Free Republic

It's good to see the state's top three leaders now on the same page – literally – on at least a few ways to attack the problem of under-funded roadway needs. Breakthrough No. 1 – admitting a problem. Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick – never political chums – all put their signatures on a joint statement last week conceding that Texas' "ability to fund needed transportation projects in the future is limited." Breakthrough No. 2 – committing to specific fixes. The most welcome one was a pledge to quit siphoning off road money...

Governor Perry and other state leaders have agreed to bring a halt to the practice which some say has led to toll roads...the diversion of money from the state's highway fund to other projects, 1200 WOAI news reports. "Implement a plan that sets a definitive course to end the practice of funding the Department of Public Safety with gas taxes that are needed for road construction, and return to funding the DPS with general revenue," is the first goal in a long term transportation funding plan released by Perry, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, and House Speaker Tom Craddick. 1200 WOAI...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Public investment funds based in Texas could invest directly in transportation projects through a new corporation under a plan unveiled on Thursday by the state's legislative leaders and the governor. Texas has the nation's biggest road privatization plan but the legislature, reacting to criticisms that developers were enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers, enacted a two-year moratorium. That has crimped road-building projects and led to a series of clashes between the governor and the legislature, who now have agreed on a compromise plan. Developers, including overseas companies, investment banks and private equity funds all vie...

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, July 31, 2008 – The noncommissioned officer in charge of force protection here stood amid a crew of smiling Iraqi faces huddled around a large table covered with polka-dotted gift bags and boxes full of toys. Army Staff Sgt. Frank Pflieger, of Jacksonville, Fla., a force protection noncommissioned officer at Camp Victory, Iraq, digs into a dish of baked sheep, beans and rice that was prepared by his crew of Iraqi workers in celebration of the gifts they received from Pflieger’s friends and family July 28, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Michel Sauret, Multinational...

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed a statewide drought in June and then urged passage of a $9.3 billion water bond, Democrats and environmental critics became suspicious. They still are. “Last year we did have record low rainfall, but whether or not there is a drought is somewhat debatable,” said the Sierra Club’s Jim Metropulos. “The governor calling it a drought--that carries no legal significance. It’s interesting he calls for a drought, and couple of weeks later, he calls for a water bond.” The Republican governor proposes a $9.3 billion dollar water bond for the November ballot, arguing that passage of...

The US Treasury Bond market can be confusing. Price inflation in the United States is intentionally made confusing. That keeps the public ignorant and poorly prepared to interrupt grand larceny and elite control of the printing press, the result of which has been a few decades of hidden confiscation of Middle Class work, wealth, and dreams. Long-term bond yields have many fundamental reasons why they should fall lower in the United States . They are interwoven and integrated. The US Economy is being killed by rising costs, in no way justifying higher borrowing costs. Yet amateurish opinions seem to coalesce...

Propositions that are on the November 4, 2008 General Election Ballot* Bond MeasureProposition 1 SB 1856 (Chapter 697, 2002). Costa. Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century.** **Note: The Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century was originally scheduled to appear on the November 2, 2004, General Election ballot. Subsequently, Senate Bill 1169, Chapter 71, Statutes of 2004, provided that it appear on the November 7, 2006, General Election ballot. However, most recently, Assembly Bill 713, Chapter 44, Statutes of 2006, provides for the submission of this Act on the November...

Changes since the last update: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1310. (07-0081) Nonviolent Offenders. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. Statute. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election 1326. (07-0094, Amdt. #1S) Criminal Penalties and Laws. Public Safety Funding. Statute. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election 1304. (07-0066, Amdt. #1S) Renewable Energy. Statute. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election 1298. (07-0068) Limit on Marriage. Constitutional Amendment. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election Propositions that are on the November 4, 2008 General Election Ballot Bond MeasureSB 1856 (Chapter 697, 2002). Costa. Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the...

