Contradictory to what Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said at a party in Washington last week, he is leaving President Barack Obama’s cabinet. LaHood informed his staff and the president this morning that he would not be sticking around for Obama’s second term, but he will remain in his current position until a successor is found.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to lead the Department, and I am grateful to President Obama for giving me such an extraordinary opportunity,” LaHood said in a statement, calling the job “the best I’ve ever had.”
LaHood congratulated the DOT staff for securing funds in the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 — the so-called stimulus package — awarding billions of dollars in grants for transportation-based projects, reauthorizing FAA and passing the highway funding bill — Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century — last summer.
The president also released a statement this morning, thanking LaHood for “his dedication, his hard work and his years of service to the American people,” the statement says.
“As Secretary of Transportation, he has fought to create jobs and grow our economy by rebuilding our roads, bridges and transit systems. Under his leadership, we have made significant investments in our passenger rail system and laid the groundwork for the high-speed rail network of the future,” Obama said.
LaHood served as the only Republican in Obama’s first-term cabinet. There’s no word yet on who will be replacing him.
good riddance i say. for a republican LaHood sure liked to come up with new rules. as to the wing nuts who think Obama is now going to go all marxist, get a clue. he just nominated another republican. seems O can't do anything right for some people. i wonder why..........
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Likeyou have to be the most ignorant person to make such a ridiculous statement as free-enterprise-hating, Marxist..... But that is ok, that is why Bush Senior lost all the SURPLUS that Clinton had put in there, oh yea, and his son Doubled his Fathers debt!!!!! So if you hate the Government that much, find a plane ticket and leave Anon........
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LikeTypical of the left: the hatred for everyone and everything. Do the leftists like ANYTHING? P.S.: There was no Clinton surplus. It was all on paper and deficit spending continued unabated. It's a myth the leftists like to tell.
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LikeDavid McQueen i guess the doubling of the Dow, unemployment going down, GDP going up, regulations allowing concealed weapons on amtrak and in national parks and record corporate profits are all myths the leftists like to tell too, huh? Obama is hardly the liberal the right wing nut jobs like to paint him.
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LikeSecond term, no re-election worries. Time to push out the left-of-center staff and replace them with the ultra-far-left, free-enterprise-hating, Marxists.
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LikeLots of house cleaning on term 2. Doesn't look like it for the better either.
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LikeLOL. As if we would EVER know the truth....
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LikeQuite a sharp reversal of LaHood's intent! Maybe Obama (his direct boss) told him to do something he didn't like. There's more to this story than meets the eye.
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LikeI'm curious to know WHY he's leaving.
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LikeTruckman
I could care less why, the most important thing is that he IS heading out.
Of course now we have to worry that BHO will nominate someone like Hersman to be Sec'y. She'd make The Hood look like a saint for trucking.
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