The Chicago Transit Authority is refusing an opportunity to alleviate commuting costs for hundreds of thousands in the Windy City’s low-income neighborhoods. Instead of accepting deeply discounted fuel from the Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp., the city is instead raising fares to solve budget shortfalls.
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In place of the proposed discount, which the CTA apparently does not want Chicagoans to even know about, budget shortfalls will be addressed by fair hikes. Chicagoans who are unaware of the Venezuelan offer will be hit with an increase of 25 cents per ride next month, and discounted route-to-route transfers will be eliminated for passengers paying cash.
The article quotes “some critics of President Chavez” who say that his offer of discounted fuel is “a political ploy to win the support of the American people”. Well, duh…. Let’s have more such political ploys. And let’s see government agencies, whose mission is to serve the people, and to make sure that the poor aren’t left behind or out in the cold, pay more heed to that mission and less heed to their masters in Washington, whose own political ploy is transparently ideological and heartless: “just weeks after Citgo made its offer to the CTA, Congress signed the Federal Transportation Appropriations bill, allocating $89 million in infrastructure project funds the CTA had been seeking for years.”
Go, Hugo!
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