More Proposed Stimulus Spending On Infrastructure [Reader Post]

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When Barack Hussein Obama took office in January, 2009, he identified 10 corridors appropriate for high-speed rail in the US. His stimulus bill earmarked $8 billion to jump-start the project. High speed rail is Obama’s “Holy Grail” of public infrastructure projects. Proponents originally said the LA-to-SF bullet train project would create more than 1 million jobs, but recently revised that downward to several thousand jobs. (That’s quite a revision!) Almost every state originally identified dropped out of the running because they couldn’t afford their share of the cost. Only California is still seeking money for its “high speed rail” project that is to go between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Since the project was first unveiled in 2008, officials have tripled its projected cost, delayed its start of service for 13 years, downsized ridership projections and increased ticket prices. Almost two-thirds of Californians now say they’d vote against issuing bonds to pay for a project they narrowly approved just three years ago.

Original cost estimates (2008) were $33 billion for the entire project, with California, the federal government (that’s us taxpayers), and private enterprise sharing costs equally. Recent cost estimates (2011) are $98.5 billion. Recently revised ridership figures show that a one-way ticket price could require a government subsidy of $100 per passenger per ticket. Estimated travel time between the cities is 2 hours, 40 minutes. Flying takes about 1 hour, 5 minutes. The original cost of $55 for a one-way ticket was revised in 2009 to be 83% of the cost of a similar airline flight, or about $105. So the question is, “Why would anyone pay 83% of a flight cost to make the trip in over twice the time?”

When the California legislature undertook the most expensive public-works project in American history, they also created an independent review board to ensure that the LA-to-SF high-speed rail project would have solid financial footing. The name of the review board is “The California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group.” But in a report Tuesday, January 3, 2012, the review board, a panel of experts created by state law to help safeguard the public’s interest, raised serious doubts about almost every aspect of the project, concluding that the current plan “is not financially feasible.” As a result, the panel said, it “cannot at this time recommend that the Legislature approve the appropriation of bond proceeds for this project.”  Tom Umberg, chairman of the authority board, said in a letter to California lawmakers that the report is “deeply flawed, in some areas misleading and its conclusions are unfounded.” “As the report presents a narrow, inaccurate and superficial assessment of the HSR program, it does a disservice to policy-makers who must confront these decisions.”

California Governor Jerry Brown last week reiterated his commitment to the project, and the Rail Authority today blasted the Peer Review Group’s report. Brown spokesman Gil Duran said in an e-mail that the Peer Review Group’s report “does not appear to add any arguments that are new or compelling enough to suggest a change in course.” So if Governor Brown thinks that a project whose costs have tripled from original estimates, the estimates on which voters relied when approving the project in 2008, presents no fiscal problems, then why should he worry when the state-mandated review board tells him that the project can’t work?

But that’s just my opinion.

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But that’s just my opinion.

Really? Sounds like a rehash of the original LA Times article from two weeks ago.

Not much new material here that differs from the article.

This is another reason for a change of Washington bureaucrats. Defund the money holes like high speed rail. Rncourage low or no cost projects that will pay for itself like the Keystonne pipeline. Maybe, the increased revenue generated from the low cost/no cost projects will enable other projects.

What a waste!
IF, and it is not an option, IF these proposed rails carried FREIGHT, there might be some justification for them.
But they will not be configured to carry any freight over a few personal bags per customer.
They won’t even reach to ports.
IF freight were carried we could really have a discussion about carbon savings!

Before a spoon full of soil is turned in their behalf their cost-estimates have tripled!
Before a spoon full of soil is turned in their behalf their jobs’ estimates have plummeted!

And the claim that people can work while on the train is false.
It is too noisy and studies show people do not work on trains.

Trains, high speeds trains, will take twice the time as planes, cost more than twice as much as planes and will devastate the landscape and ecosystems it crosses.

But it would be so COOL to have a high speed train, like in France and Japan!

(the above statement pretty much covers the motivation behind the bureaucrats’ desire to have HSR)

I can guarantee you that my dear governor Moonbeam will continue to back this fiasco totally. When it comes time to try to raise taxes…again… it’ll be ‘for the kids’. And the idiot liberals, yeah I know it’s an oxymoron, will go for it.

@Nan G: “Trains, high speeds trains, will take twice the time as planes, cost more than twice as much as planes and will devastate the landscape and ecosystems it crosses.” Which is why, after spending several hundred billions it’s going to stopped by the Greenies over the migration patterns of the Middle Central Valley Mouse Darter.

So the question is, “Why would anyone pay 83% of a flight cost to make the trip in over twice the time?”

Plane trip: Drive to airport minimum of 1.5 hours before departure time. Park car. Catch shuttle to terminal. Check anything more than one bag not fitting in carry-on. Go through security. Wait at gate to board. Go through ofen excruciatingly uncomfortable boarding process, inching way through jetway ramp and plane aisle. Fight to preserve your own space from obese seat neighbors. Turn off electronics until you get to 10,000 feet. Then not really enough time to do anything but check and answer a few emails (wi-fi not available on most flights and, when available, requiring additional fee). Turn off electronics for descent and landing. Wait to unload, again inching way down aisle. Retrieve checked bags. Take shuttle to car rental. Drive into city, with mini-jet-lag/minor headache, from ascent/depressurization/descent/repressurization

In the first place, it’s not one hour and 5 minutes, it’s more like three and a half to 4 hours.

Bullet train:

Arrive 10 minutes before departure. Walk from parking lot to train terminal. Pull two big roll-on bags with you, if you wish, for free, and put them into the luggage compartment on the train car in which you are traveling. Enjoy smooth, quiet, roomy, comfortable, fee wi-fi, use your electronics the whole way. End up directly in a train terminal where you can transfer to a commuter train to the heart of the city or else rent a car. Most of the time can be productivity time, or you can sleep comfortably, or spend enjoyable time in a club car and, should the need arise, have a much more comfortable WC break.

I read two articles over the weekend which give greater nuance to the Texas job creation/California job loss picture.

In 1990, 80% of the citizens of (GOP majority) Laguna Beach voted to tax themselves to pay for a $20 million bond to preserve 20,000 acres as greenbelt open space, as opposed to having it developed into thousands of houses and businesses and a golf course by the Irvine company. They chose to pay MORE taxes to PREVENT growth. Right now, they are contemplating another $20 million bond to preserve even more open space from development. http://www.ocregister.com/news/laguna-334484-space-open.html

As I’ve written before, there’s no constituency at all for Texas-style growth in California. California has a population bubble. Too many people. Too much congestion. Through the roof housing costs. Like any bubble, it needs to deflate and it is deflating, at least a little.

The lion’s share of the growth in Texas is from an influx of Hispanic people. Texas is poised to gain 4 congressional seats. With fair redistricting, this would mean a gain of 3 Democratic seats and 1 Republican seat. With gerrymandering, the state legislature is trying to have this turn out to be 3 GOP and 1 Democratic.

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/09/144761572/texas-redrawn-voting-rights-states-power-in-court

Texas basically concedes it’s breaking the voting rights law. So its court strategy is to challenge the constitutionality of the voting rights law. It will be an interesting and important case.

But it shows you where the population growth (which California doesn’t want) is coming from and what types of jobs are really being created.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
WRONG!!!!
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/20/nation/la-na-terror-checkpoints-20111220

The Transportation Security Administration [TSA] isn’t just in airports anymore.
TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country.
“We are not the Airport Security Administration,” said Ray Dineen, the air marshal in charge of the TSA office in Charlotte.
We take that transportation part seriously.”
The TSA’s 25 “viper” teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year.
Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year.

