Wretchard #20:

One of my favorite quotes was provided by the mayor of Tampa, FL, who said of the proposed high speed rail system, “I hope that the Federal Government will pay the entire cost of building the system so that the taxpayers won’t have to.”

This is another version of the European street theater lament, “Make the banks pay for it all. They have the money, not us.”

Bogie wheel #23:

Twice now in the past few months I have been approached in the parking lot of a local store by someone with a tale of woe. They drove down here and have no money at all, flat busted broke. There is always a family involved, and children, only they are not where you can see them. This is obviously a scam. But it makes me wonder. What where they doing before they came up with this routine? The only answer I can come up with was running some other kind of scam, one that did not require them to pound the pavement. They probably were one of those people who collect those mysterious charges that show up when you sell, buy, or refinance a house, or worked for a “non-profit” or a called people up at night to offer them a really good deal on debt consolidation or tickets for the state troopers talent show. But you can be damn sure it was not an honest job that involved the net production of something useful.