Senior White House officials were reportedly briefed on a consortium of American companies—including a firm owned by former East Asian and Pacific Affairs assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell—vying for an airport operation bid in Yangon, Foreign Policy reported earlier this week. The White House was expected to raise the issue during Monday’s bilateral meeting.

Campbell was instrumental in implementing the Obama administration’s Burma policy, including the easing of U.S. sanctions. He left the State Department to found a private consulting firm called the Asia Group last February. The Asia Group announced it was joining a consortium of American firms competing for a contract to modernize the Yangon International Airport one month later.

Burmese human rights advocates, who believe the sanctions were rolled back too hastily and without enough progress from the Burmese government, said they were disturbed by reports that the White House would advocate for a former U.S. official’s business interests during Thein Sein’s visit.

“For Kurt Campbell, when he was assistant secretary, economic interests were more of a priority than solving Burma’s more long-term [human rights problems],” said Jennifer Quigley of the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

“Now we’re seeing that President Obama and Kurt Campbell, that their ultimate policy guidance is based on their own economic interest and not in what is the best interest for the people of that country,” added Quigley. “We’ve basically sold away any moral authority in the world.”

Kelley Currie, a senior fellow with the Project 2049 Institute, said she was concerned about the prospect of the administration lobbying for a private business interest in Burma.

“I think the most problematic thing is for the United States to be advocating on behalf of a company that’s participating on behalf of a procurement process at the same time we’re trying to get the Burmese to have a more transparent process for these [dealings],” said Currie.

Former U.S. officials need to be cautious about the perception that they may be profiting off of policies they helped put in place, she said.

“I think that in their dealings with Burma, the current and former officials of the U.S. government need to be above reproach and need to be extremely aware of the messages they’re sending with their involvement, whether it’s in business projects or other activities,” said Currie.

Activists say the Obama administration has rushed to open relations with Burma without insisting on enough concrete reforms in return. They note that minorities, particularly Muslims, are still being targeted by the country’s military with either implicit or explicit support from the government.

The White House declined to comment on whether Obama brought up the Yangon International Airport bid during Monday’s bilateral meeting. A White House spokesperson said she could provide “no additional information” outside of Obama’s public comments during a press conference following the meeting.

Campbell’s firm did not respond to requests for comment.

Penny Pritzker, whose father founded the Hyatt Hotel chain, was on the receiving end of strong queries from Republicans on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Ranking Committee Republican Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) grilled Pritzker over her tenure as board chairman of Superior Bank. The bank, which her family purchased in 1989, failed in 2001 under the weight of subprime loans. Some bank members lost their life savings, according to Thune.

“What do you have to say to the depositors who lost great sums of money?” Thune asked.

Pritzker acknowledged the bank’s failure, but denied that she played an active role.

“I was never an officer of the bank or a manager,” she said. “My family voluntarily agreed to pay $453 million (to the FDIC) … it was the right thing to do both for depositors and for my family.”

Pritzker attempted to distance herself from her billionaire reputation during the hearing. She highlighted her great grandfather’s immigration to the U.S. from Russia in the 19th Century.

“He came here dirt poor,” she said.

She also emphasized that her inheritance had little to do with her career as a businesswoman. She said that she encouraged her family members to fire her if she couldn’t “get the job done” when she started her career and emphasized that she had started five companies on her own.

“Through hard work we survived and grew and the company remains successful and employs thousands of people,” she said.

The crowd at the confirmation hearing was dotted with grim-faced men and women wearing red UNITE HERE t-shirts.

UNITE HERE, a union representing hotel workers, has waged a campaign against Hyatt for many years, alleging abusive working conditions. The 270,000-member union announced Monday it would publicly oppose Pritzker’s nomination and protested in front of the landmark Chicago Hyatt.

UNITE HERE has become increasingly critical of the administration. Not only has it opposed Pritzker’s nomination, its leadership has criticized the implementation of Obamacare because it could cost union members their health benefits.

The union has been a vital political ally of Obama and Democrats in recent years. It has been a strong proponent of immigration reform, as well as a major fundraiser, spending more than $7 million in the 2012 cycle.

