For the first high-cost rail posting of the year, I will tie together a couple of news items. Gov. Moonbeam's new "surplus" budget includes a $300 million shell game with so-called Cap and Trade funds going to high-cost rail. Today's SM County Times has an on-point letter that I would link to if the website were not so disorganized. Here it is courtesy of your Voice typist
Gov. Jerry Brown's scheme to divert hundreds of millions of dollars from true cap-and-trade greenhouse gas-reducing projects to his legacy high-speed boondoggle must be stopped. Call your state reps today. HSR is ruthless and is using money to evict helpless Central Valley families through eminent domain. Independent Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny recently ruled that that Proposition 1A's promises to voters were all violated by the HSR authority, so no bonds could be issued. Using cap-and-trade money on a boondoggle train that won't be built, instead of true greenhouse gas projects like electric/CNG vehicles and solar power, is done to kowtow to the powerful unions and is wrong. Even Senate President Darrell Steinberg is against this farce.
Mike Brown
Burlingame
Well-said, sir. So let me tie those ideas to another news item that notes
Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says unless Congress acts, the Highway Trust Fund will run out of money at the end of fiscal 2014 -- "because people are driving less, driving more fuel-efficient cars, and the gas tax hasn't been raised in many years."
That's LaHood's solution to the problem that, in his words, "America is one big pothole". Raise taxes so the Feds can waste more money on high-cost rail with a shell game of their own. What a dolt. His other idea at the end of a "congestion tax"-- he really means fee--is slightly better, but no one has taken up that cause yet.
"If it moves, tax it... If it keeps moving, regulate it... If it stops moving, subsidize it."
A much smarter California governor than Jerry Brown
Posted by: Paul | January 15, 2014 at 01:20 PM