Many in the great state of Texas have a lot to say about a proposed network of toll roads and railway lines known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. The Texas Department of Transportation received more than 27,000 public comments during a three-month comment period on a proposed corridor project called the TTC-69, said TxDOT spokesman Mark Cross. Transportation officials had 47 public hearings in February and March and accepted written comments through April 18 on the environmental and social impact of the corridor. Comments ranged from flat-out opposition to the corridor to suggestions about how to lessen its impact, Cross told...

The U.S. attorney's office filed 14 counts of perjury and one count of obstruction against Barry Bonds on Tuesday, sources told ESPN's T.J. Quinn. The counts were filed in what's known as a superseding indictment that added 10 more counts to the four baseball's all-time home run king was charged with in November. In March, the perjury case against Bonds was put on hold for three months, with prosecutors telling a federal judge they plan to obtain a new indictment against him. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston had told prosecutors on Feb. 29 to fix their original indictment because it...

He says he is — seriously devoted to building and maintaining highways. But he is just as devoted to fencing state government into fiscal straits that make these goals impossible without privatizing highways through tolls. Perry last week said that going full-bore with toll roads is the only way for Texas to build new highways. That’s not so. The history of Texas tells us it’s not. Toll roads have their function without question. But so do bonds. So does a gasoline tax that has not kept pace with inflation. So does a reexamination of how Texas funds highways in general...

Texas Farm Bureau offered several viable transportation and funding alternatives to the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) in meeting Texas’ future transportation needs during testimony before the Senate Transportation Committee. “Let me assure you, as an industry we absolutely support and recognize the need for building and maintaining roads in Texas,� said Texas Farm Bureau State Director Tom Paben. “We feel this can be accomplished within the current framework of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).� “However, there is a need for redirection, as well as a review of the current priorities of the agency,� Paben added, noting several concerns about...

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry promised to keep fighting for private toll roads and his other transportation priorities Tuesday during his first major speech on the subject since the death in December of transportation commission chairman Ric Williamson. "This is a place for big challenges, not big excuses," he told state Transportation Department employees and highway experts from around the country at the annual Transportation Forum. Next year's legislative session, he said, can't be anything like last year's. "The Legislature must understand that 'no' is not a solution," Mr. Perry said. "It is an abdication of responsibility." Before last year's...

BELTON - There appears to be no easy way to address the challenges that inflation has brought to the Texas Department of Transportation. “We’ve seen 60 percent inflation over the last five years for transportation projects,” said Chris Lippincott, a TxDOT spokesman. To look to the federal government for assistance would appear foolhardy at this point as the Federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to become insolvent by 2009. The fund was created in 1956 to ensure a dependable source of financing for U.S. interstates and highways. “The Federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to go into the red very...

Fund Times: Schwab Bond Fund Suffers Mass Exodus Thursday March 27, 11:38 am ET By Wenli Tan Ultra-short bond fund Schwab YieldPlus (NASDAQ:SWYPX - News) is the latest victim of the credit crisis. It has fallen 16.8% for the year to date through March 26, ranking dead last in its category, and as a result, investors have been fleeing the fund. Assets have fallen precipitously from a high of $13.5 billion in June 2007 to just $2.5 billion as of March 20. The fund's sizeable loss in recent months is certainly shocking, as ultra short-term fixed-income securities are generally perceived...

HARRISBURG -- With a section of a Pittsburgh bridge dropping 8 inches and an Interstate 95 support pillar cracking in Philadelphia, Gov. Ed Rendell is turning up the heat under the Legislature to provide infrastructure repair funds more quickly. Mr. Rendell sent a letter to all 253 legislators yesterday urging quick passage of a $240 million "supplemental debt authorization." His program of borrowing would enable state officials to fast-track repairs on some of the state's 6,000 bridges classified as structurally deficient, along with fixing ailing highways, repairing "state-owned, high-hazard dams" and beginning flood mitigation projects. Also yesterday, Mr. Rendell called...

