But It May Help Him Fight The Recall
by Bob Walsh
Gavin Newsom, the God-Emperor of
the formerly great state of California, wants to tap into $4.1 billion
in bond funds so he can blow some more money on the not-quite-high-speed
train to nowhere.
Unfortunately
for him the bond initiative that started this whole thing rolling had
performance bench marks built into the law. The state has reached NONE
of those bench marks. In addition the laughingly named High Speed Rail
Authority has proven to be grossly incompetent in basic construction of
the rail infrastructure. Right now the state is pretending it wants to
finish 119 miles of track in the San Joaquin Valley, linking North
Armpit to South Buttcrack. Originally it was supposed to link the Bay
Area to Los Angeles with a spur to Sacramento maybe with 200 MPH trains
that could compete effectively with air travel. That turned into a pipe
dream rather quickly but the state needs to actually complete something
or they will, by law, have to refund a shitload of money to the
feds..
In 2008 a bond was
approved by voters to spend $10 billion, at the time that was roughly
10% of the state budget, to establish the rail link. There is about
$4.1 million of the bond left and the goal now is to link Madera to
Bakersfield for a "test track" and eventually link Bakersfield to
Merced. Just what the state needs, a low-speed passenger train service
between Bakersfield and Merced. Which MAY be ready in 2029 IF a bunch
of approvals are granted, which is dubious.
However,
the real advantage of this for the God-Emperor Newsom is that it will
give him a chance to promise to spend $4.1 billion on union construction
jobs in the valley. The farmers hate his ass already and aren't going
to vote for him so that union money heading his way will be important to
him.
One thing that is
reasonably certain, if this were a private project and not a public one
most of the people involved would be in prison for fraud right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment