Your (California) high-speed choo-choo update

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Who's up for a mulligan on that 2008 ballot initiative that initially committed state tax payers to $9 billion dollars for a high-speed choo-choo system here in the state that won't stretch southward past Anaheim, excluding, of course, our current domecile of San Diego?

The new plan to build high-speed rail for California — for $98 billion — is more expensive than the original $45 billion project sold to voters in 2008.

It’s also shorter.

The financing plan only covers the first phase of the project, stopping in Anaheim instead of stretching south to San Diego.

Given the higher price tag, and shorter route in the financing plan, some local elected officials want the matter to return to voters.

“I would suggest with the new numbers that the complete facts now in the business plan be presented to voters again to let them see all of the numbers and the costs,” said Assemblyman Martin Garrick, R-Solana Beach. “Voters should be aware of the obligation they will be taking on, the cost they will be burdening their children with. I think it should go back to a vote of the people.

“I am in the second largest city, and yet I am going to be paying for something that will not even reach or bring any help to San Diegans.”

The 800-mile line was presented to voters in 2008 to connect the Bay Area to San Diego. The ballot language contained no price tag, but estimates given by the California High-Speed Rail Authority during the campaign ranged from $33 billion to $45 billion.

Quick note: that finance plan also includes a caveat that the price of the shortened rail line could jump to near $120 billion.


Quick note Pt. II: the money committed so far to the initial build out in the Central Valley only buys us the steel, as in, the tracks. No transmission grid, no crossing gates, no signals... no actual choo-choos!


From a low-ball estimate of $33 billion when this turkey was put on the ballot back in '08 to potentially $120 billion just 3 years later... not too shabby.




Also, let's do a quick common sense thought exercise: how fast can that high-speed choo-choo be if it is expected to make 12 stops between Anaheim and San Francisco*? 12 stops! We don't care how efficient your unloading and loading techniques are, there is a quantifiable human, logistical, mechanical and security inertia that just can't be overcome for one to claim they are going to make it from Southern California to Northern California in an hour's time.





* The absolutely worst web version of a newspaper on the face of the planet at the San Diego Union-Tribune won't allow us to open and cut'n'paste the map of the rail line which would illustrate the number of stops.

Your California high-speed choo-choo update

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He's gonna do it. The crazy old man is actually going to do it.

Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday that he will formally request that the Legislature approve billions of dollars to start construction of the California bullet train next year and will work hard to persuade skeptical lawmakers that the project is critical to the state's future.

In his first extended remarks on the $98.5-billion project since a controversial business plan was unveiled last week, Brown said that the state will have a broad need for the system in the long term and that it represents a significantly cheaper alternative to additional highway and commercial aviation investments.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority last week approved a new business plan that more than doubled the project's cost and a related financing plan that would ask for the first construction money, tapping $2.7 billion in state bonds and $3.3 billion in federal grants.

And just between us girls, that $98.5 billion is near triple what voters here in California were told some 3 years ago what the high-speed choo-choo system would cost when they were asked via ballot measure to commit tax-payer money to it. Oh, and we found out last week that $98.5 may be low by a cool $19 billion.

A bullet train business plan released Tuesday notes that the system cost of $98 billion could jump an additional $19 billion depending on the route and construction features.

The article never detailed what those "features" were.


Back to the article:

Rail officials hope the money can cover construction of a 140-mile Central Valley segment from Chowchilla to Bakersfield, though it would not pay for electrification, trains or other necessary parts of an operating system. To actually carry passengers will require more than $20 billion of additional investment in track and equipment, money that the state now does not have.

If we don't have that $20 billion, we sure as hell don't have the $98 billion either.

And it's not clear from the article whether or not that $20 billion to merely make the system operable is for that 140 mile stretch out in the Central Valley or for the whole system. Either way, it looks as if all that potential cost of just under $120 billion is getting us, thus far, is just set of tracks from San Fran to Los Angeles. No transmission lines, no gates, no signals, no choo-choos, no nuthin'.