SAN FRANCISCO -- It didn’t matter if it said "PacBell," "SBC," or "AT&T" on the outside; to many San Francisco Giants fans, the ballpark on the city’s waterfront was always known as "The House That Barry Built." But now, less than a year removed from Barry Bonds’ setting of the all-time, home-run record, the average fan will have a hard to finding evidence that the slugger ever played there. His name, his image, as well as any mention of his feat, have been scrubbed from AT&T Park. Wednesday was Media Day at the ballpark; a chance for reporters and photographers...

State Rep. Jim McReynolds has sent a letter to the Texas Department of Transportation saying he thinks TxDOT should drop the idea of tying the Trans-Texas Corridor in with plans for routing Interstate 69 through East Texas. McReynolds says tremendous negative outcry from his constituents and other East Texas residents has made it clear to him no one wants infrastructure that massive and disruptive to the quality of life to be built, taking big swaths out of the Pineywoods countryside. "Within the past several weeks, I have personally attended every TxDOT hearing held in my district regarding this proposed corridor,"...

Bond debt rates surge The auction-rate bond market has collapsed, with Colorado hit hard. By Aldo Svaldi and Jeffrey Leib The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 03/08/2008 03:54:45 PM MST February was a bad month for Stephanie Doughty, the chief financial officer for Poudre Valley Health System, as interest rates on most of its $215 million in auction-rate bonds climbed steeply, adding as much as $140,000 to weekly interest costs. On Monday, things are expected to get worse when $50 million of that debt goes to auction to face higher rates. "It was just unbelievable, to see such a dramatic...

There's been a lot of talk about the new Trans-Texas Corridor — the next-generation "super-highway" — and opinions are varying. Now the debate is coming to Lufkin's doorstep. On Monday, the American Land Foundation, Stewards of the Range and TURF will hold a workshop at Lufkin's Pitser Garrison Civic Center on how to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor 69. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A portion of Texas citizens have voiced their opposition to the TTC-69 in public meetings held by the Texas Department of Transportation, but believing they are not being heard, four cities and their...

Officials with the Spanish toll road operator Cintra have announced that the company has secured $430 million in loans from the U.S. government to build and operate two segments of a toll road in central Texas. Cintra officials announced the company’s financial plan for the $1.36 billion Highway 130 segments on Monday, March 10. OOIDA Senior Government Affairs Representative Mike Joyce told Land Line that the Association does raise red flags when federal dollars are used to subsidize private investors. Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are not, however, categorically opposed to a state using future toll revenue to...

Senior executives of the Texas Department of Transportation can expect some heavy grilling from state legislators when the state Legislature convenes next January, state Rep. Jim McReynolds said Friday. Speaking to the monthly First Friday luncheon of The Chamber, Lufkin-Angelina County, McReynolds said many legislators, especially those from rural East Texas, are unhappy with TxDOT leaders over the Trans- Texas Corridor project and how it has incorporated plans for an Interstate 69 through the region. McReynolds said he attended all four of the TxDOT hearings on the TTC held in his district, which included one in Diboll, and "never heard...

About a month ago, I wrote a piece entitled Municipal Bonds The Next Shoe to Drop?, which highlighted the asset class I thought was in the most danger: municipal bonds and the municipal bond closed end fund space in particular. The ARS (Auction Rate Security) market has frozen up since then and the municipal bond market itself has frozen up as a result of insurers like MBIA (MBI), Ambac (ABK) and FGIC’s business models being brought into question. Add to the mix a slowing economy and falling tax receipts as a result of the real estate debacle (which is now...

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Tolls on Maryland tunnels and bridges could increase more than 70 percent over the next five years to help pay for building the InterCounty Connector in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, and the new express toll lanes on Interstate 95 in Baltimore and Harford counties, a fiscal analyst told lawmakers Monday. Based on information the Maryland Transportation Authority sent to lawmakers, average tolls throughout the system are expected to go up $1.20 (48 percent) as early as 2010 and 85 cents (23 percent) two years later. This would push one-way tolls at the Susquehanna River bridge...

