Transportation Secretary: 'Coerce People Out of Their Cars'

By Thomas Lifson

Ray Lahood, Secretary of Transportation, commits a classic DC gaffe, telling the truth. The Mainstream media yawns, but Terrence Jeffrey of CNS News was not asleep at the wheel (as it were). He reports:

Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood told a group of reporters at the National Press Club on Thursday that he wants to "coerce people out of their cars."

In Newsweek magazine last week, nationally syndicated columnist George Will published a piece critical of Lahood, entitled, "Ray Lahood, Transformed--Secretary of Behavior Modification."

"He says he has joined a ‘transformational' administration: ‘I think we can change people's behavior,'" Will reports that Lahood said over lunch. ...

The moderator of the press club event asked Lahood: "Some in the highway-supporters motorist groups have been concerned by your livability initiative. Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?"

Lahood answered: "It is a way to coerce people out of their cars.

I applaud the Secretary's honesty, as I deplore the elitist mentality that seeks to coerce Americans.

I hope that my fellow lab rat Americans will wake up before it is too late. We live in an American where the authorities will bully us into lifestyles they have chosen.

Hat tip: Bryan Demko