Posted on 02/09/2021 3:55:18 PM PST by Vendome
The California High-Speed Rail Authority is asking Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators to release about $4.1 billion in state bond funds to ensure that there is enough money to complete construction that’s now underway on the bullet-train route in Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties.
If the governor, the state Assembly and the state Senate ultimately concur this spring, the money would come from Proposition 1A, a $9.9 billion high-speed rail bond approved by California voters in 2008. The rail authority’s board unanimously approved the request in a Zoom video meeting Tuesday.
Still pending in the state’s 3rd District Court of Appeal, however, is a legal challenge over whether the state can use the Proposition 1A money for what critics say is not a fully usable section of what voters intended as a statewide system of electrified trains between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The funds are needed because one of the major sources of construction money – revenue from the auctions at which companies buy “cap-and-trade” pollution credits in the state’s greenhouse gas reduction program – have taken a hit since the coronavirus pandemic reached California about a year ago.
The authority, Annis said, has already exhausted most of its other sources of money for the Madera-to-Shafter work, for which the cost is now estimated at about $13.8 billion. That new estimate is about $1.3 billion more than what was forecast a year ago by the agency.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Scam money chasing scam money...
Can FedEx, Amazon, UPS and the USPS get some freight cars put on those tracks?
Calling Willie...
So is the purpose of this to speed illegals from the border to the interior before ICE has a chance to catch and release them first?
I’m curious how much of the Fed.gov $1.9 Trillion printed-money-debt stimulus is going to bail-out California government and its pension funds.
Costs and years of delays are the reason why they scrapped the entire project and decided to just build a train that takes people from Timbuktu to Cucamonga... eg from nowhere to nowhere, maybe a few thousand people will benefit from this (other than the builders and land owners). Certainly won't help people in any of the top populated cities and counties.
So is the purpose of this to speed illegals from the border to the interior before ICE has a chance to catch and release them first?
—
Well that, but its really for the cartel bosses and their mules to get to work quicker; can’t keep the bribe money cooling its heels, can we?
DiFi has car payments to make. Cmon man!
Metrolink already goes to Cu-camonga. What more could they ask for?
Did anyone not predict this?
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”[…] the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Federal Constitution, is in the States, and not in the Federal Government [emphases added].” —Rep. John Bingham, Congressional Globe, 1866. (See about middle of 3rd column.)
"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose [emphasis added], serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” —Justice Brandeis, Laboratories of democracy.
Insights welcome.
On second though, maybe some other state would be willing to lead the states to put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes.
Either recall Newsom web site below is OK. Mailing address on downloadable form.
Recall Newsom form (already 70% 80% signatures, deadline March 10)
Barney Frank commented on it once while it was in progress...the only worthwhile thing I ever heard him say: "it would be cheaper to raise the city than to lower the highway".
Barney Frank commented on it once while it was in progress...the only worthwhile thing I ever heard him say: "it would be cheaper to raise the city than to lower the highway".
Barney Frank commented on it once while it was in progress...the only worthwhile thing I ever heard him say: "it would be cheaper to raise the city than to lower the highway".
Look for the union label.
Every Democrat in Sacramento belongs in the unemployment line.
Releasing another $4.1 billion should be worth another 100,000 recall signatures.
Is that the “train to nowhere”?
They're talking $9bn in cost for this whole boondoggle (which is a low-ball estimate, I'm sure).
If everyone who flies takes the train instead (a BIG "if"), and if we ignore costs and interest, it'll take 9bn/180MM= 50 years to recoup the costs.
It makes Boston's Big Dig seem like a bargain.
How many decades ago did they start building that railroad?
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