Posted on 03/13/2018 1:49:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
How else to account for the state's wondrous physical beauty and gentle climate, on the one hand, and its ludicrously irrational political majorities and execrable public officialdom, on the other?
God gave Yosemite Valley but then inflicted Nancy Pelosi. He created the Big Sur coastline, then dropped Jerry Brown into Sacramento. He graces the state with the sweetest September-Octobers north of the equator but requires that they be shared with the likes of Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf.
The list of nature's spectacular bounty, paired with California's unmatched human folly, is endless.
Another week in the Golden State, another rich display of self-inflicted misery.
What part of the madness to pick on?
How about a train?
California residents were treated last week to the unpleasant but unsurprising news that the unwanted "bullet train" from San Francisco to Los Angeles will cost a minimum of $77 billion and "possibly" as much as $98 billion, up from the most recent prior estimate of $64 billion, which in turn was way up from the original $32-billion estimate based on which the gullible California public bought into the boondoggle in the first place. Any bets on the final price tag?
Students of California dementia will point out that this cost inflation is nothing compared to the Oakland Bay Bridge east span replacement project (2002-2013), originally estimated at $250 million but coming in at $6.5 billion, a mere 2,500% overrun. Six point five billion dollars, by the way, is the official admission persistent rumors that refuse to die cite a much higher figure.
The response is that the bridge money is gone. The (admittedly improbable) intervention of sanity might yet save California's train money for devotion to something actually needed.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
In the meantime, 200,000 residents living downstream from the gigantic Oroville Dam had to be evacuated by panicked officials during the winter of 2016-17. As luck would have it, the old dam did not collapse.
I wonder what the priorities are for this one....
And get a load of this -— Even the hoary and easily befuddled Senator Dianne Feinstein has noticed that California is making do for 40 million people with a water supply system designed for 15 million.
California’s present political and social mindset is a product exactly of its natural gifts, and its position as one of the main end-points of waves of massive government debt and printed money in our unbacked, fiat, Federal Reserve currency.
Fake money is the absolute foundation of leftist/progressive thought
Let’s not forget that Public Pension Costs have gone up 40% in 4 Years, they claim it is due to 25,000 new retiree’s, but will soon grow exponentially worse.
In the meantime, The Boring Company will likely dig an LA-SF tunnel without taxpayer dollars (unless legislators insist on throwing money at it), be far more convenient to ride, and run a profit shortly after opening.
Bottom line is California is a first world country with a third world government.
Bullet train.....”Any bets on the final price tag?”......
better not be any federal funds used, If Kalifornika wants the bullet train, let them pay for it out of state taxes, definitely NOT federal funds.
The author is clearly pushing Southern California water interests with THEIR boondoggle of the hideously expensive Delta Tunnels project.
That makes the author no small hypocrite for wanting to shift profligate spending from one boondoggle to another.
NEITHER of these programs should be built at taxpayer expense.
Where in hell is choo choo Willie Green? He had all the answers about trains.
Where in hell is choo choo Willie Green? He had all the answers about trains.
And I take it when all is said and done, the usual suspects will be paying the freight - the US taxpayer.
Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees 69-71
Secretary of State of California in 1971 and served until 1975.
Mayor of Oakland from 1999 to 2007
Attorney General of California from 2007 to 2011
Two terms as Governor in 1974 and 1978 and ran for his third and fourth term as Governor in 2010 and 2014
A lifetime of leeching off the taxpayer and in every instance he left the city or state worse of than when he took office! If only the people of California had learned to heed "If it's Brown Flush it down". And this imbecile wanted to be President!
Too late. They got the party started with stimulus funds.
Time for Trump to offer California to Mexico as a bargaining chip in Nafta negotiations. Since California wants Mexican citizens so badly the easiest way to do this is to make everyone in the state a Mexican citizen even Senor Harvey Weinstein.
Yeah, but it’s not like it’s our money in the first place, we just have to give the Ruling Class more of their Money that they so graciously allowed us to keep for our own use.
Possibly $98 billion and a completion date of 2033. Compare this to the Apollo Program. And this is for a train fergawdsake! That goes from nowhere to nowhere. Absolute madness!
It will cost over a trillion dollars..................
Name the three largest Mexican cities
Oh, the minute that it appears the Boring Company is ready to start work, the eco-freaks will start with the legal injunctions to stop or delay the work.
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