Posted on 04/09/2012 9:27:36 AM PDT by SmithL
When the state's bullet train impresarios unveiled a much-revised plan for the statewide project last fall – with campaign-style hoopla, one should note – they said it settled all of its outstanding questions and doubts.
Not by a long shot.
The sharply increased price tag, around $100 billion, was a shocker, several times more than what voters were told it would be when they approved a $9.95 billion bond issue. And the plan still assumed that construction would start with a short stretch in the San Joaquin Valley dubbed the "train to nowhere."
Instead of quieting the bullet train's many critics, the revised plan gave them new ammunition, and public opinion surveys quickly found that voter support had dipped below the level of political viability.
Gov. Jerry Brown, who had assumed control of the project, then ordered up another revision aimed at subduing critics and it was released last week.
Most of its 212 pages are essentially political rhetoric, touting the wonderfulness of linking the northern and southern regions of the state via high-speed trains.
It purports to reduce the cost "by almost $30 billion" to $68.4 billion, and counters the train-to-nowhere epithet by quickly attaching the initial San Joaquin Valley segment to enhanced commuter rail in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Ping.
Is Moonbeam Brown really Willie Green in disguise?
One does wonder, no?
Even Dan Walters, a gigantic old LBJ-type liberal, can see this for the boondoggling stink that it is.
Even the Washington Post — that’s Post, not Examiner — recently editorialized that the project should be killed.
What is further left than a leftist?
Jerry Brown and the state Leftistlature.
Gov. Jerry Brown not having much luck with paying back the unions.
“Even Dan Walters, a gigantic old LBJ-type liberal...”
EXCUSE ME???? Dan Walters is not at all a liberal! He used to work for the Sacramento Union and when the Union folded the Bee took him on as part of their effort to maintain editorial balance in the now-one-paper town.
Walters’ columns are consistently conservative and just because he works at the Sacramento Pravda...errr...Bee, does not make him a liberal.
Let's say the whole project gets canceled. Are the taxpayers still on the hook for a 10 billion dollar bond?
That’s news to me. I can’t look into it myself (and seem to recall seeing many left-leaning columns by Walter dating back to the 1990s), but for now I will accept your correction with thanks.
Yes and no. The usual suggestion, if the project were to be killed, is that the proceeds of any bonds sold be used to redeem, early, as many bonds as possible. It won’t be 100% due to bleeding of bureaucratic costs, costs of issuance, etc.
If it helps you can typically find Dan Walters at most of Joseph Farah’s ‘World Net Daily’ events as the two of them remained friends after the Union published its last copy.
It does help: WND obviously is not a place known for having liberal contributors, even token ones.
Walters always comes down on the side of big government.
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