One major concern I discussed a few weeks ago regarding the Trans Texas Corridor is where the land will come from. Another concern is where the money will come from. Official government websites for the TTC assure that public-private partnerships will shield the taxpayer from bearing too much of the cost burden, but a careful reading shows the door is definitely open to public funding sources, while at the same time there is no doubt of the intention to charge tolls on the road. Taxpayers already pay for their transportation system through hefty gasoline taxes, vehicle registration fees, and other...

AUSTIN - When it comes to road improvement and maintenance, by most accounts, the South Plains and Panhandle are fortunate. Despite a $1.1 billion accounting error, the Texas Department of Transportation recently reported no projects in the region have been canceled or delayed while cities like Dallas, Houston and Laredo had at least a half dozen highway projects delayed. But the $1.1 billion-error, which occurred because TxDOT inadvertently counted some bond money twice and consequently allocated more funding than it had, is just the latest problem plaguing the beleaguered agency. For months, TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz and other transportation...

A new sharia law controversy erupted last night over Government plans to issue special "Islamic bonds" to pay for Gordon Brown's public-spending programme by raising money from the Middle East. Britain is to become the first Western nation to issue bonds approved by Muslim clerics in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as "sinful". The scheme would mark one of the most significant economic advances of sharia law in the non-Muslim world. It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern...

Britain's Treasury is likely to back plans to issue Shariah law-compliant bonds, officials said Sunday - amid continuing debate about the application of Islamic laws in the country. Treasury Secretary Alistair Darling, who will present his annual budget March 12, plans to issue the Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, to tap into a fast-growing market in the products. "We want the City of London to be one of the gateways globally for Islamic financial products," a Treasury spokesman said, on customary condition of anonymity in line with policy. ...Shariah law prohibits charging or paying interest, which has led to the...

U.S. baseball home run king Barry Bonds tested positive for steroids in November 2000, months before his record 73rd home run season, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday. The allegation came in a legal filing in his steroid perjury case which referred to Bonds' long-time trainer, Greg Anderson. "At trial, the government's evidence will show that Bonds received steroids from Anderson in the period before the November 2000 positive drug test, and that evidence raises the inference that Anderson gave Bonds the steroids that caused him to test positive in November 2000," U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello wrote. Russoniello, acting for the...

Investor Warren Buffett offers 800 bln dlr backup to troubled bond insurers Tue Feb 12, 11:03 AM ET Billionaire investor Warren Buffett on Tuesday said he offered to reinsure 800 billion dollars in municipal bonds backed by three insurers hard hit by the US mortgage and credit crunch. Buffett discussed his offer to bond insurers Ambac Financial Group, MBIA Inc. and Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. during a telephone interview with the CNBC business television network. Buffett said he had sent that offer to the three bond insurers last week, and that he was giving them 30 days to find a...

ROBSTOWN, Tex. — Leon Little’s farm here near Corpus Christi would not be seized for Texas’s proposed $184-billion-plus superhighway project for 5 or 10 years, if ever. But Mr. Little was alarmed enough to show up Wednesday night with hundreds of his South Texas coastal neighbors to do what the Texas Department of Transportation has been urging: “Go ahead, don’t hold back.� Don’t worry. Texans have gotten the message, swamping hearings and town meetings across the state to grill and often excoriate agency officials about a colossal traffic makeover known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the...

Sometimes the truth just has a way of coming to light. A public information officer with the Texas Department of Transportation this week wrote a column in the Herald-Press describing the financial woes facing TxDOT and how because of those problems the state’s transportation department doesn’t have the money to deal with many of the state’s transportation issues. Apparently, several of the state’s senators do not feel that is the case at all. David Dewhurst called out the state’s interim chairwoman of the Texas Transportation Commission, Hope Andrade, on this very issue, according to a story from the Associated Press....