Pritzker helped launch Obama’s political career in Illinois by contributing to his Senate campaign. She also bundled more than $1.3 million for the president in 2008 and 2012, contributed $250,000 to his 2013 inauguration, and served on his Jobs Council.

UNITE HERE members are aware of her close ties to the administration but remained steadfast in their opposition.

Pritzker defended her approach to labor organizations when Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) asked about the AFL-CIO’s boycott of Hyatt.

“There’s no success in business without a good relationship between management and labor,” Pritzker said. “I support the right for workers to organize if that’s what they want to do.”

“Very entertaining,” a man wearing a UNITE HERE shirt said when asked how he thought the hearing went. “We’re going to be here no matter what. That’s what justice is about.”

Lew said he did not know any details of the inspector general’s investigation into inappropriate targeting of conservative nonprofit groups before the final report was released, although he confessed that the inspector general alerted him to it on March 15.

“The inspector flagged a number of items without going into great detail,” Lew said about his meeting with the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) on March 15.

By contending that the IRS’ actions were contained within the agency, Lew continued the administration’s strategy of distancing the embattled departments from the scandals that engulfed the administration last week.

Attorney General Eric Holder likewise pleaded ignorance about the various scandals convulsing the administration last week during his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Holder used the phrase “I don’t know” or some variant at least 57 times in the hearing, according to reports.

Much of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing Tuesday morning, initially intended to discuss the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s annual report, was devoted to the IRS scandal.

Committee ranking member Mike Crapo (R., Idaho) spent the entirety of his first segment of allotted time on the IRS scandal, turning to the hearing’s stated purpose in the second round of questions.

Crapo and other senators pressed Lew on who knew what about the scandal and when. Lew argued that the Treasury Department should not interfere with the IRS’ internal decisions.

“I will not cross that line into the administration of the tax system,” Lew said. He emphasized that his priority is setting up a management system that will prevent this kind of scandal from happening again.

Sen. Dean Heller (R., Nev.) expressed concern that Lew did not inquire further into the investigation when he first heard about it. Lew told the committee that he simply gave the inspector general his full support in investigating the matter.

“I’m just surprised that you had no additional questions,” Heller said, noting that in his experience it is not uncommon for corporate and government heads to inquire into the results of investigations, even before they are final.

Lew said it would be inappropriate for the department secretary to become involved in an inspector general’s investigation.

Lew repeatedly expressed his and President Barack Obama’s disapproval of the IRS’ actions, although he also said repeatedly that the inspector general’s report found no evidence of political motivation.

Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) called the sincerity of the president and secretary’s outrage “kind of laughable.”

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were “demonizing” and “villainizing” the same groups that the IRS was targeting, Corker said. He said their comments created a culture that encouraged the IRS’s discriminatory actions.

“People should not be surprised that bureaucrats at lower levels took it upon themselves to do what they did,” Corker said.

The investigation revolves around a 2009 story that Fox News’ James Rosen broke about North Korea’s nuclear program and the regime’s intentions to conduct a nuclear test in response to United Nations sanctions.

The Department of Justice began tracking the supposed originator of the information, the State Department’s Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, and Rosen to determine their relationship following the article’s publishing.

According to the Post, which obtained court records for the case, the FBI tracked Rosen’s movements out of federal office buildings, phone records, and the private email accounts of Kim and Rosen to build a case against them.

A federal judge granted the DOJ permission to include Rosen in the investigation since there was evidence that Rosen was a “co-conspirator” in releasing classified information.

As the Post points out, these actions are quite alarming:

However, it remains an open question whether it’s ever illegal, given the First Amendment’s protection of press freedom, for a reporter to solicit information. No reporter, including Rosen, has been prosecuted for doing so.

The 2009 investigation is similar to the latest news that the DOJ has been tracking Associated Press reporters, but the breadth of the investigation of James Rosen raises new questions of how many journalists have been the targets of these searches.