According to budget documents, the department spent $110 million in fiscal 2011 for “surface transportation security.”

Better not count on making your TRAIN if you show up 10 minutes before departure time!

Hi Nan (#8): Perfectly legitimate point. I do have to concede that a high profile bullet train would be a more tempting target for terrorists than would a run of the mill Amtrak train.

But I’ve taken bullet trains in Japan, and you just board them with no more fuss than boarding a subway train. Most European trains are the same way

http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/high-speed-rails-weak-link-is-security-30874/

Japan and Europe spend a tiny fraction on national defense of what we spend. Yet the greatest threat to our security today is considered to be terrorist actions. So why do terrorists want to blow up our bullet trains and not blow the bullet trains of other countries with much smaller military footprints?

– LW/HB

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

I hate having to use google translate from Japanese to English.
The context is close after the terror bombings in Spain:

The Defense Agency’s anti-terror unit was to be established in a base outside of Tokyo.

Japan toughened its guard against terrorism, boosting police agents at major railway stations in Tokyo and vowing not to back down amid reports the country could be targeted by militants.

Tokyo doubled to between 450 and 500 the number of police at six major railway stations in the city, including those servicing the country’s high-speed “bullet” trains.

The agents will check mysterious packages and inspect the baggage of suspicious travelers, officials said, adding that the bolstered presence was aimed specifically at preventing a Madrid-style assault.

Maybe you didn’t seem ”suspicious,” or you traveled before the Spanish bombings led to these changes.

Larry W: Plane trip: Drive to airport minimum of 1.5 hours before departure time. Park car. Catch shuttle to terminal. Check anything more than one bag not fitting in carry-on. Go through security. Wait at gate to board. Go through ofen excruciatingly uncomfortable boarding process, inching way through jetway ramp and plane aisle. Fight to preserve your own space from obese seat neighbors. Turn off electronics until you get to 10,000 feet.

No difference. With a bullet train, you still drive to parking area and have to shuttle to a terminal. Perhaps even worse since the HSR is supposed to be servicing a lot more clientele than the airlines. So the parking is the same. You have someone drop you off, take a cab, or park your car in the long term lots.

You will still have security. No difference. Will still take similar time to process the ridership as it does thru an airport.

Loading will still be similar. Only so many people can fit thru the train doors at a time, and they will still need to be placing their carry on baggage in some sort of storage area. Even multiple doors will not necessarily make a difference.

Their proposed stats were suggesting over 6 mil riders annually as a minimum (actually, that’s ambitious since they are saying 16.1 million, bay to basin), and as high as 23 mil annually after the first phase.

Projected annual ridership in 2040:
IOS South: 9.5 million – 14.0 million
IOS North: 7.6 million – 11.2 million
Bay to Basin: 16.1 million – 23.7 million
Phase 1: 29.6 million – 43.9 million

Their website ridership page goes more into detail, saying 12 to 50 million by 2030.

But for security purposes, lets take a low range, way under estimated ridership, that’s around 16,438 riders daily. Each train is supposed to carry 950 to 1300 passengers, depending on if it’s configured with a cafe car, or larger seats to accommodate for the humans, like Larry, offended at having to sit next to “smelly blubber” (as he called them before…).

Using an average of 1000 passengers per train, they have to run at least 16.5 trains daily to accommodate for a low projected usage, and you have to accommodate for security in loading times for 1000 people for each train. The Shinkasen HSR cars hold approx 80 per car, and run 16 cars on their trains as an average – so that would translate to the average CA train being 12 cars long… longer during peak hour runs.

A single Boeing 737-800, seating about 162, all have to load thru a single door. With HSR and the proposed cars, you’ll have to load 80 people per car, and the entry seems to be the connections between cars, maximizing the seating by not having doors in the middle of the cars. I doubt that loading 80 people into 12 cars (11 entry points?) is going to be all that much of a time improvement over the 162 thru a single door.

On the other end, you’ll still have the same routine – either have someone pick you up, rent a car, or bail your ride out of long term parking. Apples to apples and a bogus argument all around about supposed time saved.

The best that can be said is that a commuter may live closer to a station than to the airport. But then, if you have to take a HSR “hop” to get to the main terminal, you have to double your boarding and security times since you’re taking a train to get to a train.

Checking bags at the airport takes very little time since there is curbside checks. Since it’s presented as mostly a “commute” transport, I have to wonder how many will be loading the train down with extra baggage anyway.

One difference may be the time on the tarmac, waiting for clearance for take off. But even factoring that pesky inconvenience in, it’s still approx 1/3 of the time it takes to fly. Technically, the HSR CA site states the trip should be about 2 hrs and 40 minutes.

The other important difference to Larry is to be able to play with his electronics for the duration. Frankly it seems like a lot of money for the nation to spend, merely so that some lose 20 minutes of online connection time per day. Frivolous argument, IMHO.

I don’t think that HSR is a bad idea for California. But it’s a bad idea to have the nation pay for California’s HSR. If they want it, I suggest they have their citizens… who will be the primary beneficiaries of the system… pay for it and entice private investors. Because the costs/interests on the nation’s debt will not be made up by any supposed additional tax revenues from the construction jobs or possible businesses that it may inspire.

Hi Nan/Mata:

Last time I rode on the Shinkansen was 2006; which was two years after the Madrid bombings. I’ll ask a colleague in Osaka how the security screening may have changed.

I’ve boarded and ridden in airplanes and I’ve boarded and ridden in bullet trains and there’s no comparison, with regard to ease of accessing terminals, loading and unloading, and overall travel comfort and productivity en route.

With regard to Mata’s suggestion that CA should do this without any federal money, I’ve addressed this before: firstly, CA is a net donor of $50 billion per year to the federal treasury (taxes sent to Washington compared to money brought back into the state from Washington). No other state comes close. I believe that the majority of red states are net beneficiaries of Federal largess (receiving more money from Washington than they send; maybe someone can look this up). I don’t see any justification whatsoever for singling out California for such discriminatory treatment regarding federal contributions to intrastate transportation infrastructure projects.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

OK, Larry, this source has a quote from California Senator Barbara Boxer, who said, “The Democratic senator projected the state would get about $1.45 back for every $1 spent during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, largely as a result of the $787 billion federal stimulus bill.” So much for your “donor” statement.

And this source has California #8 in the “Federal tax dollars received per federal tax dollar paid” category. So much for your “No other state comes close.” statement.

Do these sources show an inconsistency? Yes, but the second source has not been updated to include the stimulus.

Security procedures in Japan have nothing to do with security procedures in the US. They were not the recipients of terrorist attacks on Sept 11th. Nor are they the favored Great Satan of the same.

Red herring.

What boarding and accessibility of bullet trains in Japan also has nothing to do with boarding and accessibility of any rail here in the US. It all depends upon the parking or shuttle availability and it’s proximity to the station. You won’t be parking curbside, and wandering into the terminal. You’ll still have a remote parking facility for the main terminal serving bay to basin. And you may still have to drive to that remote parking if you don’t take a commuter HSR hop to the terminal.

Another red herring.

I have utilized what is the only quasi high speed rail system in the US – Washington DC to NYC and Boston – via it’s first incarnation, the Metroliner back in the mid 70s. Unless you took the express, the stops could get on your nerves. Time for deboarding, and boarding was about 15 minutes at each station. I made more trips to Philadelphia than I did NYC (not by choice, I assure you). Never took it to Boston.

It was pleasant travel on the whole. But then so is anything when you don’t have to be the driver. As Llewellyn King at the White House Chronicle noted just this past Sept, even the long distance bus service is pretty cushy travel these days, and considerably cheaper. The time variation from the train service offered varied from 30 minutes to 75 minutes longer by bus… but at considerable financial savings.