While Governor Brown is urging California legislators to "think big" in committing funding to getting this thing done, we have a sneaking suspicion we will be writing again very shortly on some very big cost re-projections for California's high speed choo-choos.

Stay tuned.

Your (California) high-speed choo-choo update

Well, that didn't take long. From $43 billion to $68 billion to nearly $100 billion?

The new business plan for California's high-speed rail system shows the nation's most ambitious state rail project could cost nearly $100 billion in inflation-adjusted funding over a 20-year construction period, far above the amount originally projected.

The plan, which was shared late Monday with The Associated Press, also shows the system would be profitable even at the lowest ridership estimates and would not require public subsidies to operate.

The report estimates the actual cost at $98.5 billion if the route between San Francisco and Anaheim is completed in 2033. It assumes private investment will account for roughly 20 percent of the final cost.

The initial estimate to build the system when voters approved bond funding for it in 2008 was $43 billion in non-adjusted dollars.

So, let's get this straight: the same geniuses who are telling us the system will be profitable and won't require subsidies (just a reminder: even assuming this apocryphal 20% private investment ever materializes, the construction is in itself being subsidized to the tune of $80 billion dollars of California tax-payer money. We have a sneaking suspicion that 80 bil is not being factored into what it will take to defer the operating costs once this turkey goes live) have, in just 3 years, ballooned the original estimate by a factor of well over 2. Just a couple of data points to be sure, but that's not a favorable trend when it comes time to settling the final tab.

A couple of other key points to remember: they have completely underestimated what it will take to build the initial portion of the track... the easy part... out in the middle of the Central Valley between those bustling, bursting-at-the-seams metropolises of Corcoran and Borden

Building tracks for the first section of California's proposed high-speed rail line will cost $2.9 billion to $6.8 billion more than originally estimated, raising questions about the affordability of the nation's most ambitious rail project at a time when its planning and finances are under fire.

And this:

And the plan would require some ambitious engineering. Tunnels would stretch miles. Trains would soar over cities atop viaducts six stories tall. Three mountain ranges would be crossed. The zigzagging route would gobble up homes, businesses and farmland

Again, they've completely bunged up estimates out in the flat expanses of California's farmlands. Wait 'til they start engineering and constructing their way over the mountains to the north of Los Angeles and think of how much eminent domain fun they are going to have in some of the tonier communities up in the Bay Area.

Any takers that $100 billion price estimate is going to hold steady?

Yeah, we didn't think so.



As we are fond of saying: we already have high-speed rail here in California. It's called the commuter flight.

On top of it

Via Hot Air


Finally... Looks like we're going to be getting to the bottom of the cause for these high gas prices.

President Barack Obama said Thursday that the Justice Department will try to "root out" cases of fraud or manipulation in oil markets, even as Attorney General Eric Holder suggested a variety of legal reasons may be behind gasoline's surge to $4 a gallon.

"We are going to make sure that no one is taking advantage of the American people for their own short-term gain," Obama said at a town-hall style meeting at a renewable energy plant in Reno.

The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.84 on Thursday, about 30 cents higher than a month ago and almost a dollar higher than a year ago.

Obama, decrying such levels as yet another hardship "at a time when things were already pretty tough," said Holder was forming the Financial Fraud Enforcement Working Group.

The task force will focus some of its investigation on "the role of traders and speculators" in the oil-price surge Obama said. The group will include several Cabinet department officials, federal regulators and the National Association of Attorneys General.

In Washington, Holder said he would press ahead with the investigation, even though he did not cite any current evidence of intentional manipulation of oil and gas prices or fraud.

So, it's waste, fraud and abuse, huh?


If you are skeptical as to that being the real reason, perhaps it's because you've been listening to the admonitions of another Washington power player who had this to say just short of two weeks ago:

So because all this spending is popular with both Republicans and Democrats alike, and because nobody wants to pay higher taxes, politicians are often eager to feed the impression that solving the problem is just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse – you’ll hear that phrase a lot. “We just need to eliminate waste and abuse!” The implication is that that tackling the deficit issue won’t require tough choices.

