we should be concerned about. This country is in debt with so many other countries and now to fix the problems they (republicans) have created, Americans have to sit by and watch as each piece of the USA is leased or sold out.
This is an article by Pete Chalos a former mayor in Indiana. His opinion of this deal is right on:
Pete Chalos: State has moved too quickly on Major Moves initiative
Special to the Tribune-Star
The reason the government builds fire stations, roads, sidewalks and parks is to accommodate the general public. No single private citizen can afford to build all of these facilities on his own so we all chip in and pay taxes. As a result, we all end up benefiting from the use of the facilities. Government facilities are built for the public and they belong to the public. That’s the basic premise of a tax-supported Democratic society. Government by the people and for the people.
The citizens who pay for government facilities retain ownership. Our elected officials are hired by the public to manage our holdings. No elected official has carte blanch to do whatever he feels is best with our property. Our officials are merely elected to represent us, not to act as independent owners of our property. For an elected official to sell or lease our property out from under us to a foreign company is an outrage. It’s not his property to sell.
The Indianapolis Star recently published the results of a poll on public support for the governor’s Major Moves plan. Public support for the plan was minimal, about 30 percent. The governor is pushing his plan through in spite of the wishes of the citizens of Indiana. My Monarch Mitch doesn’t care what we have to say about it.
The governor says he can make a profit off of our roads by selling them to foreign investors. Nobody asked him to make a profit; we elected him to manage the roads and keep them maintained to the best of his ability. What good is making a one-time profit on the lease of the property going to do us if our toll roads are falling apart for the next 75 years?
No foreign company has an obligation or the motivation to maintain our roads up to the standards we expect from our own government. Foreign companies don’t come up for re-election. Foreign companies don’t respond to public petitions or complaints. We can look forward to 75 years of speaking to automated operators over the phone when we want to report a chuckhole.
Under the governor’s plan, northern Indiana toll roads are going to be sold to an Australian-Spanish consortium for a one-time sum of $3.8 billion. That’s $1.4 billion less than what he originally promised we’d be getting but it still seems like a lot of money. It seems like a lot of money until you consider the alternative plan the Democrats in the House have proposed.
Under the governor’s plan, the foreign company would be allowed to raise tolls numerous times throughout the 75 year lease without public hearings. The Democrats propose instead that the governor himself double the tolls once, raising the revenue to $160 million each year for the state of Indiana. Within 20 years he could bond the increase for $1 billion and utilize a GARVEE bond for another $1 billion. The state would then retain the remaining 55 years of revenue from the toll roads. At $160 million a year, that 55-year revenue comes to $8.8 billion. The total for 75 years comes to about $10.8 billion. That’s $7 billion more than Indiana would make using the Major Moves plan. The governor’s plan doesn’t seem to be the best plan on the table. He must not be interested in making the most profit for Indiana citizens.
Aiming Higher Inc., a non-profit group run by former Daniels campaign manager Bill Oesterie, is not subject to state campaign finance laws or limitations. Over $300,000 has been raised during this legislative session to pay for television ads supporting the governor’s Major Moves plan. The majority of this money has been contributed by engineering firms and construction contractors. This company has raised over $1.2 million since November of 2004 to be used in support of the governor’s agendas.
The governor has stated that he plans to use the $3.8 billion to finance 200 road projects over the next 10 years. How are we going to pay for improvements in the 65 years following those 10 years during which we will receive no revenue from the toll roads? He’s not worried about it because 10 years from now the governor and all his buddies will be retired. The engineers and contractors will have made a lot of money on the 200 projects the governor has planned for the next 10 years. The governor will have reaped their financial and political support and used it to seek greener pastures.
Ten years from now, the Australian-Spanish consortium will have made enough money to cut and run, in which case Indiana’s citizens will be left with an empty bank account and possibly years of maintenance to catch up on. If the Australian-Spanish consortium does stick to the lease for the full 75 years, Indiana is still left with no source of revenue to use for projects during the final 65 years of the lease.
Indiana is moving too fast on the Major Moves project. It should be examined more carefully. Another name for a major move is a leap. Always look before you leap.
lollllllllllllllllllllllllllll
that pic is sooo appropriate!!!!!!!!!! lololol
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