Vegas Baby, Vegas!
Some curious logic from Jim DeMint’s office:
The President has a point that taxpayer money should not be used to pay for Wall Street fat cats to fly to Las Vegas but why is it okay for taxpayer money to be used to help pay for Hollywood elites to get there on a fancy gambling train? And why are we subsidizing leisure in a stimulus bill rather than encouraging work and greater productivity?
Several points. One — there’s no such provision in the bill. Two — there are two million people in the Las Vegas metro area, so it’s not as if taking the train to gamble is the only conceivable use of such a route. Three — lots of people go from L.A. to Las Vegas, it’s not an “elites only” option. I would refer Senator DeMint’s staff to this well-known scene from Swingers:
The larger rhetorical theme here seems to be that DeMint believes there should be no infrastructure projects of any sort in Southern California because any such project would, per se, be a taxpayer subsidy to “Hollywood elites.” It’s a pretty repugnant sentiment. For whatever reason, conservatives are constantly allowed to get away with this business of summarily dismissing vast regions of the country as unworthy and never get called on it. But this sort of thing is leading the movement on a direct (albeit, non-rail) route to a Dixie-only ghetto.
55 Responses to “Vegas Baby, Vegas!”
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February 13th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
DeMint is an irrelevant douchebag, but none of this has anything to do with the Marion/JO trade…
February 13th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Well, we could have built something in his state but his Governor said he doesn’t want any of the stinking stimulus money.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
If they’re so elite, why don’t they have their own private jet?
February 13th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
It’s hard to fathom that elected officials could be as retarded as this.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
As a Las Vegas resident who travels to Southern California several times a year, I’d love to have high speed rail service to LA. Some of us Vegans do leave town now and then, for both business and pleasure.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
FYI – whichever GOP congressman is currently wanking on “Hardball” just referenced this Magical Train as well.
His exact words, “a train between Las Vegas and LA, we’re going to run from Fantasy Land to Sin City with American taxpayers dollars.”
February 13th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Yeah, ’cause “Hollywood Elites” are gonna ride the train with all us peons.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Southern California is the one place in the USA that everyone feels OK bashing — from New York/San Francisco/Boston elitists, to “sinful Hollywood” types in the south and midwest, to anti-immigration types — everyone thinks they’ve got a good reason to hate LA.
On the positive side, no one here cares much.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Four – Jim DeMint is a disingenuous moron.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Wait a second–didn’t Obama suggest that there was something wrong with Wall Streeters spending money in Vegas too? Isn’t Wall Street a place? And Vegas? Is Obama too dismissing vast regions of the country? Or does Matt have different standards for his friends?
February 13th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Wait a second–didn’t Obama suggest that there was something wrong with Wall Streeters spending money in Vegas too?
Wall Street executives sell tickets on their private jets on reasonable prices? I was not aware of that.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
As long as the GOP keeps bashing California and her 55 electoral votes, I’ll be happy.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Before Obama even entered office, I remember conservatives gearing up to beat on the stimulus using regionalism.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
It’s grading on a curve again. The basic shtick is that Republicans are expected to be crusty, narrow-minded, smear-peddlers. That’s how the media expects them to perform. So when they perform accordingly, it’s never news.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Wait a second–didn’t Obama suggest that there was something wrong with Wall Streeters spending money in Vegas too?
He suggested that was something wrong with them spending their TARP money that way, smart guy.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
whichever GOP congressman is currently wanking on “Hardball”
Brian Bilbray. Yes, he represents the white folks of San Diego. Main industry: defense, paid for by the pixies, I mean taxpayers.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Such cruel lovepats to Nevada! In the referendum to yank Davis’ governorship away, back in the Ownership society days, there was a different kind of talk. As I remember, Arnold Schwarzenegger was very, very worried that all the California businesses were migrating to Nevada because they had lower taxes there. And when he became governor, he solved the problem by … charging the state’s debt via a big bond issue.
Now I’m wondering how it worked out, all those businesses fleeing to Nevada. Is Nevada now breasting the downturn with their brave low tax policy? Or are the two million Las Vegas-ites realizing that the main industry was building and selling houses to each other?
I like the continuing Dixification of the GOP. Making sure that they have zip representatives from the Western states will make them all the more powerful, cause they will be, the party of ideas! Bad, racist, moronic ideas.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
2 million in Vegas + 10 million in the Los Angeles area = 12 million elite fat cats. That’s roughly 3 times the population of S. Carolina.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Two — there are two million people in the Las Vegas metro area, so it’s not as if taking the train to gamble is the only conceivable use of such a route.
Right. Two million people. So when the hell are they going to get a sports franchise?
2 million in Vegas + 10 million in the Los Angeles area = 12 million elite fat cats
LA County alone has ten million. A reasonably conservative estimate of the LA “area” would contain something more like 16 million.
February 13th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
LA County alone has ten million. A reasonably conservative estimate of the LA “area” would contain something more like 16 million.
And that plus the 2 million in Vegas is approximately equal to the population of the entire state of Florida, or, bigger than any other state in the Union save for California, Texas, and New York.
everyone thinks they’ve got a good reason to hate LA.
On the positive side, no one here cares much.
Yep. It’s kinda cute how San Francisco thinks it’s a big rival with L.A., kind of like how Canadians think there’s a big rivalry between the U.S. and Canada.
