VIRGINIA TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION
P. O. BOX 663
LYNCHBURG, VA 24505
- 34 years in the cause of freedom -
Tel./FAX No.: 434 277-5255
Statement by Kenneth White, President
Before Virginia House and Senate Joint Budget Committees
January 15, 2007
Mr. Chairman, my name is Kenneth White and I am President of the
Virginia Taxpayers Association.
Taxpayers are extremely angry that the Commonwealth of Virginia
spent two thousand dollars to send Barbara Reese, Chief Financial
Officer of the Virginia Department of Transportation, last Sept. 19
and 20 to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York, where she was a
programmed speaker at an unpublicized conference, the unlawful
purpose of which was to expedite selling highways in Virginia and
elsewhere in the United States to private commercial interests, many
of them foreign.
This VDOT official knew, before she went to New York, that a top
transportation official from the government of Mexico would also be
speaking, as well as financial power figures from Spain, Canada,
Australia, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Goldman Sachs, J. P.
Morgan, the Carlyle Group, Lehman Brothers and a number of others.
Alleged authority for VDOT in such a conference is Virginia's
Public-Private Transportation Act of 1995, under which the
Pocahontas Parkway was built. But Virginia citizens were not told
at that time that the Pocahontas Parkway --- which last June was
leased to Transurban of Australia for 99 years --- would be an
opening wedge for a wholesale foreign consortium takeover of major
U. S. interstates, under the NAFTA Superhighway System, with
several south-north Mexico to Canada corridors, where foreigners
would levy tolls without review by any U. S. elected officials and
would even have eminent domain to grab millions of acres of valuable
farm and urban land for the corridors.
This NAFTA Superhighway System is being implemented right now, all
without approval or even formal knowledge by the United States
Congress.
It is clearly unlawful for any state government, as a separate
entity, to take money from the sale of highways which have been
fully paid for by, and which belong to, state and federal taxpayers,
and not to the state government itself.
This coming March 19 to 21, an outfit called EuroMoney Seminars will
hold an intensive training conference in the Hyatt Regency Hotel,
Miami, for selected officials from the different state departments
of transportation --- costing taxpayers 3,500.00 apiece --- to show
them how to negotiate NAFTA Superhighway System contracts with
private financial interests, which will make billions from levying
tolls on U. S. motorists.
We are demanding that no representative of the Virginia Department
of Transportation be permitted to attend this pernicious training
conference, which is deliberately designed to further corrupt the
lawful functioning of government.
We are also calling on each of you, as individual legislators, to
support Senate Joint Resolution 387, introduced by Senator Roscoe
Reynolds, opposing the NAFTA Superhighway System and also opposing
the North American Union --- like the European Union --- making one
big nation out of Mexico, the United States and Canada, which is
even now being implemented by the Bush administration without
approval or formal knowledge by Congress.
Resolutions similar to SJR 387 have already been introduced in South
Carolina and Georgia legislatures.
Finally, a poll on the very popular and influential Lou Dobbs TV
program last week found that 97 percent of the participants were
opposed to selling U. S. highways to foreign commercial interests.
We promise you that we will do our best to expose those who act
against the best interests of Virginians in this matter.
This concludes our statement.
====================================================================
SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 387
Offered January 10, 2007
Prefiled January 10, 2007
Memorializing the Congress of the United States to take such
constitutional action as may be necessary to prevent the executive
branch of the federal government from unilateral action in
implementing the NAFTA Superhighway System and the creation of a
North American Union.
-------------
Patron-Reynolds
--------------
Referred to Committee on Rules
---------------
WHEREAS, the safety of Virginia highways is a prime responsibility
of the Virginia General Assembly that cannot be delegated to any
other entity; and
WHEREAS, a NAFTA Superhighway System from the west coast of Mexico
through the United States and into Canada is now being implemented
by the current presidential administration; and
WHEREAS, the system includes multiple connections with Virginia's
already heavily traveled roads, and is being implemented without any
action by the United States Congress; and
WHEREAS, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has warned in
its August 2006 national magazine, that the NAFTA Superhighway will
result in United States trucks being replaced by Mexican vehicles,
more unsafe rigs being operated on American roads, and more drivers
relying on drugs to complete long hauls; and the maintenance of
Mexican truck brakes and tires falls far below United States
standards; and
WHEREAS, Mexican drivers are compelled by companies that employ them
to drive alone an excessive 25 days a month and a distance of 4,500
kilometers over the course of five or six nights without sleep,
requiring them to resort to cocaine and crystal methamphetamine to
stay awake; and
WHEREAS, the national Teamster magazine, in interviewing a sample of
Mexican drivers, found no one who had not been involved in a highway
fatality on the job; and
WHEREAS, the NAFTA Superhighway System will therefore bring onto
United States soil a new army of drivers who are likely to cause
accidents on America's roads; and
WHEREAS, given the generally acknowledged corruption of many
businesses in Mexico, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for
Virginians, as well as other Americans, to collect insurance claims
against Mexican companies that employ Mexican truck drivers who may
cause accidents in the United States, causing insurance rates for
Virginians to increase sharply; and
WHEREAS, an initial portion of the NAFTA Superhighway System,
already under way in Texas, involves a pattern contract with the
state by the Spanish-United States Cintra-Zachry consortium that, in
return for a single lump-sum payment to the state by Cintra, grants
the right to levy unregulated tolls for years to come, greatly
increasing the cost of driving for all motorists; and
WHEREAS, neither taxpayers nor United States banks are willing to
provide the billions of dollars required to construct the enormous
NAFTA Superhighway System, and the needed funds are expected to be
supplied instead by foreign consortiums, resulting in America's
arterial highway system being under foreign management and financial
control; and
WHEREAS, in the United States House of Representatives, House
Concurrent Resolution 487 has been introduced, opposing not only the
NAFTA Superhighway System, but also the creation of a North American
Union with Mexico and Canada; and
WHEREAS, a North American Union, similar to the European Union,
would essentially eliminate the southern and northern borders of the
United States and is presently being implemented by the current
presidential administration without the approval of the United
States Congress; and
WHEREAS, a North American Union would threaten the sovereignty of
the United States, the precepts of the United States Constitution,
and the laws and Constitution of Virginia, all without the consent
of the citizens of the Commonwealth; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the Senate, the House of Delegates concurring, That the
Virginia General Assembly hereby declare its formal opposition to
allowing components of the Interstate Highway System in Virginia to
become part of the NAFTA Superhighway System, as well as its
opposition to the creation of a North American Union; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Congress of the United States be urged to
prevent the implementation of the NAFTA Superhighway System and the
creation of a North American Union; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Congress of the United States be
memorialized to take such constitutional action as may be necessary
to prevent the executive branch of the federal government from
unilaterally implementing the NAFTA Superhighway System and the
creation of a North American Union; and, be it
RESOLVED FINALLY, That the Clerk of the Senate transmit copies of
this resolution to the President of the United States Senate, the
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the
members of the Virginia Congressional Delegation so that they may be
apprised of the sense of the General Assembly of Virginia in this
matter.
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=89655
Author