Back in the 1960s, Eastern Airlines invented a new way of traveling. It was called the Shuttle, and every hour on the hour an aircraft left Washington or New York for the other city. Passengers were guaranteed a seat. If one aircraft was full, another one was put in service, even if there was just one passenger.

The fare from Washington to New York, or the other way around, was $14. Payment was made on the airplane by cash, check or credit card. It was no muss, no fuss transportation between the two cities.

Today, two airlines offer service on the same route for $156 one way, but you have to have a boarding pass to go through security. Flight time is about one hour.

You can also make the journey by train. Amtrak offers two classes of service: The Acela, which costs $186 one way and takes two hours and 44 minutes; or the Northeast Regional, which costs $134 one way for a journey of three hours and 29 minutes.

Yet last week, I went from Washington to New York for $19 and returned for $15 on a bus. Travel time in each direction was four hours.

Something is happening here. Buses are better than they have ever been: They are leather-seated, restroom-equipped, wi-fi-wired and smoke-free. To board a bus, all you need to do is to show a receipt on your cell phone and you are on your way. Also, there are plenty of them; at least fivecompanies offer service.

Metroliner, who tried a version of that their service between San Diego and LA back in the 80s (and retired it after a year), has since been replaced with the Acela Express train which runs faster. All Amtrak owned. Amtrak is a private enterprise with the preferred shares owned by federal government and common stocks publicly traded, owned by the public. Yet they still received federal funds to balance their budgets. Amtrak, of course, services the entire nation with various rail services, not just one state.

Their Acela Express is their best profit passenger run because that is a popular corridor. Then again, it’s serving more than two major eastern cities on the route. Washington DC, Philadelphia, NYC and Boston.

There’s not much in between LA and SF… tho they are including many stops (don’t know if those stops are figured into their estimated time of 2 hrs 40 min. I doubt it). Only three are between LA and Fresno (Palmdale, Bakersfield, Visalia). From there your train either goes north to Sacramento, or NE to the bay area.

Stops, routes and estimated times can be figured at the CA HSR site:

Unlike Amtrak and Acela Express, the California HSR will be government owned…. the California High-Speed Rail Authority, a state agency. If it were to be a profitable venture, it seems that it’s not open to the public to share in any such purported profit at this point, save from interest to the private investors they hope to attract.

Oddly enough, you would think that Amtrak would be frothing at the bit, were the project so fiscally inviting.

With regard to Mata’s suggestion that CA should do this without any federal money, I’ve addressed this before: firstly, CA is a net donor of $50 billion per year to the federal treasury (taxes sent to Washington compared to money brought back into the state from Washington). No other state comes close. I believe that the majority of red states are net beneficiaries of Federal largess (receiving more money from Washington than they send; maybe someone can look this up). I don’t see any justification whatsoever for singling out California for such discriminatory treatment regarding federal contributions to intrastate transportation infrastructure projects.

Not singling out California, and preposterous to say so. I’d say exactly the same to Florida and Oregon, both where I have personal vested interests.

As far as California’s economic contributions to the nation, two responses:

1: Net loss or gain is still important. If you contribute $65 bil after it’s construction, but we’re in debt over $80 bil plus long term interest on the borrowed funds we don’t have, it’s still a fiscally insane investment. And considering the fiscal status of your state, I wouldn’t be boasting about the revenue vs debt there. Makes me quite sure you’d use the same “we’re too big and important to fail” type argument for the inevitable California bail out.

2: California wouldn’t be contributing to all those evil red states if your nanny government legislators hadn’t spent decades devising welfare program after welfare program. Therefore you, touting your own state as the major contributor to welfare programs I don’t support to begin with, strikes me as highly amusing.

I knew this thread would be Larry bait and that he’d whip out the “funding of the Red states with CA tax money” argument.
Pavlov was quite right about liberals too.

HR, I sorta wonder how Californian’s feel about those “red state” contributions via way of food, water, etc. After all, they are sucking up the Colorado River waters. Nor are they the only agricultural contribution to the nation’s food supply.

But it’s a California thing. The denizens tend to think the world revolves around them, and is only in competition to the financial capital, NYC, with the same elevated self-import ‘tude.

Hi Warren: What I said was accurate: California has been, by far, the largest net contributor to the Federal Treasury, in terms of sending more money to Washington than it’s received back. The “stimulus” money is an anomaly and doesn’t begin to make up for 20 years of massive net support of the Federal treasury. It’s ironic that California’s share of the stimulus money was increased by bullet train money declined by Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida.

http://visualizingeconomics.com/2010/02/17/federal-taxes-paidreceived-for-each-state/
http://www.nemw.org/index.php/flow-of-federal-funds

P.S. This statement of yours is misleading:

>>And this source has California #8 in the “Federal tax dollars received per federal tax dollar paid” category. So much for your “No other state comes close” statement.<<

Your other cited article (the one about Boxer) should be read in its entirety. The article makes clear that the most recent year is an anomaly, entirely the function of the stimulus, and CA benefited by WI, OH, and FL all refusing their bullet train money.

Mata thinks that she should be able to decide, on a program by program basis, which Federal transportation projects are "worth it" and which are not. My tax money has gone to support all sorts of things that I didn't believe in, most notably wars. The US government has been subsidizing state transportation projects (including highways, airports, ports, and rail) for many decades. It's an established precedent and it is "picking on" CA to say that it should just have to pick up all of the tab itself, particularly after years of subsidizing the Federal treasury far out of proportion to the return it has received, relative to other states (particularly the Red states, who's legislative representatives have done such superb jobs for their constituents, unlike our comparatively ineffective California legislative representatives).

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

This absurd boondoggle would cost 150 billion for the first segments. Construction costs for large complex transportation projects such as rail systems and elevated freeways usually increase by a factor of 5-10 over the original budget. Given the amount of environmental and right of way conflict this thing would generate in this most litigious of states, I would expect delays, compensation, and legal fees to favor the high end of that estimate. And it will run at a huge loss year after year.

The ridership projections are a joke. In this country people like other people to take the train.

Every earthquake near the tracks will require a shutdown and survey of the line.

That they ever said this thing would create a million jobs is a claim so manipulated and delusional that the project should have been rejected on that basis alone

It is insane for the broke state of California to spend a dime on this vast financial sinkhole. The only credible reason for being so insistent on it is that its real purpose is to create a welfare program and slush fund for the connected, for labor unions, for politicians. The conflicts, screwups, and delays are all seen as sources of income by this crowd. Conflict = (i) job takes longer and thus provides more employment, (ii) provides demand for favors from politicians, (iii) provides demand for lawyers.

You forgot to mention the enviro lawsuits, Wm T. :0)

I had mentioned the earthquakes, to which Larry had pointed out that Japan, also earthquake prone, managed to have one. Well, yes they did. But then the Shinkasen serves the entire nation and far more communities than the CHSRA will be serving. They have auto stoppages that shut down the power to the trains in the event of earthquakes as a safety measure. But when you look at the Shinasen route in Japan, and compare that to the remote travels thru the San Joaquin valley in California, getting to stranded travelers and damaged rails for a system that serves a nation, instead of a state, is more feasible.

As far as jobs… the business plan summary spreads pretty wide on that. And quite “glowing” as to be appealing.

Construction of the initial Central Valley section is expected to generate 100,000 direct and indirect jobs over five years, an average of 20,000 jobs annually. Direct and indirect jobs to build all of Phase 1 are estimated at 1.2 million to 1.4 million over 20 years, an average of approximately 65,000 jobs annually. The Phase 1 system will generate 4,500 permanent operations and maintenance jobs.