While the Department of Justice maintains it followed all applicable laws in their investigations of government leaks, they have been criticized for the number of investigations carried out since 2009:

The Obama administration has pursued more such cases than all previous administrations combined, including one against a former CIA official charged with leaking U.S. intelligence on Iran and another against a former FBI contract linguist who pleaded guilty to leaking to a blogger.

Perez, Obama’s nominee to head the Labor Department, has come under fire for failing to respond to congressional requests for information pertaining to an alleged quid pro quo he orchestrated that cost taxpayer up to $200 million.

“We sent the message in November in 2012 and we are ready to send another message in 2014 and in 2016,” CASA de Maryland executive director Gustavo Torres said at a press conference at La Raza headquarters.

Perez served as president of the board of CASA, a nonprofit group that helps legal and illegal immigrants find work. CASA members echoed their leader’s message on a march from the St. Regis Hotel, located two blocks from the White House, to La Raza’s building located four blocks from the White House.

“We are not one; we are thousands. If you can count, count us wisely,” they chanted in Spanish amid a sea of pre-made placards saying, “We’ll Remember Who Stands with Tom Perez” and “Latino Voters for Perez.”

Twelve people in red CASA shirts marched up 16th Street and greeted about 18 men and women in suits at La Raza’s headquarters, whereupon organizers handed seven media outlets a letter signed by 49 Hispanic interest groups.

Angel Aviles, an El Salvadoran construction worker who brought his three-year-old son Diego to the rally, said he was supporting Perez though struggled to give reasons why.

“It’s good; I’m not sure why … I don’t know. It’s the first time I’m here. I came for Luis,” he said, pointing to a friend in a CASA shirt.

Sophie, a four-year-old girl in a navy sundress, struggled to support a sign against the breeze. She attended the rally with her mother.

“I guess to support Tom Perez, to show Hispanic people are humans,” Sophie’s mother, who did not give her name, told the Washington Free Beacon as the press conference began.

Representatives from the various letter signatories mounted the podium to condemn Republicans for twice delaying Perez’s Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee confirmation vote. Speakers repeatedly referred to Perez as “our champion” and “our friend,” adding, “An attack on Tom Perez is an attack on the Latino community.”

“Tom Perez is a respected and loved member of the Hispanic community,” La Raza president Janet Murguía said. “We are united in outrage. … Make no mistake right now, this nominee is being disrespected and we as the Latino Community are watching very closely.”

Murguía repeatedly insisted Perez had “made a good faith effort to answer questions” regarding the reason for the delays—an alleged quid pro quo Perez orchestrated as the Department of Justice’s chief civil rights enforcement officer. He allegedly helped dismiss a $200 million whistleblower lawsuit against St. Paul, Minn., after the city dropped a Supreme Court case that threatened to derail a racial discrimination legal theory Perez supports.

The House Oversight Committee has repeatedly asked Perez for private emails that he used to conduct government business. He has not complied. Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) sent Perez a letter last week requesting the documents.

Murguía dismissed the bipartisan demands for Perez to cooperate with the St. Paul investigation.

“If there’s a member, especially a Democrat, who still wants answers then we can do that later in confirmation—there’s no reason he can’t exit the committee,” she said. “There may be good faith concerns [about the confirmation], but we believe, on substance, that one case should not define his entire career.”

Murguía said Perez’s nomination is an especially hot topic for Hispanic special interests because Obama did not nominate other minorities to high-ranking positions.

“We are disappointed that President Obama did not nominate more [Hispanics] to the highest positions in his administration,” she said. “We just think a cabinet should be as diverse and representative as this country.”

The Senate HELP committee will vote on Perez’s nomination on Thursday.

According to reports, the White House called Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) Wednesday and asked him to reintroduce the Free Flow of Information Act, which shields reporters from being compelled to reveal their sources in court.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Free Flow of Information Act by a 15-to-4 vote in December 2009, but a floor vote was scuttled after the Wikileaks controversy.

The White House is facing fierce criticism from the press following news that the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed the phone logs of AP reporters and editors in an attempt to track down the source of a national security leak.

