From The Virginian-Pilot, 8/5/05:
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=90202&ran=98102
GOP pays tribute to Pat Robertson
The Virginian-Pilot
Transportation in Hampton Roads is a festival of confusion and delays.
There’s far too little money in the pipeline and there won’t be much
anytime soon.
Unless, apparently, you’re the well-wired face of the religious right
named Pat Robertson, a man to whom the Republican Party is much
beholden.
Then, you get not one, but two exits serving your empire near the
Chesapeake/Virginia Beach line.
Just as well, since there are apparently two sets of rules in
Washington:
the set by which everyone operates, and the set by which the GOP
rewards its friends.
Thanks to the work of U.S. Sen. George Allen, as well as U.S. Reps.
Thelma Drake and J. Randy Forbes, the new $286 billion transportation
bill includes a particularly curious $10.8 million for an I-64 exit
leading to City Line Road, which doesn’t exist.
Robertson is planning a $300 million collection of houses, shops and
offices.
It sounds promising, but that’s really beside the point.
The behavior of the Robertson Trinity isn’t.
Since 2002, they have received $16,000 in offerings from the
televangelist.
That investment -- arguably one for the record books -- secures an
interchange for a development-to-come, while the traffic problems in
the here-and-now go begging for pennies from Washington.
If you’re Pat Robertson, you have earned the right to jump to the head
of the line.
The transportation spending bill is a well-documented mockery of the
GOP’s mantra of fiscal responsibility.
Now that the Republicans control Washington, they are proving
themselves incapable of restraint.
The final bill is laden with more than 6,000 "earmarks" -- of which
the interchange is but one -- including a much-criticized $223 million
bridge to Nowhere, Alaska.
And Nowhere (aka Ketchikan) doesn’t even have Regent University, an
epicenter in the GOP-dominated South.
Now part-time home to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, among
others, Regent is a regular stop for anyone who wants to be taken
seriously in Republican politics, including members of the Robertson
Trinity, led by would-be presidential candidate Allen.
Right now, the Christian Broadcasting Network is paying for a $500,000
study to determine whether the interchange can be built safely.
Given how close it would be to existing exits, that’s not a sure
thing.
But assuming the study OKs the project, and it gets regulatory
approval, part of the $30 million or $40 million expense will be
covered by CBN.
Given that the exit would first serve a CBN project, that represents a
welcome recognition of financial obligation by Robertson.
Too bad the lawmakers who serve him aren’t so responsible.
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