Grimes County commissioners and County Judge Betty Shiflett made sure they attended a TTC/I-69 meeting at the Walker County Fairgrounds last week, as residents previously demanded they take a stronger stance against the proposed route through Grimes County. Shiflett received a roaring applause from audience members with her speech that ended with the question, “What part of “no� do you not understand?� Shiflett added that Grimes County was not given an option for having a town meeting, just the environmental meeting. “Representative Lois Kolkhorst stole the show as she announced loud and clear that she was against TTC I-69,� said...

Banks link to solve bond insurers crisis By David Wighton, Aline van Duyn and Henny Sender in New York and Peter Thal Larsen in London Published: February 1 2008 19:53 | Last updated: February 1 2008 20:05 Leading US and European banks are joining forces to find solutions to the crisis among US bond insurers, whose problems threaten to exacerbate the impact of the credit squeeze. One group of banks, including Citigroup and Barclays, is examining options for supporting Ambac Financial, one of the leading insurers. Separate teams are working with other bond insurers, according to people close to the...

Since it began to give credit ratings to nations in 1917, Moody's has rated the United States triple-A. U.S. Treasury bonds have been seen as the most secure investment on earth. When crises erupt, nervous money seeks out the world's great safe harbor, the United States. That reputation is now in peril.

Warren Buffett is renting out his gold-plated name to cash-strapped cities across America so they can now borrow under his protec tive wing - and, of course, pay him dearly for the lifeline. As the financial serv ices industry remained mired in turmoil over its own shaky credit woes, Buffett yesterday launched a new insurance company to help municipalities find insurance for backing up their bonds - of which they sell hundreds of billions to investors to finance operations. Many major bond insurers that traditionally dominated the $2.5 trillion municipal borrowing world are on the ropes, wracked by their own...

From the Texas Contractor Austin Bureau January 7, 2008 Texas Contractor Interview with Amadeo Saenz on TxDOT construction and maintenance spending in 2008 and beyond. Amadeo Saenz, P.E., a transportation engineer with 29 years' state experience, took over as the executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) at the end of September — and began working to find ways to allow the agency to meet the state's highway needs despite increasing demand,rising costs and decreasing resources. Saenz, 51, was named to Texas' top transportation position by the Texas Transportation Commission in late September to replace Michael Behrens, who...

Highways The Texas Department of Transportation plans to let contracts for $4.1 billion in construction in 2008 are in jeopardy after having to return around $950 million to Washington over the past 18 months. The mood in Austin is uncertain, although voters approved Proposition 12 in November, authorizing the next Texas Legislature in 2009 to issue up to $5 billion in bonds (paid from general revenue) to build highway projects. A required independent audit of the Texas Department of Transportation during 2007 recommended that the department “should continue to pursue Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDA) and toll pricing at levels that...

NEW YORK -- George Mitchell's 20-month report into steroid use in professional baseball blamed both players and management for the problem. Mitchell addressed the media and released his report Thursday. Among the former senator's conclusions he gave in what he termed a "detailed statement": • "For more than a decade there has been widespread anabolic steroid use" in baseball, he said. • Mitchell and his staff interviewed former New York Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski four times. Radomski identified a number of former and current MLB players he said he sold steroid and human growth hormone to. Checks and money...

Average people are tired of it. This country is already stacked toward the wealthy (mortgage interest is tax deductible; rent is not) and the privileged (the last president without an Ivy League degree was elected nearly 30 years ago).

Baseball superstar Barry Bonds was charged Thursday with perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying when he said he did not use performance-enhancing drugs. The indictment, unsealed Thursday by federal prosecutors in San Francisco, is the culmination of a four-year federal probe into whether he lied under oath to a grand jury investigating steroid use by elite athletes. The indictment comes three months after the 43-year-old Bonds, one of the biggest names in professional sports, passed Hank Aaron to become baseball's career home run leader, his sport's most hallowed record.