“This kind of law would balance national security needs against the public’s right to the free flow of information,” Schumer said in a press release. “At minimum, our bill would have ensured a fairer, more deliberate process in this case.”

However, the bill will likely contain a large carve-out for national security matters. The 2009 version of the legislation contained national security exemptions, which were included at the request of the White House.

Such a provision would likely not have shielded the AP from the Justice Department subpoena.

The White House’s new push for media shield laws stands in stark contrast to the administration’s actions in court against reporters. Federal prosecutors argued against journalistic privilege in the case of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling.

Prosecutors subpoenaed New York Times reporter James Risen for allegedly incorporating classified information he received from Sterling into a chapter of his 2006 book, State of War. The government indicted Sterling in 2010 for the unlawful disclosure of national defense information.

Federal prosecutors wrote in 2012 that Risen has no “reporter’s privilege” protecting him from revealing his sources.

“Contrary to Risen’s claim, the ‘newsworthiness’ of the information has no bearing on whether he should be required to disclose his source,” prosecutors wrote. “The ‘newsworthiness’ of the information is irrelevant to whether Sterling committed a crime, and it is irrelevant to whether Risen, like any other citizen, must testify concerning his knowledge of that crime.”

The Obama administration promised during its transition period to enhance “whistle-blower laws to protect federal workers.” But in the years since, the administration has charged more people under the Espionage Act—six total—than all previous administrations combined. The Espionage Act has only been enforced three other times since it was enacted in 1917.

Additionally, the Justice Department charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou in 2012 with disclosing classified information to the media. The DOJ charged former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake in another case under the Espionage Act, claiming the former National Security Agency official provided classified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter.

The government’s case collapsed in 2011 and Drake pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor.

Although many states have enacted statutes—commonly called “shield laws”—protecting journalists from being compelled by courts to reveal confidential sources, there is no federal statute.

The Supreme Court ruled in the 1972 case Branzburg v. Hayes that the First Amendment does not shield reporters from federal prosecution. Federal prosecutors have argued Risen had no constitutional standing to invoke reporter’s privilege.

The White House did not return requests for comment.

The new sexual harassment definition was issued by the agencies in a letter to the University of Montana late last week. The letter states that sexual harassment now will be defined as “any unwelcome conduct of sexual nature” and will include “verbal” conduct, meaning speech is now included.

The letter states that the new broadened definition of sexual harassment will serve as a “blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country.” The new mandate now applies to every college that receives federal funding, which, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), is virtually every American institution of higher education nationwide, public or private.

“It’s a complete disaster for what you can and can’t say on college campuses,” said Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE. He said the new standards are “so vague and broad” that virtually any student can now be charged with sexual harassment.

Lukianoff said he is appalled at the attack on “free speech on campus from our own government.” He said the DOJ and DOE have now established speech codes that violate the First Amendment and completely ignore decades of legal precedent.

Lukianoff said a student could be charged with violating the new conduct standards if he asks another student out on a date and the other student deems that request offensive. He also said that if a sexual joke is told, and someone who overhears it is offended, the student who told the joke could be charged with sexual harassment.

FIRE claims many presentations, debates, and expressions on campuses can now be viewed as sexual harassment. Campus performances of “The Vagina Monologues,” debates about sexual morality, or discussions on gay marriage could now be subject to discipline.

Additionally, unwelcome flirtation could be viewed as sexual harassment.

“It has bad long-term effects on speech,” Lukianoff said. He also said the new standard “empowers people to punish the people they dislike.”

He pointed out a recent Johns Hopkins case in which a pro-life group was not granted certain rights on campus because some students were “uncomfortable” with their stance. While the university has since reversed its decision, Lukianoff said this expanded definition could give free reign to similar instances.

The Washington Free Beacon asked the DOE for comment. They responded, asking for guidance as to where the word “speech” appeared in their letter to the university. The Free Beacon referred them to the page of their letter that now defined sexual harassment to include “verbal conduct.”

After that email exchange, they did not respond to further requests for comment.

The DOE did not indicate in its press release on the matter the new broadened definition of sexual harassment. Rather, it touted the agreement as a positive step toward achieving student safety on campuses.

