Posted on 12/06/2012 2:25:25 PM PST by BenLurkin
TORRANCE (CBSLA.com) — A Southern California Congresswoman Thursday defended plans for a high-speed rail project despite spiraling costs and concerns about its long-term viability.
KNX 1070′s Jan Stevens reports Rep. Janice Hahn (D-Torrance) clashed with a Bakersfield lawmaker during a Transportation Committee hearing in Washington.
State legislators in July approved nearly $8 billion in spending on the first phase of the rail project that will ultimately connect the Southland to San Francisco.
Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) appealed to the Committee to review the business plan and to assess the viability of investing more funds into the project.
“There are concerns about the business plan itself, and equally concerning to me, just because we’ve invested money, does it mean we have to invest more?” McCarthy said. “Maybe we say, ‘No, we’re not gonna fund any more,’ and the savings should go to pay down our deficit.”
He warned the current plan would require borrowing a minimum of another $38 billion in federal funding to finish the project on time.
However, Hahn said the project will not only provide much-needed transportation alternatives, but will also bring jobs to thousands of Californians.
“Transportation congestion is strangling the business potential of our state and weighing down the economic activity that isn’t just critical to the success of California, but to the nation as a whole,” Hahn said.
Construction on the project is expected to begin next spring.
Janice Hahn is the daughter of Kenny Hahn the long time L.A. County Surpivor.
I met Kenny Hahn yers ago, and had the misfortune of having to interact with his staff. He was a slimeball machine politician of the worst kind.
BS. It is taxes and regulation that are doing this, not transportation congestion. Hey, you dimwit, how about dealing with the 5,000,000 illegals driving on the roads of California?
Idiots like this should be horsewhipped.
If High Speed Rail is so great, and so crucial, why isn’t it being built all across the country by now? Why doesn’t the government do exactly what they did in the 1800’s to get the Transcontinental Railway completed? Bullet trains railways need new tracks and new paths that can be built to accommodate the higher speeds. THAT would be a stimulus...........
"Democrat-mandated diversion of millions of tax payer dollars to labor unions that donate to Democrat politicians via union dues"
In summary.. MONEY LAUNDERING OPERATION
If we could tax, borrow and spend our way to prosperity, we’d all be rich by now.
A fact to consider:
Passenger rail service has NEVER been profitable, and has always been subsidized by freight charges.
These people are delusional
bump
do not worry.... we’ll boost the economy with unemployment checks for everyone...
:p
Willie Green, please pick up the perennial in the red public train courtesy phone...
But it helps them to leave faster....
New 52% income tax for wealthy people will be the reason.
No, not always. Passenger service at one time was more profitable than freight, and that didn’t all have to do with the continued prevalence of canals (many of which are still in use today, incidentally). Then came the property taxes on the railroads . . . and of course, some “progressive” politicians had the idea of “commuted” fares for workers traveling between home and jobs, which further cut into profits . . . and in the early twentieth century, the next generation of progressive politicians had the idea of city-owned railroads as a “public utility” of sorts, which “competed” with private railroads . . . (see the declension?)
Government Corporate Union Welfare.
Even more wasted money.
Take the total cost of building and operating for a decade, divide by ridership, and I’ll bet anything it is more than $1,000,000 per rider.
You can pay people to stay home and it is cheaper than trains. Almost every time.
A basic problem with this high speed rail is paradoxical.
This is, that about the only place you can put such rail is over the same right of way already used by low speed rail.
And almost all the low speed rail right of ways West of the Mississippi are owned by Union Pacific. Creating new right of way would be insanely expensive.
But this also means that the California high speed rail is intended to take the place of low speed rail lines. And in this case, if low speed rail already existed, it is a great indicator of how profitable high speed rail lines would be.
In a nutshell, it isn’t. The low speed rail lines on this route have long been money losers. There just isn’t the demand they need even for low speed rail.
But, they insist, high speed rail will be profitable. Because it is high! and speed! and rail!
And that is no way to run a railroad.
Barf me out...
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