Timing dubious in push to raise FasTracks taxes

Yesterday, the Regional Transportation District took the wraps off an RTD-financed survey in which more than 60 percent of respondents said they'd "generally support" a tax increase to complete current FasTracks exansion by 2017. This info spawned prominently placed stories in the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News this morning. But other headlines in the same editions imply that officials would be taking a significant political risk by lobbying for an early vote on such a measure -- among them "Sprint, ING, Others to Slash 74,000 Jobs" and "Jobs Swirling Down Drain."

Given the current state of the economy, RTD reps are demonstrating either tremendous moxie or remarkable tone-deafness by floating a tax increase right now. To quote FasTracks naysayer Jon Caldara in the Rocky article linked above, "Just how inebriated do they think we are?"