“For students to feel safe and welcome on college campuses, sexual assault and harassment must be swiftly and effectively addressed,” said Jocelyn Samuels, principal assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. “We applaud the university for its cooperation and for taking the steps necessary to maintain a safe learning environment for all students. These agreements provide a blueprint for colleges and universities across the country to take effective steps to prevent and address sexual assault and harassment on their campuses.”

The letter also states that “sexual harassment should be more broadly defined as any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” and the expression need not be offensive to an “objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation.”

The new guidance contradicts the 2003 Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights guidance on sexual harassment. That guidance stated that harassment must “include something beyond the mere expression of views, words, symbols, or thoughts that some person finds offensive.”

“The federal government has put colleges and universities in an impossible position with this mandate,” said Lukianoff. “With this unwise and unconstitutional decision, the DOJ and DOE have doomed American campuses to years of confusion and expensive lawsuits, while students’ fundamental rights twist in the wind.”

“All options are on the table” in fighting this attack on free speech on campuses, he said.

College students were also critical of the decision.

“I think considering what someone says as sexual harassment is going a little too far,” said Megan Gallagher, a freshman at Towson University. “Most of the time I hear people making jokes and they don’t mean any of it. It’s just difficult to determine when someone’s joking and when they aren’t.”

“My take on this is that the definition of sexual harassment on college campuses is too broad,” said Joseph Pareres, a junior in Manhattanville College. “This definition puts students at risk of being accused of sexual harassment for no valid reason.”

“A college campus is often a place where students make jokes about sexuality with no real threat,” Pareres said. “A person should be accused of sexual harassment when there is real and imminent danger. Flirting or joking should not be reason for someone to file a charge just because they feel offended. Anyone who is offended should not take this to a higher power but simply avoid the specific person.”

“The ambiguity that this new letter injects into university codes will result in lots of confusion, lots of people punished for slim reason, and litigation at universities for years to come,” said Lukianoff. “I don’t know if they realize what they’ve done here.”

Officials at the IRS put heightened scrutiny on groups with conservative-sounding names applying for tax-exempt status. A Tuesday story in USA Today revealed that “In the 27 months that the Internal Revenue Service put a hold on all Tea Party applications for non-profit status, it approved applications from similar liberal groups.”

Conservative watchdog and public policy experts see the IRS scandal as continuing a trend in the Obama administration.

“The Obama tendency has been to attack its enemies, and the bureaucracy has been set on its enemies, and the IRS is just one more example of it,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch.

“This administration got its ethics out of Chicago,” said Gover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

The Department of Homeland Security in 2009 was panned for a report on right-wing extremism. The report, titled “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” acknowledged that there were no known threats from right-wing extremists but nevertheless warned about a growing specter of right-wing extremism.

The report defined suspicious right-wing groups as “those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

The report argued that conservatives were using the election of the first black president and the economic recession to recruit members, including veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. It drew parallels between the conditions at the time of the report and the 1990s, when radical right-wing groups multiplied and grew, according to the report.

Conservatives and libertarians slammed the report, arguing it was unfairly broad and unsubstantiated.

Napolitano ultimately had to issue multiple apologies, including one to the American Legion, the largest veterans group in the country.

The Department of Defense was criticized earlier this year for a report on religious extremists that included what critics saw as an overly broad list of worrisome groups. The list included “Evangelical Christianity” and “Catholicism” in a list that also included al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan.

Christian groups pushed back against the label.

“It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization,” the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) said in a statement.

“The Archdiocese is astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist,” the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services said in a similar statement.

ADF also criticized the Department of Defense for relying on the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, which itself has inspired left-wing terrorism, to create its report.

Religious groups felt they were being unfairly targeted.

Evangelical Christians voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, according to the New York Times. The Catholic Church strongly opposes several of the president’s social policy positions, including same-sex marriage and abortion.

Most recently, an investigation prompted by House Republicans uncovered that the IRS was targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny before the 2012 campaign, including asking for information from the groups that it did not need.

