Boneheaded Billionaires

Of late, Governor Moonbeam's adored bullet train to nowhere has gotten a lot of press.  Front page yesterday in the LA Times and the Daily Breeze.  Scanning through the headlines ... when I saw billion dollar amounts being tossed around like confetti at a St. Patrick's Day parade, I began to actually read the articles.  And then I went to Google.

This outrageously bumbling attempt to put a high-speed rail line from LA to San Francisco is no new thing.  It began back in 1993 when the Intercity High-speed Rail Commission began to conduct feasibility (none if you ask me) studies and plans.

In their infinite wisdom many years later, the decision was made to toss $2.6 billion (billion) up into the air for the portion of track that will travels from Bakersfield to Madera (Ed. note: population 61,416 - mostly oil industry-related jobs for a distance of 119 miles.)  Frankly, I didn't know that solid gold rails would be used.  No one mentioned it.

Here, from the august LA Times which never met a Democrat it didn't laud ... Jim Frazier, D, of Discovery Bay:  "At first glance, the High Speed Rail project is still over budget and the funding to complete the program hasn't been identified.  ... We still have no realistic way to pay for the project."  (Ed. note:  But what the hell - some sucker'll pick up the tab, ha ha. Or we can float another bond offering.)

"The project issued its first construction contract in 2013 when it had almost no property and was experiencing trouble acquiring more."  I now see the emergence of the "nowhere" part of this billion dollar cluster f--k.

"The business plan devotes an entire chapter to reviewing its past mistakes and proposing solutions so that they are not repeated.  For example, the rail authority says it will not issue future construction contracts until it has acquired all the land beforehand."   I can tell you this rendered me tomb silent for several minutes as I contemplated the kind of moronic simplicity that proposed that.  And that of the people who voted for this brain dead group.

The environmental report and Fresno.  "The rail authority found that nobody could be sure what was under the ground in Fresno, driving up the cost of relocating sewers, water lines and electrical conduits by hundreds of millions of dollars.  Environmental review costs went from a projected $388 million in 2010 to more than $1 billion.

Sen. Andy Vidak, R, Hanford:  "Initially a rat hole, now a sinkhole; soon it will be an abyss in which more and more tax dollars are forever lost.  I speak of the never-ending scam called High Soeed Rail."

Governor Brown in his State of the State address:  " I make no bones about it.  I like trains and I like high speed trains even better."

All of these billions, all of these advocates - someone is stuffing Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts with ill-concealed glee.  There is no other answer for the insane amounts of money and the persistence that is yelling for a train no one in the general population wants.  Long live greed and graft. God knows, getting the bullet train to nowhere will.

NOTE:  The Pacific transcontinental railroad was built in six years - from 1863 to 1869 - from Omaha to Sacramento, a distance of 1,756 miles by hand.