This from Phillip Klein over at the American Spectator:
On Thursday, the California High Speed Rail Authority board unanimously approved the 65-mile “train to nowhere” that would link two tiny towns at a cost of $4.15 billion, all because the state didn’t want to lose $2 billion in federal stimulus funds.
The rail line would connect two central California towns, Borden and Corcoran, with a combined population of 25,000…
…to sum up, a state that’s broke is spending billions of dollars on a project that benefits a tiny percentage of people, so that it doesn’t lose billions of dollars in payments from a country that’s broke…
I’m a fan of high speed rail. I’d like to have us re-work our entire rail system for high speed. I think the speed up of the movement of goods would be a long-term net economic benefit to the whole economy – and I think that high speed rail would be able to capture at least a portion of travel which currently goes by air. But you don’t do it this way.
You don’t do it with government subsidy, other than whatever government action is needed to clear the right of way for the rail lines, themselves. When you do it with government, you get absurd things like starting the project by connecting a couple tiny towns. How about a high speed rail from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, instead? That would make too much sense, I guess. It is just additionally stupid when you realize that the government – State and federal – will really be spending money ultimately borrowed from China and such places in order to fund a project which will do nothing to get us out of our current mess.
An asinine government ruled by a corrupt Ruling Class continues to head for the cliff. And its getting really, really close, now.
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