An estimated 100,000 to 450,000 new statewide permanent jobs not related to HSR are expected by 2040.

Of course, the reality is that all these jobs will be on the taxpayers payroll, since the system will not be up and operating for any kind of return during these quoted period. I’m not sure of their “4,500 permanent operations and maintenance jobs” in just Phase I. I’ve read their 2012 Economic Impact Analysis. Strikes me as there are many contradictions contained therein. On pg 19 of that analysis (about the statewide economy), they elevate the “information industry” to a new high. Apparently they are banking on it when it comes to the HSR system. They say:

The location quotients for all but one of the six knowledge industries in California are either 1 or higher with the information industry being the highest at 1.45. This means that California has a 40% larger share of workers in the information industry than the country as a whole. While knowledge industries accounted for 18% of the jobs in California in 2008, they contributed 40% of the state GSP. Knowledge industries often depend on face-to-face communication for collaboration and productivity so they would stand to gain the most from the connectivity offered by high-speed rail.

~~~

High-speed rail will increase productivity and specialization by giving businesses access to larger labor markets. Larger labor pools lead to better matching of skills, which means that firms are better able to find workers with the right qualifications.

High-speed rail service will improve market access; companies that operate locally or regionally will be able to expand their operations statewide. The increased market size will subsequently increase competition among businesses, lowering production costs and improving market efficiency. Research indicates that high value-added sectors benefit from the increased access and proximity brought about by HSR. Economists have identified business clusters within high value-added sectors that comprise combinations of businesses that benefit from increased interaction and proximity.

Let’s put that “information/knowledge” industry that the HSR is depending on in context, shall we? The graph below is from the CHSRA’s own biz plan, with my added triaging of the industry in productivity. That “information industry”, used to hang their hat for the HSR, ranks 10th in their overall productivity sector.

uh… these “information industries” aren’t transporting product. Like Nan G points out above, the system is transporting people, not products and freight.

If the “information industry” is so advanced, with communication in this day not dependent upon physical travel and presentations … she says as she is listening to a “go to meeting” advertisement, LOL… I hardly think such an advanced “information industry” requires as much “face-to-face” contact that cannot be accomplished with Skype or video meetings. So if you’re interested in lessening CO2 emissions…. heh

As I will continue to say, it’s California’s choice for a HSR system. But then, California isn’t well known for it’s wise management of tax revenues, and quite liberal in it’s spending. I, as a former California resident, am not willing to fund their pipe dreams just for the opportunity to profile anymore.

Hi Guys,

From my favorite President:

http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Similar sentiments from the biased liberal media:

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/07/opinion/la-ed-rail-20120107

The project’s current political ills remind us of the firestorm that erupted over L.A.’s subway, when sinkholes appeared on Hollywood Boulevard, construction mismanagement led to cost overruns, and voters became so disillusioned with subways that they approved a measure in 1998 forbidding the expenditure of county sales tax money to pay for them ever again. A decade later, they realized how shortsighted they had been; failure to complete a subway to the sea contributed to worsening gridlock on the Westside, and the subway had such clear benefits for riders that its construction troubles were largely forgotten. The result: County voters approved a new measure in 2008 to raise the sales tax to pay for, among other things, more subway construction.

The same phenomenon is already happening in Boston, home of the nation’s most expensive transportation project. The Big Dig highway tunneling scheme was a political catastrophe a few years ago, what with mistakes that prompted severe delays and caused the price tag to skyrocket. Although the Big Dig is nobody’s idea of the right way to build infrastructure, Bostonians are now reveling in a downtown park built on what used to be an expressway, and a tangled traffic mess has been unsnarled. In a few more years, the headaches will probably have been forgotten.

Worthwhile things seldom come without cost or sacrifice. That was as true in ancient times as it is now; pharaoh Sneferu, builder of Egypt’s first pyramids, had to try three times before he got it right, with the first two either collapsing under their own weight or leaning precipitously. But who remembers that now? Not many people have heard of Sneferu, but his pyramids and those of his successors are wonders of the world.

Here’s to the bold visionaries, who create the future.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: You said:

Here’s to the bold visionaries, who create the future.

The costs be damned!

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Gosh Larry, your post could apply to those of us who were in Iraq and saw what could be if the liberals didn’t fight to prevent it!

Hi Randy. I am very grateful for your service in risking your life in Iraq, but the liberals stood by like sheep and let President Bush make a very bad decision, just as Lyndon Johnson bamboozled congress in doing with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

Obama followed the Bush plan in Iraq to the letter — right down to the withdrawal date. And the result is exactly as predicted by everyone from Lt. General Odom to Joe Biden. Sectarian power struggle, with the result to be decided on the basis of power and not at the ballot box. It’s not just liberals. My own Congressman, Dana Rohrabacher is a conservative who scores near to top in rankings of conservatives, based on votes and positions taken, e.g.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/673513/posts

He was a strong supporter of the Iraq invasion, and supported all aspects of the war’s prosecution, including the “surge,” but now states that it just wasn’t worth it and it’s certainly not worth staying and running Iraq as a client state.

https://twitter.com/#!/DanaRohrabacher/status/128244451385671680

http://rohrabacher.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=270897

Now, this doesn’t “prove” anything, but it does show that blaming anything about the Iraq adventure on “liberals” is entirely misguided and unfair. Iraq is what it is. We were there for for nearly 8 years and did everything we could do, but, in the end, we couldn’t undo a thousand years of sectarian tribalism.

The Ottoman empire was run by Sunni Muslims and they made the Sunni minority their police force. After World War II, the Shiites were again pushed down into the dirt by the Sunnis. The Kurds care only about their autonomy and not about the country of Iraq as a whole. There is nothing there on which to build a civil democracy. There never was. We went in to get rid of WMD and to depose Saddam.

Mission accomplished.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Iraq was a debacle, I think for reasons that seem to plague us now that didn’t hinder us in WWII.

What I am saying is that we worried more about winning first and rebuilding second back then. You cannot, in my opinion, try to “win the hearts and minds” of the folks who live in the country you are at war with until you first and foremost defeat the enemy soundly. Winning the hearts and minds is accomplished after the enemy is routed and you then assist the populace in helping rebuild their country.

By trying to make nice, it hinders our military and makes their job that much more difficult. The ROE that our brave men and women work under are not only preposterous, but damned stupid and deadly.

Just my two cents on the Iraq war.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Spoken like the true liberal you are Larry. You made a statement that only those in the trenches know what really needs to be done and then you totlly ignore them. You find another reason to not believe them. Those ignorant people from the Middle-east can never develop a democratic form of government. Only the benevelent US government has the capability to take care of her people!

Well Larry, you and your liberal ilk are wrong again. I have discussed in this blog my experiences with the people in Iraq. I discussed how every Sunday, while our medical personnel examined and treated chilfdren in their school, I held meetings with the local leaders. We discussed how a democratic government works and the responsibilities of the people if they wanted their government to succeed.

Guess what Larry! You are right about the people in the trenches being right. I have always received emails from those people who attended the Sunday morning meetings since I returned home. They were not so ignorant that they didn’t understand. They got it and yearn for it. As a matter of fact, I have been invited to meet with some of these people who have become deep friends. I am not sure what they want to discuss. Maybe they just want to reinforce their thoughts. Maybe they want to just see how someone lives who experiences a democratic government. The bottom line here is that if the politicians would have gotten out of the way, Iraq would look different today.

