Posted on 02/18/2011 9:13:11 AM PST by Sam's Army
Not even two months into his term, Gov. Rick Scott is already hurting his credibility as the "CEO" governor.
He sold voters on his knack to govern Florida like a business. We all took that to mean he would make decisions based on facts and financials after thorough due diligence. Yet when Scott killed high-speed rail this week, he used little more than ideology and politics.
He said goodbye to the number-crunching, bid-vetting pragmatism of the boardroom and hello to the fear-mongering of Tea Partiers' living rooms.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
One can't Win The Future by backing 19th Century technology.
As a Floridian living in the proposed zone of the High Speed Carnival Ride,I call this observation Bull Sh(civility restricted alphabet usage)t.
Dear Beth Kasaab, circulation of your Orlando Sentinel rag has fallen off by about 40%. No one will ride this train! Go pound sand!
Yeah. Typical Obama ploy.
He sucks in the state with a couple of billion from the federal taxpayers, and then they end up getting hit with billions more in construction, plus getting stuck with a money-losing operation and infinite pension obligations to the government union workers who run it.
And of course the construction contracts also have to go to Obama’s union pals.
What is it with the FL guv names? Seems they’ve gone from Charlie Crist Christie to Rick Scott Walker.
You got a problem with the Billy Bob naming convention of the South?
Cry me a river, cutie-pie.
“””Yet when Scott killed high-speed rail this week, he used little more than ideology and politics.”””
Brain dead journalists could not recognize economics if it hit them in the forehead.
Scott clearly pointed out that ‘cost to build’ estimates are always lower than actuals. And ‘anticipated ridership” is always substantially inflated.
I believe that is a LOT more than ideology and politics.
What a bunch of BS.
The ‘federal money’ being offered is nowhere NEAR enough to complete a high-speed rail project of any significance.
Where would the rest of the money need to come from? Where would the OPERATING budget deficit (and there WOULD be an operating deficit) need to come from?
Right. From STATE tax revenues.
THAT is why it is a good business decision to turn the money down. States honestly cannot afford to take it given the strings that are attached and the future expenditures required to make it work.
From the start, the whole ‘federal stimulus money for high speed rail’ canard foisted by Joey Biden and the rest of the ‘Dysfunctional Dumbasses of Dunderheadedness’ has been a plot to make fiscally conservative state governors/legislatures look ‘bad’ by turning it down.
“Well golly, will you look at that! They TURNED DOWN $XXX Million for high speed rail in their state. Clearly they don’t care about jobs. Clearly they’re not thinking of the CHEEEEEEEEEELDREN! Those conservatives certainly are EEEEEEEEVIL, aren’t they?”
...
Exactly. 100% NOT NEEDED.
It would make more sense Orlando to Miami, but even that is NOT NEEDED Nobody would ride it, and it would loose $$, just like Amtrak.
If such a railroad had any possible chance of making a profit, CSX or Norfolk & Southern would have already built it. High speed rail is a joke. It would cost 10-100X that of an equivalent freeway to build, operate, and maintain, and would drastically reduce the public’s ability to move about freely.
Plus, if any stops were added to the route, and given that it would pass Disney along with a number of other communities, many would), the actual speed would likely barely rival that of I-4. And, it wouldn’t take long for the TSA to get their fascist paws into the act.
Fact is, people would have to drive to the station to board the train. They’d have to get there early enough for TSA to properly grope them. They’d have to leave their firearms at home. They’d have to rent a vehicle at the destination end. And they’d have to share a space with a bunch of smelly liberals, and would have to endure poor service and schedule delays from the union staff.
If the government was really concerned with the amount of time it takes to get from Orlando to Tampa, they’d add 2 isolated lanes to I-4 and raise the speed limit to 120 on them.
A journalism major, who works for somebody else, is describing how a CEO should behave.
I call it a step in the right direction.
Not sure why everyone is taking exception with this article written by a 20-something soccer-mom. They have all the answers.
If we don’t get a high-speed rail in FL, how is OweBama supposed to turn the state into a failed liberal hellhole like they have in the big democrat-run cities?
Yep, there is already a train from Orlando to Miami. Amtrak.
Be prepared for a sudden influx of retired Michiganders if MI starts to tax pensions as is currently proposed.
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