California Rail Stymied by Lack of "All the Money in the World"
March 5, 2016
Daniel Greenfield
Governor Moonbeam's Glorious Train to Nowhere has shockingly enough hit more delays. But don't worry, it'll probably be built around 2054 or something. This is just a slight bump in the road.
California will need to double down on support of the bullet train by digging deeper into the state's wallet and accepting a three-year delay in completing the project's initial leg, a new business plan for the 220-mph system shows.
Yes, the "initial leg". What kind of timeline are we already dealing with here?
The 2016 business plan, released last month, shows that the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco rail link has proved to be politically and technically more complicated to build than foreseen in 2008, when voters agreed to help finance the project with a $9-billion bond.
Oh it was foreseen, everyone who stood to benefit just lied about it and then lied some more.
The costly and geologically complex crossing of the Southern California mountains cannot be completed by 2022, as the rail authority had long contended.
2022 was unrealistically optimistic. How about 2122?
It moves the mountain passage to the end of the schedule and is unclear on how the segment from the Central Valley to Los Angeles will be paid for.
Oh it's clear. They'll lie and then steal it from taxpayers. To pay back their crony investors who will get a chunk of the greenhouse scam fees and then a chunk from the taxpayers.
The Legislature has committed a quarter of the state's greenhouse gas fees to the project through 2020. Under the plan, the rail authority would use the revenues through 2024 and then seek to borrow $5.2 billion against the future fees from 2025 to 2050. Investors will probably want the state to stand behind any such debt mechanism, which means taxpayers would pay if the greenhouse fees are less than projected.
But this is only a problem because Governor Moonbeam and his cronies don't have all the money in the world.
Rail authority chairman Dan Richard acknowledged the difficulties caused by funding questions and restrictions.
"If we had started with all the money in the world, this program would have probably proceeded differently," Richard said in an interview.
Oh so if only they had all the money in the world... then this would have worked. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that even with all the money in the world, there would still be nothing to show for it.
Most of the existing federal grants will expire next year, possibly before the state can spend all of the money.
Liberals. They're so incompetent that they can't even spend the money they have. This is like the time government racetrack betting in New York City went bankrupt.
Rail officials say the new plan is a breakthrough that solves many funding problems because the state has amassed enough money to build a $21-billion initial operating segment from San Jose to the Central Valley by 2025.
As Rick Evans sang, "In 2025, if man is still alive, the rail still won't be built, California has been bilked."
The business plan also makes clear that the state Legislature will have to extend its financial commitments to the middle of the century
2054 here we come!
The rail authority hopes Congress will chip in an additional $3 billion to extend the initial segment into San Francisco and Bakersfield, but at the moment future federal money is almost unattainable. The Republican majority in Congress would rather scuttle the project.
Boo! Mean Republicans. Why won't they contribute money to an unfeasible project that no one wants and that has no reason for existing except political corruption and environmental hoaxes?
The new plan calls for completion of the entire system by 2029, one year later than under the old business plan. Once the initial system starts showing a profit, the business plan asserts, private investors would jump in with an estimated $21 billion, based on financial calculations.
The investors are bound to come running. Around 2151. With $21 billion. Which due to inflation will be just enough to buy a cup of coffee and half a donut.
When your business plan is based on the expectation that people will give you money even though you wasted your money, blew through every schedule and projection, and you began building with no actual financial plan, you don't have a business plan. You have a pipe dream.
Even if that problem is solved, the state will be short $25 billion to complete the line. There is no identified source for that $25 billion, other than the federal government.
It will come from the Money Tree. The happy Money Tree that Gaia will grow as thanks for building the rail. Just ask Governor Moonbeam.
"My own belief is that California has a unique place on the planet. It's been a place of dreams. We can pursue a path of benign energy."
"I'm trying to protect the earth and explore the universe," Brown answered. "They're future ideas. People in music often sense the future before others. The poetry of an age often prefigures the coming decade."
California Dreamin'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3GbF9Bx6E&list=RDdN3GbF9Bx6E#t=2
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