The future has arrived – public transportation will now cost way more than driving a car.

Do you live in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware? Then you already know public transit behemoth Septa has a $200 million deficit it can’t cover. How could this happen?

The link below is to WHYY, Philadelphia’s public radio station (state affiliated media). They want to blame the Biden administration for this fiasco. The US government is still passing out covid 19 money like it’s 2020. Yeah . . . this caught me off guard too. In any case, for 5 years Philadelphia’s public transit system has been living off taxpayer covid money from the OTHER 49 states. And now that Covid money is going away. Septa is broke.

Speaking now to WHYY - first off this is NOT a Biden created problem. Uncle Joe slept through the entire last 2 years of his presidency. If you want to blame anyone, it would be those anonymous west wing kids ruling in his name. THEY are the ones who kept passing out covid money like candy, even after media reports documented somewhere between $800 million and $2 billion in covid grant fraud. Continuing one party rule depended on single issues voters like those who worship subsidized planes, trains, and automobiles.

Septa's grant money is NOT fraud, but it's reckless and stupid. The money started when businesses were in lockdown, and half of Philadelphia was working from home, and the money WASN’T needed. Septa could have just pared back service then. Those subsidies continue today because the officials running Septa are morons, and thought free money would last forever.

Septa theorizes that it will need to hike fares 20% PLUS eliminate 20% of train and bus routes to balance its budget. By cutting 20% of routes, that means up to 20% of the system’s 700,000 monthly strap hangers will be hopping back into their cars. But there’s not enough highway bandwidth or parking capacity to meet their needs. WFH, anyone?

WHYY has a different idea – keep the covid 19 subsidies in place forever. Keep increasing the structural deficits of commuter bus and rail. Pretend trains and buses are like EVs . . .and that we have to continue subsidizing stuff that is insanely expensive.

Since public radio station WHYY is recipient of free government money itself, it has no hope of understanding that if you subsidize something you increase demand, and it becomes a never-ending, vicious circle. It becomes a dependency, like alcoholism or fentanyl addiction.

To inoculate this post against people who are now going to rant "what about this or that government program . . . ?", let me point out that in past columns I indeed HAVE said that we should stop subsidizing banks with bailouts; stop propping up Detroit with EV subsidies; stop growing those strategic stockpiles of everything from peanut butter to helium, stop spending $700 on an air force hammer. If things are too expensive, some people who can’t afford a subsidized EV or lounging in the Club Car on Septa express commuter trains will have to figure something out. It’s simply wrong to expect taxpayers earning less than average to subsidize the lifestyles of those with far higher incomes.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Penn Medicine CEO worries about SEPTA service cuts - WHYY