Posted on 03/21/2017 8:09:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
State Waste: The Golden State's vaunted bullet train project, planned to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles, may be in its financial death throes. If so, it's probably the best fiscal news for the Golden State in years.
To say that Gov. Jerry Brown's pet project, the so-called high-speed train, is troubled would be an understatement. From the very beginning, it has been a testament to political hubris, fiscal irresponsibility, outright lies and abysmal planning.
The bullet train idea was floated on a blustery gust of political promises in 2008, when proponents put the high-speed rail to the state's voters in the form of a $10 billion bond issue to pay for its initial costs.
With hard-hit voters then suffering from the worst of the financial crisis, they fell for pledges of high-paying jobs and an ultrafast, low-cost train that would speed passengers from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles in a mere two hours and 40 minutes.
The proposal passed. But as the scale of deception behind the project has become known, it has been hit by a series of legal and environmental challenges. Even so, California has already committed to spending more than the $10 billion bond amount, and taxpayers are on the hook. It's a runaway train.
Worse, since the bond issue passed in 2008, cost estimates have only soared. Initially budgeted at $32 billion, the price tag is now put at twice that: $68 billion or more. Even the initial stretch of track, which lies on the flattest, easiest-to-build part of the entire total 700-mile route, has seen its cost soar 50%, from $6.4 billion to $10 billion.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Where is that tiny violin? The stupidity of CA voters cannot be overstated. This is what happens when you give Leftists and illegals the majority to rule.
$1500/inch
Why even consider building a high speed rail in an earth quake prone region. Duuuuuh!
Follow the money. Who is making a fortune?
Jerry Brown has a Bullet Train aimed at California’s head.
“Fund it or I’ll pull the trigger.”
Funding it stops him from doing that, but then it explodes instead.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight now if it is only California money now, but it seems to me this dream of LA to SF HSR has spent billions and is now only filling in the easy gaps from-and-to-nowhere.
It’s just an impression and I am probably wrong, but my guess is that there are some people [a lot] in that CA government who are planning on full careers on this boondoggle and are already banking their retirements - with no completion of this ‘thing’ in sight nor intended.
That is unexpected. I was certain California’s High Speed Rail would be the best investment of public funds since Boston’s Big Dig (budgeted cost $2.6B, actual cost $24B, just short of ten times the advertised price).
Perhaps the single stupidest idea in the history of mankind; not that it doesn’t have plenty of competition.
It’s always these “could not pass 8th grade math but they taught us that the world could be perfect in 4th grade” ideas that are the biggies, isn’t it?
CA bullet train
0bamacare
RE: I don’t really have a dog in this fight now if it is only California money now,
Believe me, they will be crying to the Federal government for help eventually ( which means you and I get to chip in for this mess ).
Trump should tell them to raise their own money and leave the other states out of it.
I’ll say it again: it was easy math with a mortgage calculator many billions of dollars ago to show that the money that would be borrowed via a bond issue would be far better spent over its thirty year lifetime by sending a taxi to every potential passenger’s house, driving him directly to SFO / LAX, buying him a same-day Southwest ticket, and sending another taxi at the other end to take him to his hotel.
“Why even consider building a high speed rail in an earth quake prone region. Duuuuuh!”
Japan’s entire high speed rail network operates safely in a seismic zone that’s far more active than the one in California. It’s been running just fine for over fifty years.
The best arguments against California’s high speed rail are twofold:
1. It’s so expensive that it will have to operate at a loss.
2. The Democrats gerrymandered the route to both buy votes from their constituencies and to cross otherwise worthless land that’s owned by Democrats who expect to make big money on eminent domain.
“since the bond issue passed in 2008, cost estimates have only soared.”
I’m shocked.
No, you’re quite right. There was never a justifiable need nor call for this. It never made sense, particularly in light of its stated purpose. It’s unstated purpose was to replenish union pension funds. It will never make money, but it will provide a giant bureaucratic cloud of state officials sucking off the taxpayer tit for the next 40 years EVEN IF it never gets built.
Do you honestly think Trump would give them this boondoggle money? Of course, they will whine and wheedle, but I voted for Trump because he don’t play that and I have thus far not yet seen one iota of an inkling he would.
If you don’t believe that then I don’t know what to tell you. I’m done with defeatist pessimism.
Just remember, the same people who think this is a good idea think a border wall would be too difficult to build.
1. It will never come close to breaking even
2. We do not need it
3. Federal dollars should NEVER be used for a non-necessity like this
4. Neither should Californians have to pay for it
5. Brown and his money grubbing pals should have to foot the bill if it’s such a great idea/investment
Guv. Brown lays awake nights thinking up new taxes to pay for this horrendous bullet train. I live in the country, but less than 5 miles from one fire station, and a block from a second fire station, (which does give me cheap fire insurance by the way) and I have to pay a brand new $150 tax per year for fire prevention services (on top of the usual taxes I already pay for fire and police protection). AND these monies don’t go to pay for extra firemen or fire prevention or fire prevention equipment...just get dumped into the general fund for Moonbeam to spend as he pleases.
RE: If you don’t believe that then I don’t know what to tell you.
Tell me that what I’m reading fake news:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-infrastructure-plan-chuck-schumer-232882
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