SAN FRANCISCO - Barry Bonds is just a tad bitter about his departure from the San Francisco Giants. The 43-year-old home run king heard a long list of his accomplishments read during a special speaking forum Wednesday night hosted by the Commonwealth Club, then was asked by KGO Radio host Ray Taliaferro if he'd really reached all those feats... "I did, and then I got fired," Bonds told a group of about 450 people in the audience...

The Chinese government will launch 28 billion yuan (US$3.72 billion) of book-entry treasury bonds on Monday, the 17th batch of its kind this year, according to the Ministry of Finance (MOF). The five-year T-bonds, with a fixed annual yield of four percent, will be sold via the national inter-bank bond market, the stock market and commercial banks from October 22 to 25, and will be available for trading on the stock market and over the counters of designated commercial banks from October 29. China has issued a total of 516 billion yuan of book-entry treasury bonds this year. China's book-entry...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Treasury bonds advanced early Tuesday, sending yields lower, after a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday night left traders with the impression that more rate cuts remain possible this year. Another boost for bonds came after the National Association of Home Builders said its housing market index fell to a record low of 18 in October from 20 in September. Bonds, which are fixed-income assets, gain in value when growth and inflation pressures fall. "The Treasury market is trading higher this morning as investors shift from stocks to bonds on what could be...

(1)...Most significant is the securities-fraud suit brought by StoneRidge Investment Partners of Malvern, Pa., against both Scientific Atlanta and Motorola (ticker: MOT). The investment firm argues that the two tech concerns abetted cable television provider Charter Communications (CHTR) in a scheme to inflate its cash flow in 2000-2001 by $487 million. When investors discovered the inflation in 2002, Charter's stock fell from $26.31 to 76 cents, a loss of $7 billion in market capital. (2)ANOTHER CASE CHALLENGES THE CENTURIES-OLD practice by most states of giving preferential tax treatment to in-state municipal bonds. If the Supreme Court rules that the practice...

The Giants will announce at 5 p.m. today that Barry Bonds will not return next season, ending his career in San Francisco after 15 remarkable seasons. Bonds upstaged the Giants on his Web site, with the following entry: "This journal will be one of my last entries as a San Francisco Giant. Yesterday, I was told by the Giants that they will not be bringing me back for the 2008 season," Bonds wrote. "During the conversation with Peter Magowan, I was told that my play this year far exceeded any expectations the Giants had, but that the organization decided this...

Bond Funds May Be Next to Feel Subprime Shockwaves Topics:Hedge Funds | Credit | Subprime Lending | Treasuries | Mutual FundsBy AP | 09 Sep 2007 | 03:36 PM ET Font size: Could the housing market's woes spread to bonds held in mutual funds by millions of ordinary investors? AP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some experts -- and hedge fund investors who have made big bets that the mortgage crisis will worsen -- are saying that's exactly what will happen. Some bond funds that invest in riskier short-term debt already have been whacked by soaring default rates on bonds backed by subprime loans...

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) says it needs to spend $9 million in taxpayer money to sell its vision of transportation policy to the public. Maybe if TxDOT pursued rational transportation policies, the public support would follow, and it could spend that $9 million building and maintaining roads. Here’s why Texans ought to be concerned. Borrowing carries a price tag. The Texas Constitution has traditionally eschewed deficit spending and required existing revenue to pay for existing spending. Now, the state wants to build most of its roads by borrowing, either publicly or by getting a private firm to agree...

Texas drivers are tired of traffic gridlock. We want new roads built sooner rather than later, but we do not want a Trans-Texas Corridor that would surely invite more illegal drugs and more illegal aliens. Legislators have gotten our message but since both highway funds, the State Highway Fund (a gasoline tax) and the Texas Mobility Fund (bond money), have been pilfered for other uses, there is no money for road building. Members of the Texas Senate Transportation & Homeland Security Committee met on August 7 to discuss this funding dilemma. Committee Chairman John Carona suggested a new constitutional amendment...