High Cost Rail - Part 117 Water Instead!

Hot on the heels of Gov. Moonbeam declaring that the water restrictions may go to next Halloween

Despite forecasts of a wet winter, Californians can expect another year of water conservation in 2016 under an executive order issued Friday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Californian are currently under orders to reduce consumption by an average of 25 percent, as compared with 2013. Brown’s order would extend the cutbacks through next Oct. 31 “if drought conditions persist through January 2016.”

Many experts and state officials said it’s almost a certainty the conservation order will continue through next fall. While El Niño is expected to drench the state this winter, many forecasters believe it won’t create enough precipitation to repair water supply problems created by four years of drought.

Two politicians have proposed the most sensible thing we have heard out of Sacramento in a decade or more

Two Republican elected officials have submitted a 2016 ballot measure that would shift $8 billion in unspent high-speed rail bond funds to water storage projects.

The initiative by Sen. Bob Huff (R-San Dimas) and Board of Equalization member George Runner is a direct challenge to the high-speed rail project championed by Governor Jerry Brown.

The Capital Radio piece reporting on this notes that Brown has $20 mil in his campaign chest that he could use to fight it.  I say let's drain his chest before he drains ours with his High Cost Drain! 

Comments

[Joe]

Here's a little more detail from the Times/Mercury News:

The "No Blank Checks Initiative" would require that voters be asked to approve every public infrastructure bond issue of more than $2 billion that requires new or higher taxes or fees. And it would apply not only to future bonds but to previously approved projects if the remaining bond authorization exceeds $2 billion.

State and local general obligation bonds -- borrowing guaranteed by the government's full faith and credit, repaid with general tax revenue -- already must be put to voters. This measure would extend that requirement to many revenue bonds, repaid using designated funding streams related to those projects -- for example, bonds issued for a bridge's construction or repair, to be repaid by bridge tolls.

Its aim is to short-circuit Brown's desire that bonds, to be repaid by water users, be used to fund his $15 billion Delta tunnel plan. Proponent Dean Cortopassi, a Stockton farmer and tunnel opponent, and his wife put up $4 million to circulate the qualification petitions.

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_29114999/ballot-measures-aim-to-cut-funding-for-delta-tunnels-highspeed-rail

[Joe]

Here is a great excerpt from an e-newsletter called Unionwatch.org:

High speed rail was sold to voters back in 2008 in roughly the same way pension benefit enhancements were sold to naive politicians back around 1999. In both cases, the decision makers were told it would cost next to nothing. Isn’t this called fraud? To sell a good or service to a consumer at a given price, then come back and demand ten times as much money?

Payments on these construction costs will be paid from the California state general fund, and based on a $100 billion total cost and a 5.0% interest rate, that comes out to $166 per year per California resident. Not that much? Unimpressed? Put another way, based on roughly six million taxpaying households in California (about half of California’s 12 million households pay no taxes; their sales tax burden is largely offset by the earned income tax credit), construction of this train will cost $1,084 per taxpaying household per year.

Do you want to pay $1,000 per year for a project that will not alleviate California’s transportation challenges one bit? A project that will lose money forever? A project that will use up massive amounts of capital that could be deployed to achieve literally dozens of other huge and vitally needed infrastructure objectives?

This is where California’s labor leadership, by continuing to support high speed rail as a centerpiece project, are showing how out of touch they truly are with the average working family. Because they are unwilling to fight for major infrastructure investments that would improve the quality of life and lower the cost of living for all Californians; improvements to existing rail, upgraded roads, state-of-the art natural gas and 5th generation nuclear power stations, reservoirs and aquifer storage projects, upgraded sewage treatment plants to produce potable water, and much, much more. If California’s labor leaders care about all workers, they will find the vision and courage to fight for these useful amenities, instead of promoting high speed rail.

[Peter Garrison]

Big amen.