Larry, one of the faults I find with liberals is that they make statements, form thoughts and initiate action with out considering unintended consequences of those actions. The statements, thoughts and actions of liberals result from beliefs in an ideology that is hopeful but never validated. While believing in an ideology as an individual is important for the growth of an individual, taking action to support that ideology actually kills people. One only needs to look at the millions of people who have dies because a few ideologically motivated people failed to acurately assess the evidence concerning DDT. The liberal ideology condemed millions to death. I could list hundreds of examples like this, but I need to work to pay for those who will not!

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: I have traveled many times in Japan and taken the bullet trains and they are amazing and have not had one incident from the beginning. I also live in San Diego and have watched this fiasco evolve and conclude it will not work here in the US. The cost for the project has already tripled and it hasn’t even started!! There is a good reason why the trains work in Japan, no other option for the normal citizen. It’s like the green garbage, a waste of money with less than zero results. Sorry dude but American culture is different from that of Japan or Europe, news flash, you’re not going to change this culture so live in the real world and accept it.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

Here’s to the bold visionaries, who create the future.

with other peoples’ money.

@MataHarley:

Excellent point Mata.
CA has been taking MORE then their allotted amount of water. We will see how things work when we tell them too bad, we need the water now.

@Larry W: What I said was accurate: California has been, by far, the largest net contributor to the Federal Treasury, in terms of sending more money to Washington than it’s received back.

Of course what you said was “accurate”, Larry. It’s also deliberately misleading for a personal political agenda.

You see, you “contribute more”… sorta.. because California has the largest population in the nation. So what?

Your state does not pay the largest amount of taxes per capita. Seventeen states, plus the beltway District, have citizens that pay more taxes per capita than you.

Oh… but you’re more important, even tho you’re paying less per individual, because you have a bigger population.

What is is about the liberal mentality that they do so love to take credit for, and control, other people’s money? You think that because there are more Californians, your sheer populus gives you special consideration, even tho other states have citizens that actually pay more as individuals?

Hey.. whatever floats your California dreamin’ boat. Just don’t expect us to buy into the BS you lay out as definitive and moral truths. My suggestion is that you tap into your state’s wealthy… you know, Hollywood, the medical professionals, the Silicon Valley money types who don’t “mind” paying more in taxes, but only if forced to… and fix your own budget and spending problems. When you’re done with that, then maybe you can figure out a way to make the HSR system look like an attractive enough business proposition to private investors. After that, then maybe you can ask the feds to pick up the slack.

Mata thinks that she should be able to decide, on a program by program basis, which Federal transportation projects are “worth it” and which are not. My tax money has gone to support all sorts of things that I didn’t believe in, most notably wars.

National security is the Constitutional business of central government. Infrastructure is on an as needed and fiscally rewarding basis. You don’t put a bridge to nowhere when the costs to do so far outweigh the need. Nor do you build a railway system that has no hope of ever paying for itself, simply for posturing purposes.

To equate the HSR with US military operations is possibly the height of chutzpah. Insight as to your nth degree of self absorption. Then to follow it up with soaring rhetoric of how “visionary” this….

ad nauseum. Pass the pepto please.

Larry W:….. but the liberals stood by like sheep and let President Bush make a very bad decision…

More revisionist history. The vote on both Clinton’s Iraqi Freedom Act in the 90s, and the AUMF totally contradict your selective memory of history.

Obama followed the Bush plan in Iraq to the letter — right down to the withdrawal date. And the result is exactly as predicted by everyone from Lt. General Odom to Joe Biden. Sectarian power struggle, with the result to be decided on the basis of power and not at the ballot box.

Actually, Obama didn’t want to follow Bush’s SOFA withdrawal. He just couldn’t negotiate the longer stay he wanted. But it’s nice to know that “the result”, as you call it, is in when we’ve only been gone a few weeks.

A little premature to be calling the future fate of Iraq in such a short time, don’t you think? But I’m sure quite convenient for your political talking points. Iraq is, and will always be, a push pull for their various sectors. Actually the US is just as divided – and always has been – via political ideology instead of religious lines. So what? We learn how to live with the divides, as Iraq is doing with their government structure. I assure you, our small amount of troops per capita there didn’t force them into election after election. There are elements that want the Arab democracy created to fall because they consider it unIslamic. They will always attempt to crash the new Iraq.

But as I said, just as Franklin said in our early days… they have a republic/Arab democracy… if they can keep it. Iraq as it is today is a much better US ally and minimal risk than it was under Saddam. And even Clinton and your beloved Dems knew that since the 90s, as is reflected in legislation and voting records you choose to ignore in your commentary.

@Randy, astute observations, and right on the money. Don’t think I can add a thing to such an accurate encapsulation of lib/prog think when it comes to military warfare and strategy.

Let’s pile on to the disingenuous, but “accurate” statement by Larry that because California pays the most net contributions because of sheer population, they deserve special consideration.

Let’s use your criteria and standards, Larry. California is also the largest recipient of federal contribution in net dollars as well. If you feel like seeing how much for a reality check, here’s the Federal aid to states breakdown from 2009. Start at pg 15 of the PDF, and start adding up the California take of the federal dollars by agency breakdown thru page 32 of the PDF.

Prefer fiscal year 2010? Here ya go. As a matter of fact, you can peruse federal aid to the states back to 1998, if you prefer. I’m quite sure you’ll find it consistent that California gets the largest net of federal dollars in every case.

Then you might want to stop playing your presentation shell games of contributions by sheer dollars/population for one side, and not recognizing that using that standard, you also get the most cash from the feds as well.

Hi Mata and Randy. Don’t go making Iraq war criticism into some sort of “liberal” thing. There are innumerable non-liberals who view things the same way. Rohrabacher for one. Ron Paul for another. Former Reagan NSA Director Lt General Willam Odom for yet another. General Anthony Zinni for yet another. Let’s just argue the merits of it and not do the political labels. http://www.flynnfiles.com/archives/world_events2008/25_conservative_critics_of_the_iraq_war.html

Clinton thought Saddam was a threat, but he never got close to sending in a land invasion force to overthrow the government. George HW Bush was the same. Acknowledging that a given dictator is a threat doesn’t mean that the best course of action is a protracted, open-ended land war in Asia.

Of course, there are individuals in Iraq who are genuine democrats (small d). If there are enough of them, they’ll figure out a way to make it work for Iraq. We got rid of the WMD and we got rid of Saddam. That was the mission. As a bonus, we’ve given the Iraqis a shot at building a country for themselves.

With regard to the business about per capita contributions vs total contributions (talking about net tax contributions of states to Washington DC), it’s entirely relevant because this discussion is about building an expensive bullet train. If you look at the total dollar amount and if you look at what Washington’s share would be, it sounds like a lot of money. But we are talking about a state which has, over the past couple of decades, been sending net cash to DC at the rate of $50B per year. That’s a huge amount of money and no state has come close to this, just as I (correctly) asserted.

We aren’t talking about raw dollars sent to Washington or raw dollars received from Washington, we are talking about the difference between money sent to Washington and money received from Washington. Red states tend to get back more money from Washington than they send to Washington. Blue states tend to be the opposite. California has averaged $50 billion dollars per year in being a net donor to the federal treasury. No other state has come close. That’s why the federal share of California’s transportation project is so entirely justifiable.

If a bullet train makes sense anywhere in the USA, it’s the LA to SF/Silicon Valley route. It’ll be a bridge, joining NorCal to SoCal. I hope that the bold visionaries are able to pull it off.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

Larry W: We aren’t talking about raw dollars sent to Washington or raw dollars received from Washington, we are talking about the difference between money sent to Washington and money received from Washington.

