Posted on 02/13/2019 7:06:18 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Gov. Gavin Newsom told the California Legislature the bullet train was so over budget that he would kill 73 percent of the track and still spend 100 percent of the taxes.
Facing another cost spike, Gov. Gavin Newsom stunned a joint session of the Democrat-controlled Legislature by proposing to slash the 520-mile voter-approved and taxpayer-funded system that would have stretched from Anaheim through the Central Valley to San Francisco, while keeping the 119-mile stretch from Bakersfield to Merced.
In his formal appearance as governor in front of lawmakers, Newsom claimed that his priorities are combating the state's homelessness crisis and improving care for California's rapidly aging population. Newsom told lawmakers, "Let's be real" — there "simply isn't a path" to build a high-speed rail system to connect Northern California to Southern California, because cost over the decade rose from $33 billion to at least $77 billion.
Newsom knows that the California High-Speed Rail Authority's new chief program officer, Roy Hill, cautioned last March in a 114-page "2018 Draft Budget," that the likely "High Case" cost to build the 520-mile bullet train had almost tripled from $33 billion in when voters approved the effort in 2008 to $98.1 billion or about $189 million per mile.
Newsom's speech humiliated Democrat Assembly members Todd Gloria (San Diego), Ash Kalra (San Jose), Marc Berman (Palo Alto), Rob Bonta (Alameda), Wendy Carrillo (Los Angeles), David Chiu (San Francisco), Laura Friedman (Glendale), Eduardo Garcia (Coachella), Reginald Jones-Sawyer (Los Angeles), Robert Rivas (Salinas), and Mark Stone(Scotts Valley), who pushed through Assembly Joint Resolution 7 last week to back the "Green New Deal" introduced by 29-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
But Newsom may also have been desperate to stop a voter initiative being circulated by Reform California to divert high-speed rail’s billions of dollars in annual taxes and fees to local government to rehabilitate the state’s crumbling highway system.
Unions officials and their contractor fellow travelers are howling that the initiative is shortsighted and would ultimately hurt California residents.
Anti-tax crusader and Reform California chairman Carl DeMaio blasted Newsom’s speech as an effort to fool voters into believing the high-speed boondoggle was dead. Here’s what he wrote:
“Make no mistake about it: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement today is not about killing the wasteful High-Speed Rail Project, it is about keeping it very much alive. Newsom wants to spend tens of billions on a rail line between Merced and Bakersfield — a complete waste. Once this segment is done, politicians will argue that no one is riding this route because it doesn’t travel far enough and voila: the entire project will continue.”
Reform California expects to easily gather the 586,000 signatures by May to qualify for the 2020 statewide ballot and let voters finally end California’s high-speed rail fantasies.
he screwed the feds (us)
I say we screw him back.. deduct the amount from any future “payments” from fedgov until paid back.
To be fair, this project did not start with him. It started with Governor Moonbeam.
But you’re still right, the state still accepted Fed money ( paid for by all the other states ).
How many “Green” Energy companies with ties to Democrats managed to get Federal aid, grants and loans only to go bankrupt. This is no different.
Do you see the pattern here?
The Democrats have perfected the use of “Climate Change” to transfer public money into private pockets.
He wants to keep $3.5 billion of federal funds.
Like you could fund the wall with that.
“But Newsom may also have been desperate to stop a voter initiative being circulated by Reform California”
Bingo. The Rats have perfected using ballot initiatives to boost rat turnout. They know if this one gets on the 20 ballot it will hurt them. So if they can keep them from getting signatures by May it’s dead.
As I understand it, Dianne Feinstein’s husband made huge amounts of money on this farce. I don’t know the details.
A lot of Rats stuffed their pockets. As usual.
The U.S. doesn't have the population density of Europe or Japan, and we are too far out. Trains only make sense in urban areas.
A better idea for CA would be to expand charter and helicopter flights within the state while creating a new state highway system.
Solyndra immediately comes to mind.
:-)
Two relatively small segments of CA's population and one that doesn't offset with any kind of revenue stream in return. Even worse, to the extent all of us pay transportation taxes in one form or another, we get to pay for this. Voters in CA need to stop putting idiots in office.
Give open borders a few more years and we will.
“The U.S. doesn’t have the population density of Europe or Japan, and we are too far out. Trains only make sense in urban areas.”
Dems are looking ahead. By opening the borders they are striving for india population densities. They look at los angeles and dream of doubling or tripling the traffic to force people onto their trains which will become the ultimate money pits with endless beuracratic nepotism jobs for the connected. They will eventually have more do nothing 200k jobs for flunkies and “oppressed comunites” than the world wide combined employee count of walmart and mcdonalds combined
Rat money laundering.
Except that the stupid voters of CA just voted NOT to repeal a gas tax recently enacted by the Dims of CA. They run a few commercials saying it’s for the children, and it’s part of the green movement, and the idiots will vote for the train. Who are these idiots that have ruined CA? See my tag line. Remember, we were Reagan country.
Well you could fund quite a few miles with the money California accepted for a bullet train.
That’s what criminals do...steal. And yet, they still walk free.
The California Govenor needs to be charged with defrauding the Federal Government.
Lefties are obsessed with trains for public transit, but they are only efficient when well built and well run in specific circumstances. The rest of the time they are unbelievably wasteful boondoggles. Busses are typically much more efficient in the West but when the government gets involved even bus lines turn into a giant waste of funds.
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