While the IRS initially claimed that only employees based in Cincinnati were involved in targeting conservative groups, it later emerged that IRS officials in Washington were also involved.

Both Republicans and Democrats have denounced the IRS’ actions. Moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) called the revelations “chilling,” while Obama himself called them “intolerable and inexcusable.”

Both Fitton and Norquist noted that similar things happened during the Clinton administration.

Fitton said his group Judicial Watch was audited during the Clinton administration after the White House forwarded a letter it received to the IRS. When Fitton inquired into why he was being audited, an IRS official responded, “What did you expect?” Fitton said.

The same pattern has continued in Obama’s White House, Fitton said.

“The president and his men have specifically attacked American citizens for their participation in the democratic process,” Fitton said.

Norquist placed the blame for the IRS scandal on the White House.

“Certainly they sent a hundred signals that they don’t mind this,” Norquist said about the White House.

Norquist noted that the IRS has in the past resisted attempts to use it for political attacks. When Chuck Colson came to the IRS with Richard Nixon’s enemies list, the IRS refused to target the individuals on the list with audits.

“They just view this as an extension of playing politics,” Norquist said about the White House.

“It is exactly what you expect in Chicago,” he said.

His administration has published more final rules in his first term than George W. Bush did in his second.

At the same time, the Obama White House’s review period for pending regulations was longer in 2012 than any point going back to at least to 1994, according to the report from the CRS, Congress’s research arm.

From 2009 through last year, there were more than 13,000 final rules published in the Federal Register, while fewer than 12,400 were finalized from 2005-2008, the report found. That’s an increase of nearly five percent.

The Heritage Foundation estimated in a report last week that Obama’s first term regulations cost $70 billion.

Anthony Foxx’s critics say he has mismanaged the city’s public transit projects and would pursue similar projects at the federal level. The potential for federal funds comes after months of battles over a proposed Charlotte streetcar and other public transit projects in the city.

Costs for a major light rail line in Charlotte have ballooned. Rather than trimming other public transit projects in the face of declining tax revenue, Foxx has looked to raise other taxes, alienating even ardent public transit supporters.

Foxx “will spend a god-awful amount of other people’s money on stupid ideas” if he is confirmed as secretary of transportation, predicted John Hood, president of the North Carolina-based John Locke Foundation.

“If Obama is hiring Anthony Foxx because he has shown himself to be a brilliant local leader in the area of transit, the president’s making a mistake,” Hood said.

Foxx has clashed even with public transit proponents who note that the city does not have the revenue to fund his grandiose vision for transportation projects in Charlotte. His office did not respond to requests for comment.

One member of the area’s Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) joked that the commission would have to “pass around a hat” to collect the revenue needed for the projects.

As part of a 1997 transit and land use plan, Charlotte proposed a half-cent sales tax to fund bus and light rail lines throughout the city. The plan was approved by referendum and survived a repeal effort 10 years later.

But revenue from the tax has been $2.3 billion less than projected, leaving the city’s transit plans woefully underfunded. The MTC projects that the city will need an additional $3 billion fund those plans.

Foxx acknowledges the grim fiscal picture. “The transit sales tax is tapped out,” he said during his 2013 State of the City address. “Financially, the rest of our transit plan is dead.”

Foxx has aggressively pushed a plan for a $119 million streetcar project in Charlotte in addition to existing public transit plans despite that admission.

Critics say Foxx has stubbornly refused to acknowledge the infeasibility of the plan.

Foxx was “faced with a choice of, ‘Do we adjust our transit dreams to fiscal realities, or do we have fiscal dreams to match out transit dreams?’ He decided for the latter course. He decided, ‘Well, we just don’t have enough money. These are all great projects, we don’t have enough money, let’s go for more,’” said Hood

Foxx attempted to insert the streetcar plan into Charlotte’s $1 billion 2012 capital improvement plan. He looked to pay for the project through a property tax increase.

That sparked heated opposition, even among groups that supported the initial sales tax hike and public transit projects generally.

