It's time to kill California's bullet train boondoggle

Sacramento Bee ^ | 1/8/12 | Dan Walters

[poindexter]

“...represents an immense financial risk on the part of the State of California.”

Yes, California prefers proven wastes of money to those that only have a possibility of calamity.

[blueunicorn6]

You want Jerry Brown to ignore a half-baked idea? The guy is the queen of the EZ Bake Oven.

[BobL]

He really needs to update that picture of him. It’s REVOLTING.

[whitedog57]

This is a pure wealth transfer from taxpayers to crony friends of the Federal and California governments. Period. No economic sense, but theft from taxpayers.

[ThomasThomas]

[SmithL]

You want Jerry Brown to ignore a half-baked idea? The guy is the queen of the EZ Bake Oven.

If Free Republic had a "Like" button, I would have clicked it for your post.

[Leep]

I’m ready to write off the entire State as a lost cause.

[Texas Eagle]

WHAT??? The Sackatomatoes Bee reported this???

Awright, what happened? Did I fall asleep and wake up on April Fool's Day?

Did The Bee get bought out by a bunch of rabid, right-wing, cave-dwelling Tea Pary Luddites?

Is Dan Walters exercising his fledgling parodist wings?

Am I just drunk?

[Texas Eagle]

Hallelujah! So, obviously there's no need for a California High-Speed Rail Commission, is there? So, obviously the Commission itself should be defunded.

HA! Riiiiiiiight.

[BlazingArizona]

It’s time to admit that in a liberal-infested state like California, you can’t build ANYTHING big.

[YHAOS]

"It's time to kill California's bullet train boondoggle"

Good luck.

[Seaplaner]

Respected journalist Dan Walters IIRC is a hold-over from the defunct Sacramento Union, and the (ugh) Bee took him as sort of a concession after they successfully undermined the Union.

The Bee gets more radical leftwing every year (exceeding the NYT in some cases), so Mister Walters is, indeed, an artifact of a more journalistic (and less radical activist) time.

.

[pogo101]

Dan Walters is himself lefty. So is the former director of CalTrans. EVEN THEY say this is garbage.

[hinckley buzzard]

Like all bureaucracies, the CHSRA is primarilly interested in its own perpetuation. They have only incidental interest in actually building anything.

[Vaduz]

Unions are not amused must find another way to stick it to the state.

[redheadtoo]

My fear is that, while the older parts of it are falling apart in disuse, we will continue building new stretches of this train to nowhere.

[Texas Eagle]

I can't help but wonder if even people in Sacramento are figuring out that the money is drying up and this is just the beginning of one bureacratic monstrosity throwing another bureaucratic monstrosity under the train in an effort to perpetuate its own flow of money.

I HOPE that's what's going on.

[pogo101]

Could be.

One must remember that Dan Walters is no conservative. During even the soaking-wet Republican governors’ runs, he frequently criticized even the most modest of proposed cuts, reforms, etc., and never said Boo about public sector pensions IIRC until a few years ago, when it was obvious to the blindest fool that we had a problem there.

But this HSR is so stupid that even liberals can’t miss it.

[blueunicorn6]

Thank-you.