New spin, same direction. Again you ignore per capita, and merely attempt to take credit for sheer size of populus. Otherwise your assertion doesn’t work as being #1. Talking about “money sent to Washington and money received from Washington” is exactly the link that @Warren provided above. In 2007 (which is the annual figures used for the chart), California was getting a return of .78 on each dollar. They paid $313,998,874 in 2007, so they left $69 bil with the feds. You say that’s the most… well, duh. No.

New Jersey paid $121,678,423 in tax revenues in 2007. The got a return of 61 cents on the dollar, so they left $74.22 billion in Washington… more than California that year, even with a smaller population.

This is an example of how you are not only wrong in the numbers, but also attempt to try and make your point via population numbers instead of per capita stats, which is the more commonly used. And when you consider per capita, there were 17 other states that paid more in 2007, plus DC. California was still 8th, not first, just as Warren said.

But whether per capita, or sheer net regardless of population numbers contributing, it’s not a static number. Thus why Boxer says that with the stimulus money, the return on the dollar is now a positive return of getting the full dollar paid in, plus an additional 45 cents…. and not the 2007 statistic of 78 cents on the dollar.

You simply can’t pick a figure out of the year, and expect that to be the real number from year to year because federal allocations change annually, as do tax revenue contributions. You remain rigid in your math just to elevate your state’s status in order to justify federal spending that is not wise with our debt structure. Posturing and looking high tech to the world is not a replacement for frugal and wise spending. HSR is not a wise use of federal dollars. If California wants to place themselves further down the fiscal sewer line, that’s your business. But the nation shouldn’t help.

Oops… correction. Didn’t reverse my NJ calculations. So sorry. I’m wrong. NJ left about $47.46 bil in Washington in 2007. New York paid $244,672,914 in 2007, getting 79 cents back on the dollar. They left $51.373 bil in Washington that year.

That’s some pretty hefty dollars per capita, when you consider the population differences between California and either NJ or NY.

The standards are per capita. To spin it any other way is just a cheap way to take advantage of California’s sheer population. Not even economists use that shabby of methodolgy.

But there ya go.. your belated Christmas present. You got a mea culpa, I’m wrong on the calculations for the populus/net numbers.

It’s still not a static figure, and is only an example of one year. Nor does it entitle you to special consideration.

@MataHarley: Mata you are spot on as usual!!! I live in California and I would not provide moon beam and his failed Democrats a penny to waste!! What we do NOT talk about here in California is what I call the Billion Dollar Burrito in the room. California and sadly America wastes billions on illegals that could be spent to creat jobs for America. The drain on our system is staggering. I live in San Diego and you can visit any school in Chula Vista, Oceanside, or Vista and see the money drain. OK education is sensitive I get that. Then if you want to see further waste go to any Emergency Room, examine the crime and arrest records, or see who crowds our jails. It’s time for California and America to wake up to this problem before we waste money we don’t have!! Let’s be clear who is to blame for this, it’s the liberal wacho Democrats who buy their votes!! I have twin daughters in college and California has been raising tuition fees 30% a year and what do we do, allow illegals to apply for available money and in state tuition. It’s beyond rediculousness!!

Hi Common sense:

I have twin daughters in college and California has been raising tuition fees 30% a year and what do we do, allow illegals to apply for available money and in state tuition. It’s beyond rediculousness!!

The “available money” to which “illegals” may apply is private, not public money. With regard to in state tuition, these are people who live in California and who are never going to be deported. We can either educate them and have them get better jobs and pay more taxes or we can leave them uneducated. Rick Perry thinks exactly along these lines and he is by no means a liberal wacko Democrat.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Larry, this is about your comment that those in the trenches who get bloody should be making the decisions because they know best. Then you did an about face to be consistent with your liberal mentality. Iraq was just an example of your every changing ideology that continues to foster unintended consequences.

Hi Mata, This is all semantics. We are both actually making the same argument.

I’m making the point using raw dollars. You are trying to argue against me by using per capita dollars, but you only apply per capita to the tax dollars and don’t apply it to the project dollars.

My argument was that, yes, the bullet train is expensive, but you have to gauge federal contribution to the bullet train to California’s historic over-contributions to the federal treasury. Over a 20 year period, California contributed a huge net amount of money to the federal treasury, relative to other states. So the bullet train money has to be gauged against this. Raw dollars to Washington over the past 20 years; raw dollars from Washington in the future, for the bullet train.

You want to reduce it all to per capita dollars, that’s totally fine. But then the bullet train money has to be expressed as bullet train dollars per California population (bullet train dollars per capita). Either way, it totally supports my arguments.

With respect to the last fiscal year (which included the stimulus money), as I wrote, this was a total anomaly, and California benefited because Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida all turned their bullet train money down and some of it got redirected to California.

What this whole argument is about is whether or not California should be forced to pay for the bullet train without any federal dollars. My arguments are that, historically, the federal government has always paid for a good portion of intrastate transportation projects (highways, bridges, airports, ports, trains) and that, historically, California has gotten a short shrift from the federal government, relative to most other states.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

“over-contributions”? Not per capital. Again, the economists do not use this raw data you persist in using to make a bogus case that California has gotten a “short shrift from the federal government relative to most states.” The per capita shows quite clearly you are dealing in fuzzy math.

Fact is, California isn’t that far ahead of states with smaller populations, in the cash they have left on the table in any given year. In fact, considering their population, maybe you ought to be paying more… LOL

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: It’s private money now my friend but as you know it will not be for long. How did that position work for Perry by the way?? Oh yea, he took a beating on it. As I did acknowledge on my post education is sensitive but of course you ignored the other points. I have been in the Medical Market Space for over 30 years in California and my wife is a nurse. We lived in the OC for years. Our twins were born 7 weeks early and we were blessed to have medical insurance. In the bed next to my wife was an illegal who snuck across the border, spoke no English, no health insurance, and no prenatal care. I’m sure my tax dollars and yours paid for her care and now she is rewarded with citizenship. Until this stupidity is recognized and dealt with I say giving money to California is a waste. I hope your twins are doing well.

Hi Randy,

Larry, this is about your comment that those in the trenches who get bloody should be making the decisions because they know best.

I honestly don’t know to what you are referring. What I wrote was that I respected and appreciated your contributions to America, by putting your own life on the line in Iraq. By no means do I believe that “those in the trenches who got bloody should be making decisions because they know best!” That’s the whole reason that Truman fired MacArthur, for goodness sake. That’s why Patton got fired. I never said that, nor do I believe it, nor will I defend it. Sometimes the people in the trenches don’t have the best vantage point. Sometimes, it’s the guy up in the surveillance balloon that sees things more clearly.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

Hi Common Sense (#38):

My position regarding “illegals” is that the only reason they came here was that people offered them jobs. As a result of this, we had a policy in place for decades which worked like this: if an illegal gets caught trying to get into the state, he/she gets sent back. But once they make it past the San Clemente check point, they are home free.

A law which isn’t enforced is not enforceable. You can beat a speeding ticket if you can prove that the average speed on a given street or road is what you were traveling. So let’s say that you are a poor Mexican. You want to make more money to help your family. The de facto situation is that there are lots Californians who will be only too happy to give you a job up North. So you go up North and get the job. That is what leads to everything which follows (the things to which you object).

But the biggest villains here aren’t the illegals, themselves, it’s the people who hire them. The way to stop illegal immigration in its tracks was always just to fine anyone who hires an illegal $1,000 per day and enforce that. Enforce it at the level of a meat packing plant or a farm or a restaurant or a nice suburban home in Laguna Niguel.