(italics, ours)

The level of unseriousness here is shocking.


We're in the very best of hands.

When 25% Just isn't Low Enough

Beers with Demo obtained a copy of Nancy Pelosi’s monthly to-do list. Due to the extremely sensitive nature of this document it was transcribed by hand under a trailer on a D.C. construction site and that transcription was passed along to us by our source:

October’s To-Do list:
1. Work with Harry Reid to pass a resolution condemning Rush Limbaugh for “phony soldiers” comment. Have staffer get transcript so I will know what this phony accusation is that Reid has put me up to.
2. Pass resolution condemning Mrs. O’Leary’s cow for culpability in the Great Chicago Fire.
3. Pass resolution condemning Karl Rove of (fill in the blank). Have staff give me top 5 recommendations by COB Oct. 19.
4. Pass resolution condemning the Turks for killing a lot of Armenians a long time ago. Have staffer get some dates and figures…. figures meaning body count.
5. Continue undermining country’s war effort in Iraq (see also #4).

Not merely content with their already pathetic Congressional approval ratings, House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi feels there is more work to be done and doggone it…. if you can kill two birds with one stone by pissing-off an ally at the same time then it’s a no-brainer.

We’re not making this up: Pelosi is actually working on a Congressional resolution that would label the killing of Armenians at the hands of the Turks nearly 100 yrs. ago, “genocide”.

Turkey has been a key logistical point for supplies both into Iraq and Afghanistan and has warned Washington that they will cut back on their logistical support if Congress passes this resolution which is expected to come up for a vote in December.

We’ll keep our fingers crossed that this attempt to secure defeat in Iraq and elsewhere in the War on Terror will fall flat as all the others have. Part of the reason they have failed is an informed American public… and an informed American public that makes its own opinions known to people in power. Click on link here if you feel the desire to Reach Out and Touch Someone. (This is the newly-minted “ROTS” feature that will be provided from time to time here at the site.)

The Solution in Search of a Problem

The 3 leading Democratic Presidential candidates continue to play dueling universal health care plans as Hillary unveiled her own $110 billion/year plan in Iowa today (one would think even the good people of Iowa are sick of the campaigning as it appears all the candidates from both parties have been there en masse for the past 6 months and don’t have any designs on leaving until after the Iowa Caucus in January).

In case, though, any of you free-market types out there were worried that this is just the top of the slippery slope to socialized medicine…. relax… Hillary says it isn’t going to be a government run program. Clinton was quoted as saying, “This is not government-run.” See.

Similar to John Edward’s program, Clinton is being gracious enough to grant voluntary participation if you are happy with your current plan. But also similar to Edward’s plan, choosing not to participate in any plan is simply not an option.

So, if its not government-run, how will enrollment compliance be enforced, you may ask? Well, you would be getting way ahead of yourself as Clinton advisor Laurie Rubiner said that a specific compliance mechanism would be worked out once the health care plan was passed. This is reminiscent of John Kerry’s secret plan to straighten-out the Iraq situation: Vote for me and then I’ll tell you.

Besides, you’d be focusing the whole enforcement question on the wrong end of the equation. We actually believe half of Clinton’s claim that it won’t be a government-run program… there will not be any actual accountability or oversight for enforcing enrollment in this or any other health plan.

However, the means to generate the revenue for her plan will be via rigorous government participation and enforcement. There is this branch of the government…perhaps you’ve heard of them… its this outfit called the IRS that will make sure you are holding up your end of the deal in insuring the 47 million of your fellow Americans who are without health insurance.

So when one breaks down the concerns a typical conservative would have with this plan: 1) Is it Government-run? 2) Do I have to enroll? 3) Do I have to pay for this thing, regardless? And its done in a mathematical fashion, one would have to be pretty pleased with the 2/3rds favorable rating. Shoot, you can’t have everything, so just be a good little American and quit griping about it.