Posted on 05/04/2015 6:29:56 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
As recently as 2010, the estimated cost for the Southwest Light Rail Transit line was estimated to be $1.2 billion, or about the cost of a new football stadium. Then the cost jumped to $1.7 billion because somebody spun the magic wheel. Now the cost is projected to be $2 billion. OK, $1.994 billion, but if they find an endangered earthworm or an especially exotic cattail, all bets are off and the project will shoot over $2 billion in a European minute, for the Metropolitan Council loves to keep playing Europe. The train stops are called Royalston, West Lake, Blake and, at the terminus in Eden Prairie, Mitchell, 17 stops in all from Target Field to Eden Prairie. Why, if you got on the train at Union Depot in St. Paul and rode it to Eden Prairie, you will encounter 40 stops in all. One one-way ride could kill a day of vacation. So far, the project has cost $59 million, and that's just for people to walk around with their clipboards. Do they have the courage to eat the $59 million and cut their losses or will they press ahead, with the cost most certainly exceeding $2 billion? I'm betting they go for it. After all, it's for the children. Or the planet. Or something.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
Liberal politicians love light rail projects. They don’t care how much they cost or how few people will ride on it or how wasteful it is.
Will: Why Liberals Love Trains
http://www.newsweek.com/will-why-liberals-love-trains-68597
To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.
Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to the people!” Now it is less resonant: “All aboard!”
“Automobiles go hither and yon”...
...on roadways built and maintained on the taxpayer dime.
Once upon a time railroad’s were a private concern. Think about the capital investment put into that infrastructure... investment made with the incentive of PROFIT for its shareholders.
Dear God how this nation has fallen.
How much does a desalinization plant cost on the scale of the one being built near San Diego?
Wouldn’t the $1+ billion be better spent on something like that? Or does that make too much sense?
I am asking the board, not BoTs specifically.
Railroads like the BNSF & UP could NEVER be built today. The environmental lobby would find some surrogate specie to keep construction at a standstill. We can not even get a Natural gas pipeline across southern NH along a right of way directly under the electric companies power lines. NIMBY!
The other major restriction is the cost of the right of way just to build on. The land was GIVEN to the Great Northern railroad to cross the US. That land eventually became Plum Creek Timber corporation. The railroad is now part of Berkshire Hathaway. Nothing like that could be accomplished today just because the land would be too expensive to purchase even under eminent domain.
Why don’t moonbeam and the demonrat leadership use a quarter of the money to just blanket the state with statues and plaques to promote themselves and their egos, because that would have the same usefulness as their friggin train, and save the taxpayers the 1.5 billion of waste.
$2 billion for a short stretch of track. Now imagine the Highspeed Train to Nowhere in California from Los Angeles to San Francisco. That was to cost under $30 billion and now estimates are $100 billion when we all know it will be much higher and will not be high speed.
According to the Minnesota Management and Budget Office (MMB), state spending for the fiscal year 2012-2013 biennial cycle was a whopping 18% higher than the previous two year cycle.Then, the fiscal 2014-2015 budget cycle (the current budget that will expire July 1st), saw spending rise another 12% over the 2012-2013 cycle.That’s a 30% increase in state spending!
During that same period, inflation was quite tame, running anywhere from about 3% to zero during that time.Moreover, Minnesota’s population growth was flat during that time.Even more troubling is the fact that median household income fell during that time. In fact, the 2013 median household income was lower than it was in 1989.Thus, state government spending has been exponentially higher than inflation, population growth, and household income gains (which were negative) in the past two budget cycles.
There is no rational explanation for this massive spending other than an appetite on the part of government to do so.This, in a nutshell, is why the GOP is focused on returning money to the family budget and telling the government budget to step back.
Yet another amusing and pathetic narrative the DFL is spewing (as they always do) is the old chestnut about GOP tax breaks (”giveaways”) to corporate interests.And, as always, the hypocrisy is nothing short of breathtaking and there was no talk of crony capitalism when the DFL happily participated in the big taxpayer giveaway to Ziggy Wilf.Similarly, the DFL all happily authorized a similar corporate giveaway to the Pohlad family.
And the DFL participation in the giveaways isn’t just confined to professional sports.Remember the Destination Medical Center tax breaks for the Mayo Clinic, which happened when the DFL controlled everything?Recall DFL House Tax Chair Ann Lenczewski correcting complaining that Mayo wanted the legislature “to build them a city.”True enough, Madame Chair. But we recall you fell in line like a lap dog and did what Speaker Thissen and the governor told you to do.
And recall the Baxter Medical tax giveaway, which was marked by the government engaging in an unprecedented level of secrecy to prevent the taxpaying public from finding out what was going on.
The next time some Democrat gets up and complains about the GOP being for the rich corporations, the GOP ought to stand up en masse and laugh out loud.Yes, it’s only evil if the Republicans thought of it first, apparently.
To be clear, I don’t favor corporate welfare any more than I favor other forms of welfare.But a general tax cut for business isn’t welfare. Corporate welfare happens when government engages in targeted favors for politically connected corporate entities that aren’t generally available. These giveaways are based on politics and not merit. In short, they are market distorting and force competitors to subsidize politically connected rivals.
The BS is about to get mighty thick down in Saint Paul.
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