The California legislature has approved spending billions for a high speed rail line from nowhere to nowhere in the Central Valley but postponed yet again putting a water bond on the ballot to save the Sacramento Delta.
Gosh, makes perfect sense to me. Spend billions on a rail line that cannot possibly ever be fully funded and which will never be profitable rather than fix an aging water infrastructure so millions of people will continue to get water.
California now gets $3.2 billion from the federal government. Don’t assume it will go to high speed rail.
Just passing the bill, gives California a $3.2 billion federal bailout while the actual use of funds may or may not ever appear (our money is on the latter). If still confused think Greece and Germany, because Federal tax collections were just used to give California a very fungible cash injection. Where the money ends up now is anyone’s guess.
Thus the stupidity of all of this is heightened by the usual pretend-and-extend desperation attempts to balance the California budget. I would not be at all surprised if the $3.2 billion went into the general fund with California promising to pay it back once construction starts. But they won’t have the money thus the whole charade will start over again.
Meanwhile, California politicians continue to ignore the Sacramento Delta, which is where most of the state gets its water from.
