A.C. 180 Profiles Obama Stimulus "High-Speed Rail"
High-speed rail is a lovely idea. The thought of being able to speedily go where one wants while watching the lovely countryside pass by is an appealing one. Maybe on trains we will get seats that accommodate us better than coach class on a plane could ever hope to. We ought to applaud the Obama Administration’s efforts to make high-speed rail a reality, right?
Well, maybe not. You see, the folks at CNN decided to be journalists, and exposed the $12 Billion high-speed rail stimulus spending as a boondoggle that it is:
Kudos to CNN for their reporting. I suppose there is no reason why we couldn’t have had this brand of reporting last year, when there was a presidential election going on. For the moment, however, I will suspend my rancor and instead encourage more such reporting from the network. After all, I am sure that there are a great many other administration boondoggles worthy of excoriation on prime-time television.
California's high speed rail boondoggle makes the fed project look like small potatoes. The current estimated cost for California taxpayers is now up to $68 BILLION dollars! The first segment of the project begins nowhere and ends nowhere. Governor Moonbeam Brown is on the senility train to nowhere with his insistence that California needs a high speed rail system between LA and the Bay Area. Every independent analysis has indicated that this project will be an abject financial failure, but Brown's addled Alzheimer's brain says otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers don't lie, but every liberal progressive in California does. Every state wide office is held by a Democrat. Both houses of the state legislature have Democrat super majorities that can even override a veto by Moonbeam Brown.
Brown's latest budget is just another financial juggling act without any real foundation. Taxes have been raised on individuals and businesses, which makes California the highest taxed state in the union. All of this when California has one of the highest unemployment rates. The actual unemployment rate in California is over 15%. California is experiencing a net loss in residents and businesses leaving the state.
As state expenditures increase, state revenues drop or remain flat. There is no way that California can afford a high speed rail system now or in the future. The money is simply not there.