“Part of the argument was ‘let’s approve the half cent sales tax so we don’t have to use property taxes to fund transit,’” said Bob Morgan, president of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, which was supportive of the sales tax hike.

“Some would say that that’s an agreement with the voters that we can’t go back on, and so don’t come to me and say ‘let’s pass bonds that will be backed by property taxes to fund the streetcar,’” Morgan said.

The capital improvement plan was narrowly defeated by the city council. Charlotte’s city manager subsequently removed the streetcar from the plan in order to make it politically palatable.

Without additional tax revenue the city may seek federal support for the project, Morgan suggested. A previous streetcar project, which would be extended by the mayor’s latest effort, was funded in large measure by a $25 million federal grant from DOT’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA).

The FTA also cut Charlotte a check for $580 million to help fund the $1.16 billion extension of the city’s Blue Line light rail project.

Foxx “could be in a position to help the city” with its ongoing transit funding issues if he is confirmed as transportation secretary, the Charlotte Observer reported on Monday.

Federal funding for the streetcar could avoid a showdown over taxes with North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who was a major architect of public transit projects as Charlotte’s mayor.

McCrory warned Foxx during the debate over the capital plan that a property tax hike could imperil the nearly $300 million the state had committed to the Blue Line extension.

McCrory and others were incredulous that the city would fund additional public transit projects even as the state, which is facing its own budget crunch, funds projects planned more than a decade ago.

“During these tough budget times, the governor has continually informed leaders in Charlotte that the streetcar makes it more difficult during each continuing budget cycle to get support in the legislature for continued matching funds of the light-rail line when the city is exhibiting that they have additional money for other projects outside the approved process through the MTC,” a McCrory spokesman told the Observer.

Hood and other opponents of the Blue Line extension, which is scheduled to begin construction next year, criticize its exorbitant cost.

“It’s very common for forecasts of ridership to be optimistic and costs to be lower than what actually happens. That’s what happened in this case,” said David Hartgen, emeritus professor of transportation studies and the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Hartgen published a landmark study in 2008 that found that ridership and economic development projections surrounding the city’s light rail projects were wildly optimistic.

Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute specializing in urban growth and transportation, said such inflated projections are routine for public transit projects.

“At the time they made the decision to build the [light rail] project, the people who make the cost estimates deliberately underestimated the cost in order to skew the analysis towards building rail,” O’Toole said.

Inflated costs for the light rail projects have forced the city to chip away at other public transit options, he said.

“Almost inevitably, at some point, because of either cost overruns or revenue shortfalls or both, transit agencies that build rail hit a fiscal wall and in order to deal with that they end up cutting bus service and raising bus fares which depresses ridership,” O’Toole explained.

Charlotte has raised bus fares six times since 2004. The result is a de facto subsidy for transportation in higher-income areas subsidized by bus riders, who tend to be lower-income residents, O’Toole said.

“At least two times a week I don’t have enough [money for bus fares]. I just don’t even go out,” one unemployed Charlotte resident told a local news station after the latest fare hike.

Bus transit is more cost-effective than rail transit, noted Hood. However, “it’s not appealing to [light rail advocates] because it’s not sexy, it’s not gee-whiz, and it won’t get yuppies out of their BMWs.”

“If your interest was in advocacy for low income people and people who don’t have cars trying to get up the economic ladder, bus transit makes more sense,” Hood said.

Foxx’s continued advocacy for light rail and streetcar projects despite their financial problems and cost-overruns suggests to Hood that his nomination for transportation secretary is rooted less in a pragmatic recognition of his successes as mayor than in the political interests of the Democratic Party.

“I think he’s hiring Foxx because Foxx helped put on a pretty successful Democratic convention in 2012 in Charlotte and because he has been a loyal supporter and political ally of the Obama administration,” Hood said.

With Republicans controlling the governorship and the legislature for the first time since reconstruction, Hood added, Democrats are looking to expand their political bench in the only state the Obama campaign fought for but did not carry.

“They really want to win in the future. They want to strengthen the political base of Democrats in North Carolina. That’s why they’re giving Anthony Foxx such a high-profile job.”