Posted on 11/23/2010 12:27:46 PM PST by SmithL
Why does California need high speed rail? Its people are broke and couldn’t afford to ride that thing anyway. Any money given to California will just go for other things. Like unions.
Good news for once!
So basically California has to find another 2 billion to get this thing completed. California is spending 43 billion to get it going. I am glad that the GOP House is starting to cut back but hopefully that money is not just spent on other items and is put towards the debt....that could be a day or two of interest.../sarc.
Take NYS’s money back, too.
California is bankrupt...when I was out there people were being paid with IOU’s...what’s changed?
I would like to know the general idea behind why focus was not on the rail system if at all earlier. Second, the main issue with the high-speed trains is the cost. The average, as calculated by a economist earlier, is about $99 on average per ticket compared to a typical amtrak of $65 for a conventional train. Then also consider who exactly you are getting off the roads and on to these trains? Corporate employees? Corporate employees are the kinds of people who already use the regular trains or airplanes already. The main issue here is getting a larger chunk of the populace, especially those who use cars, to also use the special trains. The problem is that without extensive subsidies, that’s unlikely to get a large enough chunk of the population that could use the cars or buses on a regular basis on the trains. I argued this with an economist colleague of mine, and the CATO Institute posted at least one small argument about high-speed trains earlier this year:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10233
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yank their damned credit card! If they can’t exist based on the value of their service, then screw them. Screw the passengers that ride them (benefiting from theft from us), and screw the employees and managers. Screw them all!
The problem with high speed rail is that it’s cost really won’t get the people who use automobiles the most off the road, which was the initial point of getting the trains in the first place. Traveling on high speed rail is about, on average 99$ per ticket. Even a bus or the D.C. metro was cheaper, last time I checked.
Here’s a “claw-back” program I can support.
You know we made a difference when Jerry Lewis is involved in spending cuts instead of pork. Very interesting.
Right now it’s just tough talk from some GOP congresscritters. I’ll believe it when I see it.
$80 billion according to a report (PDF) by Reason, Citizens Against Gov't Waste & Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assoc.
California is broke. Where is it going to get the matching money if it is already begging Washington to bail it out of its own deficit?
If the train is going to cost $40 billion, or $80 billion, the $2 billion its getting from the feds is chump change. It isn't going to make or break the project.
Considering Obama had a trillion to throw around, why didn't he just fund the whole project?
Willie Green is very sad about this news
The faster these b*stards are defunded the sooner we'll get our state back.
Great. YOU fund it then. Don't make me fund it.
This whole high speed rail in Calif is a total boondoggle.
How much of the withdrawal of water from the Central Valley set up those farmers to only get pennies on the dollar for their productive land so that the “high speed rail’ could go there?
These 2 events are totally connected, IMO.
In todays world, you have to question everything California wants to do.
Aw, c’mon. Where’s your compassion for all the union boys who’re scrambling to keep work coming in?
We already bought them a bridge we don’t need, but we don’t have anything lined up to keep them all busy after that’s done.
So, this rail project we don’t need just sort of fits the bill, don’t you think?
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