February 13th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
You know a lot of good ordinary people work for Hollywood. And an even larger number of ordinary people like things made by Hollywood. Moreover a lot of people would like to be movie stars. So what DeMint is saying is that I am supposed to resent the poeple who produce the things that I like. And then I am supposed to support giving them a giant tax cut. How about we don’t resent rich people and we do ask them to pay more taxes.
February 13th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
kind of like how Canadians think there’s a big rivalry between the U.S. and Canada.
Not really – except when it comes to hockey…
February 13th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
what DeMint is saying is that I am supposed to resent the poeple who produce the things that I like.
He’s from the land of Bob Jones U. As Bill Hicks would say, he looks full of life.
February 13th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
High speed rail capital assistance $8,000,000,000
http://www.propublica.org/special/the-stimulus-plan-a-detailed-list-of-spending
February 13th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
You know, I like the sound of a fancy gambling train. Does that mean you can gamble on the fancy train? Or that the train itself gambles? Anyway, at least once in my life, I want to board a fancy gambling train.
February 13th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Just another Deminted argument.
February 13th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Seriously. Only poor, loser SoCal people don’t fly to Vegas. The train would not be for the elite! And it would rule!
February 13th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
High speed rail capital assistance $8,000,000,000
Yeah, that’s on pages 237-239. There’s nothing about limiting the spending to an Anaheim-Las Vegas route; it looks like the $8 billion is for high-speed rail everywhere. Even Ohio, or South Carolina. (Probably not South Carolina, though.)
http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/docs/2-13-09HR1ConfReportPartA.pdf
February 13th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Oh Jesus fucking Christ. (Setting aside the fact that DeMint is a dishonest hack). There are two million people in the Vegas area, and other than a few USAF zoomies, their ONLY reason for being there are casinos.
If one really wanted an interstate rail route, y’know who else has got a metro with 2 million? Phoenix. From there, there’s a number of routes that don’t involve boring a GD hole through the Front Range. Look, the Vegas thing is a GOP straw man. It’s not completely idiotic, but it’s ‘waaaaaay down on the list of reasonable.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
The Republicans are focusing on the “sound-bite” side of things. Now we have “Las Vegas Democrats”, instead of “San Francisco Democrats”. Obama happens to throw in a reference to Las Vegas, and the Republicans are off to the races.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Cool. I think that makes me a Hollywood elite. Can I stop working for a living?
February 13th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Dave: Nope. If they put their TARP money over in a segregated account that they just used for whatever politically-motivated lending the Obama administration is going to insist on, Obama would still insist that they stop spending money in Vegas. What’s wrong with Vegas? Doesn’t spending money in Vegas count as stimulus? The statements were exactly parallel, but Matt just missed that.
February 13th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Doesn’t spending money in Vegas count as stimulus? The statements were exactly parallel, but Matt just missed that.
Um, no. There is an unsubtle difference between banks using federal capital assistance for junkets to Las Vegas for their executives, and states using federal infrastructure funds to build a railroad to Las Vegas for public accommodation. Which, incidentally, isn’t actually happening.
Smarter trolls, please.
February 13th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
On the positive side, no one here cares much.
Must be the Xanax.
February 13th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
I wouldn’t complain too much about their decision to dismiss vast regions of the country. If they want to permanently give up on Nevada too that’s fine with me.
February 14th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Come on Mathew. Everyone knows that Californians are sinful hedonists and perverts who are hell bent (no pun intended) on turning the rest of us good Americans into evil reprobates like them. The Lord torments the sinful Californians every year with wildfires, floods, earthquakes, the Oscars, and state revenue train wrecks. Is there any further proof needed? So Senator DeMint is right. Let those Californians continue worshiping Beelzebub, maybe he will provide them a stimulus package. Let us born again Keynesians enjoy the stimulus package our God fearing descendent have so generously provided to us.
February 14th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Currently there is no direct rail route between California and Las Vegas. If you buy an Amtrak ticket, they put you on a bus (yes, a bus) to carry you over the mountains into Nevada (or California, if you are going the other way.)
Hollywood hot-shots don’t drive this route. They have their own planes.
February 14th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Mencken would say that these are the hallucinations of Southern baboons. But we can’t say things like that today.
February 14th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Hey, I was just in Vegas with the fat cats. But it’s OK, because my company has no access to TARP funds.
February 14th, 2009 at 10:59 am
“Dixie-only ghetto.” I like it! After their vote on the stimulus (and Judd Gregg’s humiliating about face) maybe we should call Republicans “Southern fried chickens.”
February 14th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
This seems like part of the contemporary GOP’s confusion of Americanness with Whiteness. Repeatedly disparaging racially and ethnically diverse areas of the country while lionizing the whitest parts.
February 14th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
US vs Canada: hockey
LA vs SF: Chinese food, baseball
SC vs Union: slavery
February 16th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Seems like that High speed rail capital assistance thingy was the only thing hat jumped in the Conference- from 3 bil to 8 bil?? Hmmm??? May not be spelled out in black and white but in DC you have to know when to read between the lines in legislation. Guess we have to keep up with the Shanhai’s, but Mag-Lev shovel ready?? Come on!! And Timely Targetted and Temporary?? Nope! Not by a long shot! Stevens, Byrd and Murtha must be seething with jealousy!
March 12th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
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