Texas politics: Why I won’t be voting for Tom Craddick
Oct 21, 2008 politics
Not too long ago, I spoke at the La Entrada al Pacifico townhall style meeting held at the UTPB CEED building here in Midland, Texas. One of the points that I made was that the La Entrada al Pacifico corridor (as a section of the larger Trans Texas Corridor) was an encroachment on our state and national sovereignty, because the TTC (but not La Entrada al Pacifico, as pointed out by James Beauchamp) it is not only giving taxing/tolling authority to foreign entities, but using Texas taxpayer money to subsidize the importation of foreign goods. As it turns out, Craddick’s wife, Nadine, is a co-founder of MOTRAN (Midland Odessa Transportation Alliance), an organization that is spearheading La Entrada al Pacifico.
Tom Craddick lists the “Driver Responsibility Program”, a program which imposes a surcharge on driving offenses such as not physically carrying your license with you while driving (even if it is valid and you forgot your wallet at home) or any moving violation(s) which result in 6 points on your driving record. A portion of the revenues from these surcharge fees (49.5% to be exact) are going to TXDOT’s “mobility fund”, which funds highway projects, including the trans-Texas corridor and La Entrada al Pacifico, since TXDOT is currently performing a $1.5 million study of the La Entrada al Pacifico corridor in Texas.
Not to mention, the “Christi Craddick Bill” - a bill which gave Craddick’s adult daughter state funded health care, despite his criticizing legislators who pay employees who do little to no work for the state of Texas with taxpayer dollars. His daughter works for his PAC and provides no service to the State of Texas.
Craddick was also involved in a money laundering scheme in 2002.
Tags: christi craddick, driver responsibility program, la entrada al pacifico, midland, MOTRAN, nadine craddick, odessa, tom craddick, trans-texas corridor, TXDOT