Now, once they are here, what can we do? Not educate the kids? You are worried about people without health insurance or people getting various welfare benefits or people committing crimes? The way to minimize that is to provide an education. So, until you can deport them, educate them. And a great many of those educated people will end up making fantastic contributions to the state and its economy.

Whether this played out for Rick Perry in a political sense is a different question. There are lots of good ideas which are politically unpopular.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Now, once they are here, what can we do? Not educate the kids? You are worried about people without health insurance or people getting various welfare benefits or people committing crimes? The way to minimize that is to provide an education. So, until you can deport them, educate them. And a great many of those educated people will end up making fantastic contributions to the state and its economy.

You have hit on the problem, “until you can deport them’. With the political will and realization of the drain they are to America we could deport them ASAP. BTW, they don’t all come here as poor people just looking for jobs, that argument just doesn’t hold up when you look at our prisons and how disproportionate they are filled with illegals and repeat offenders. The money spent to educate is likely a very high multiple higher than deporting them. The best way to minimize to eliminate, once again you just can’t continue to look the other way as California and America go further into debt. The idea that they produce rather than cost is naive.

Hi Mata, As I wrote before, you can “per capita” the excess contribution to the Federal government by California or you can gross it. But the facts are that, over a twenty year period, California sent about $50 billion per year more to Washington than it got back.

California has 37,000,000 people. $50,000,000,000 divided by 37,000,000 people is $1,351 per man woman and child, representing the surplus of money sent to Washington, versus that received, every year. It is right up there with a handful of predominately blue states who likewise support the federal treasury to a disproportionate degree. If you do the math for most red states, you’ll find that the federal government provided a net economic subsidy, of similar per capita magnitude, but in the opposite direction.

The California bullet train plan was based on $22 billion in federal funding, over a 10 year period. $2.2 billion per year average. $2.2 billion divided by 37,000,000 people is $59 per person.

The issue is whether California “deserves” the money for its transportation infrastructure project (again, realizing the long precedent for federal support of such projects). If you just look at the raw number ($22 billion, over 10 years) it seems like a lot. But if you adjust this for population, you’ll find that California has been sending an excess of $1351 per capita per year to Washington for 20 years and now we are asking to receive $59 per capita back from Washington.

You can do it on the basis of gross excess tax contributions compared to gross project cost or you can do it on the basis of per capita excess tax contributions compared to per capita project costs.

The math and validity of argument are the same.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

Sounds so small the way you write it up, Larry.
ONLY $59/year for 10 years (to pay the FEDERAL part of the CA high speed rail system.
And there are 37 million Californians.

OK.
How many of them pay federal or state INCOME taxes?
In 2006, of the total 15,668,908 tax returns from CA, fully 5,105,168 owed NOTHING!
That’s 33% of all filings!
So, extrapolate that to today.
24.6 million will be all who pay toward the train.
The FEDERAL burden on them would be $89.50/per year for 10 years.
Then, Larry, you must add in the rest of the real cost to build the thing.
It is estimated as costing $98 billion.
So, you’ve covered the first $22 billion.
Only another $76 billion to be paid for.
That’s another $3,089 per taxpayer.
Spread it over ten years and it is another $309/year.
So,
$309
+
$89.5
_______
$398.5/year.
For each taxpayer.

This for a thing the vast majority will never use and which cannot benefit them by even bringing freight to them.
I’m betting there are better things to use our money for.
Like paying off the huge amount of unfunded liabilities for gov’t workers’ pensions/vacations/medical coverage/ etc.

Hi Nan. It’s not true that 33% paid nothing. 1/3 of the Federal budget is SS/Medicare. All workers pay those (and this is a regressive tax, not a progressive tax).

As the LA Times article makes very clear, all great construction projects have big time critics and big time cost overruns. This was doubtless true of the NY subway system. If we always listen to fiscal critics, nothing would ever get built — there’s almost always a good argument against it.

I think that the long term impact of a NorCal to SoCal bullet train would be huge. It would be a good investment of both state and federal infrastructure resources. I-5 is already a parking lot, for lots of places along the way and at a lot of times. Prop 1-A was supported by Presidents of both Los Angeles and San Francisco Chambers of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce is the nation’s strongest pro-business lobbying group. Of course the project is controversial and it will remain controversial until it actually gets built and 10 years have gone by. But bullet trains have been a success wherever they’ve been built.

Is it a risk? Perhaps. But many projects — both public and private — entail risk. I suppose that the very definition of conservative connotes aversion to risk.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

FICA taxes (i.e. includes Medicare) are not revenue for the general funds. Neither is the SS part of FICA, tho Congress moves it to the general fund via treasury securities accounting for general fund spending. So that blows that theory out the window on the taxation that Nan G mentioned. And with the taxes per person, she didn’t even add the nation’s interest to be paid on that either.

So sorry you feel that you need to get more back than you pay in, Larry. Too bad. That’s what you get for living in a high population state with urbanites that tend to vote for the welfare programs you are apparently now whining about supporting, since you aren’t getting more back from the government than you pay in. And here you love to tell us how fiscally conservative you are, and how we all should be paying more taxes.

pffft

Bullet trains in Europe bear no resemble to the US. We’ve already been thru this. Japan’s serves their entire nation. The California HSR serves only you. Amtrak is having success first with their Metroliner, updated to the Acela Express. But that’s privately owned/managed, with the federal government (i.e. the nation, as in all of the states) as preferred share holders. And Amtrak still gets federal cash subsidies to help their “success”. So it ain’t a fly alone, private entrepreneur winning idea. On the other hand, you want federal money for a project that doesn’t pencil out in funds vs usage, and you want it owned by a California State agency. All yours… that California “me me and mine!” attitude.

Have you got a clue what you’re talking about? You speak about these things like all situations are identical. They couldn’t be more different.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

Ron Paul for another.

Sorry, I thought you were referring to non-liberals… 😛

@oLarry W:: Don’t go making Iraq war criticism into some sort of “liberal” thing.

Wouldn’t that kind of statement go over better if you, yourself, hadn’t started it by saying:

…but the liberals stood by like sheep and let President Bush make a very bad decision…

If you don’t want to apply party labels, then don’t bring them up. And as I pointed out to you, the Dems in the 90s, along with a Dem POTUS Clinton, enacted a law that made regime change the US policy. And the Iraq AUMF was not just Republicans signing on. So you started the “label” game, and erroneously said your party “stood by like sheep”, when actually they voted in support.

Do get your history straight please.

You want to reduce it all to per capita dollars, that’s totally fine. But then the bullet train money has to be expressed as bullet train dollars per California population (bullet train dollars per capita). Either way, it totally supports my arguments.

Actually it makes your argument even more self serving. Any per capita on all of us outside of California, or even those inside of California who aren’t utilizing your magic train, is simply a waste of funds. Talk about the quintessential example of taxing the masses to benefit the privileged few…. the HSR is a great example of that fine Marxist type practice.

The HSR is little better than a train to nowhere in the fiscal sense. Make it successful in a business plan and reality, and Amtrak will come… or another private investor. But apparently, it ain’t what you believe it to be. So you want everyone else’s money just so you don’t have to sit next to… how did you put it? oh yes, “smelly blubber”.

@MataHarley: Mata, as usual all good points. All the magic trains and busses that run here in San Diego lose money BIG time because the ridership doesn’t support the cost. It makes no sense to waste money on this type of transportation here in California. Everytime the bureaucrats try to sell the idea they use ridership numbers that we don’t even come close to. I watch the coaster go by my house everyday and most of the cars are either empty or a few passengers. I say before we waste money we control cost and come to the realization that our liberal idealism has run us broke and in debt. If California was a business it would have closed it’s doors long ago.

