so some insider horse trading, feather bedding as usual.....
Updated July 13, 2012, 6:45 p.m. ET
How Insider Politics Saved California's Train to Nowhere
The high-speed rail line may never be built, but it will save a few Democratic seats.
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But sell it they did. The rail authority promised voters that the train wouldn't require a subsidy and that the feds and private sector would pick up most of the $33 billion tab. Expecting a free ride, voters leapt on board and approved the initiative in November 2008. Not long afterward, the authority raised the price to $43 billion.
Investors refused to plunk down money without a revenue guarantee—that is, a subsidy—from the state, which wasn't forthcoming. California's attorney general, whom we now call Gov. Jerry Brown, declined to investigate the bait-and-switch.
As soon as he took office, President Obama tried to help the state with $2.4 billion in stimulus money. A year and a half later—and two weeks before the 2010 midterm elections—the White House offered an additional $900 million, provided that the $3.3 billion sum be spent in the sparsely populated Central Valley. That is, in the congressional districts of Mr. Costa and fellow Blue Dog Democrat Dennis Cardoza, both of whom had provided critical votes for ObamaCare in March 2010 and were then in political peril.
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But in Washington, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood had different plans. Two months ago, he threatened to claw back federal funding if Sacramento didn't green-light construction before summer's end. "We can't wait," he said. And why not? Because Republicans were threatening to claw back the money if they took the White House and Senate in November.
Mr. Brown used that threat to demand that legislators authorize $2.7 billion in state bonds before they adjourned this week. He sweetened the deal for Bay Area and L.A. legislators by adding $2 billion for regional rail projects. Included was $700 million to bail out—"modernize"—Silicon Valley's insolvent Caltrain.
"The whole thing was carefully staged to allow [dissenting Democrats like Mr. Simitian] to speak about their no votes just before their vote was taken. But Brown knew he had his 21 votes in his pocket," says Bay Area economic analyst Bill Warren. Democrats gave their OK, he says, because they wanted money for local rail projects and construction jobs. "I doubt if any of them actually believe in their hearts that the rail system will ever be completed."
Regardless, the Bay Area and L.A. will likely get their pound of taxpayer flesh. Next year taxpayers will have to start paying interest on the rail bonds—about $380 million annually for the next 30 years—assuming investors bite. That's nearly as much as the governor is proposing to cut from higher education if voters don't approve his millionaires' tax initiative in the fall.
more at-
Allysia Finley: How Insider Politics Saved California's Train to Nowhere - WSJ.com