I know what you mean, Common Sense. Portland’s TriMet, which operates the Max light rail system and bus systems, operates at a loss each year. For example, in the 2011 annual report, total revenues… operating and non operating… were $410,388. Of that, only $96,890 was from passenger revenues.

The bulk of their revenue comes from the city/county’s payroll tax revenues. That accounted for another $226,456 in income.

Expenses? $548,307. $324,357 of that was labor and fringe bennies alone.

Yeah, there’s a profitable endeavor. But not uncommon for most city transit systems.

And they suck down the grants and sell bonds like crazy too. Now wanting to expand into Milwaukie area, and they’re begging for an FTA grant themselves. They figure by the time it’s completed in 2015, it would carry an additional 22,000 to 25,000 riders daily. Naturally they’ve got all the glowing reports of the jobs and revenue it would add…. right. I’d say the same thing to them as I say to California… not on my nickel, thank you. It not only adds to our debt and taxes, but has already proven itself to be a continued fiscal burden after it’s up and running.

but ain’t it cute? That’s pretty much the perks of it… bragging rights, even tho it’s a fiscal albatross ’round the neck.

There’s about 135,000 daily boards on the MAX line alone. That was up about 8.5% this year because bus ridership declined 3.5-4%. Technically, MAX serves Multnomah and Washington Counties (most of Multnomah being the city of Portland itself, with a few outlying towns near the Columbia Gorge).

Washington County is a population of 529,710. Multnomah is 735,334. That 135,000 MAX riders out of a total population of 1,265,044…. or serving about 10.6% of the population of the area served.

Assuming CA’s HSR were up and running today, and assuming they got even 1/2 of the 6 million that commute by air annually from bay to basin, that’s a big chunk of costs just to serve 7-8% of the state’s population. (haven’t got population projections for 2030 and 2040, when they say 12 million will be the ridership).

@MataHarley: Portland, been there many times on business and have a good friend in Vancouver. I guess you have both Voodoo Economics and Voodoo Donuts. I have twins who attend UC Santa Cruz and locals remind me a lot of Portland. I always say Santa Cruz is where old Volkswagen busses go to die. Thankfully my daughters are much smarter and clear of the wachoism that abounds there. Such a beautiful location. 4.0 and majoring in Business Economics. Yep, proud dad.

Hi Mata/Common Sense,

With respect to Iraq, I was saying that blaming anything about Iraq on “liberals” isn’t fair, for two reasons. First, “liberals” went along with the invasion (stood by like sheep is what I said; you say that they actively supported it — O.K., for the most part, save for a few exceptions, e.g. the current POTUS. If Bill Clinton wanted regime change in Iraq, I’m quite certain that he never contemplated sending in the US Army to invade Baghdad and overthrow Saddam with our own boots on the ground. It took the threat of yellowcake and mobile biological warfare labs to accomplish that).

But Bush didn’t lie about those things. It’s what he believed. However, as he himself acknowledged, several times, this was the result of “bad intelligence.” So I’m not going to go blaming conservatives for getting us into Iraq, but I believe it’s equally unfair to go blaming liberals for the fact that things there never seemed to go as smoothly as was initially hoped. That’s been a fact since the beginning, and it continues to the present day.

It is, however, also a fact that I was personally and publicly against the invasion right up until it happened and I predicted in advance that no WMD would be found and I was a proponent of an early declaration of victory and expeditious withdrawal. But that’s not what happened. So I am by no means representative of liberals with regard to Iraq, any more than Ron Paul (my national defense soul mate) is representative of the average conservative.

Commander in Chief Bush enjoyed congressional support for absolutely everything he wanted to do, regarding Iraq. Again, don’t blame liberals if things don’t turn out as desired, and I won’t blame conservatives for getting us involved there, in the first place.

I just hope that all of us learned a lesson and that perhaps we could benefit from paying more attention to Ron Paul’s foreign policy views. He’s a very smart man.

With regard to mass transit in San Diego, well, I go to San Diego pretty often and I never have much trouble getting around and even less trouble finding a place to park. Los Angeles is a different story. As the LA Times story pointed out, there was a lot of opposition to the LA light rail system and funding was even cut off at one point, because of construction problems and cost overruns, only to be restored as almost everyone acknowledged that the light rail system was working and that it should be expanded. The thing I will say about San Diego is this: they were wise to get an early start on a light rail system, before it was really needed. Those things become more expensive and very disruptive when you wait to start until commuting conditions have already deteriorated.

Did you ever consider that maybe one reason auto commuting in San Diego is tolerable is because of the existence of the public transportation? It only takes getting a few cars off the road to make a very big difference in traffic congestion. So you may be benefiting in ways that you don’t appreciate.

California is a dynamic state, with three major centers of innovation and commerce — SF/Silicon Valley (home of the most important VC firms in America), greater LA, and the San Diego biotech corridor. Tie those centers together with a bullet train route and we’ll have an innovation megalopolis which can compete with the Chinese.

UC Santa Cruz is a great school (go Slugs — I say this as a proud Anteater — gotta love the mascots). The UC higher education system is still the finest collection of public research universities in the world. It’s a jewel which should be supported and protected. It’s very sad that it’s becoming so unaffordable for so many students, but this doesn’t have anything to do with undocumented workers. I think that the UC schools should take the best and brightest Californians, whether they are undocumented or not. If a kid graduates from a California HS and has the academic performance to get into UC and can somehow manage the expense, then it’s in the best interests of the state to admit and educate that student. In my opinion.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

Larry W: So I’m not going to go blaming conservatives for getting us into Iraq, but I believe it’s equally unfair to go blaming liberals for the fact that things there never seemed to go as smoothly as was initially hoped.

???? You skimmin’ instead of readin’ again, Larry? Who in the world did that.

The liberals went along with the policy of regime change (you don’t “contemplate” or lay out military strategy in a bill, Larry… duh).

The liberals went along with the Iraq and the Afghanistan AUMFs

The liberals then tried to hold up the funding with the Kerry I-voted-for-it-before-I-voted-against-it bill, delaying needed supplies to the troops.

The liberals then declared defeat and fought the surge

And then a liberal finally followed the Bush SOFA withdrawal schedule – even tho he didn’t want to – and then proclaims on the campaign trail that he ended the war.

No blame for the liberals. The military did it’s job despite them.

No credit for them either.

However no one was blaming liberals for the fact that war wasn’t running smoothly (do they ever?). They been in the way of progress a lot, but that’s about all you can say with liberals and Iraq.

Tie those centers together with a bullet train route and we’ll have an innovation megalopolis which can compete with the Chinese.

Ever heard of Skype and Go To Meeting, Larry? Considering that most of California’s bay to basin commuters are peddling “information” and “knowledge” products, it’s not like you have to haul up the latest sweeper brand for an in house meeting very often these days. Welcome to the 21st century. And that’s more eco friendly than what you want.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Larry, yes we do have a lot in common. Lived in Laguna Niguel for 10 years, twins born at Saddleback Hosptial, wife and I both worked there and I am so very impressed with UC Santa Cruz. Never thought I would be as satisfied as I am with the school. I understand your pride.

I still maintain though that rewarding illegals by provisions for health care and education sends the wrong message to Mexico. Please come to our country illegally so you can get educattion, health care, and income assistance. No penalty if you make it and our tax dollars will assist you. The argument that illegals pay taxes and somehow pay their own way is bogus. The incurred cost to our educational system, healthcare facilities, and law enforcement by far outweigh the input. I admit we need to fix our immigration process but to say the problem is too large to manage is not acceptable to me.

I still believe it’s a matter of political will that limits our abilities to fix the problem. The reward of citizenship for illegal entry into our country is an unjust reward.

As Mata has rightfully pointed out there is also the security issues involved. Believe me, it’s not poor Mexicans just trying to find work that come to the US.