No, Sac Bee, bullet train doesn’t have moral high ground
April 6, 2013
By Chris Reed
The Sacramento Bee’s editorial Friday lambasting House Republicans for opposing using borrowed federal money to build California’s bullet train was noteworthy for its tone. The Bee editorial board seems to be under the deluded impression that project advocates have the moral high ground.
“The Government Accountability Office injected a sense of realism into the high-speed rail debate, detailing in its March 28 report just how large infrastructure projects of this kind work. But the naysayers led by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, don’t seem to be listening. …
“A major issue, it turns out, is post-2010 congressional opposition. As the GAO notes, the Obama administration, as well as the governor, Legislature and voters of California, has committed funding to the project. But sustained congressional support for additional funds is ‘one of the biggest challenges to completing this project.’
“McCarthy was quick to prove the point. As soon as the report came out, he issued a statement that he was ‘developing legislation to stop more hard-earned taxpayer dollars from being wasted on California high-speed rail.’ Ditto for Denham.
“You have to wonder if they would have supported the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that authorized $25 billion over 10 years to construct the interstate highway system. You have to wonder, too, if they would have supported the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 authorizing bonds and grants of land to railroad companies to construct a transcontinental railroad.”
The Bee’s stunningly selective memory
You have to wonder if the Bee remembers that the bullet train was sold to state voters in 2008 with lies about cost, ridership, jobs created, environmental benefits — and that’s only for starters.
You have to wonder if the Bee remembers that the California High-Speed Rail Authority has never been able to comply with the state law ratified by voters in 2008 that requires a business plan that isn’t dependent on taxpayer subsidies to attract private investment. This has led the rail authority to stop even trying to get private investors — another lie to voters.
You have to wonder if the Bee remembers all the evidence that the bullet train will never meet another requirement of the 2008 state law: that the bullet train make it from downtown L.A. to downtown San Francisco in two hours and 40 minutes — another lie to voters.
If the Bee editorial board actually thinks the bullet train holds the moral high ground, that is shocking. In its own way, Friday’s editorial is as childish as the L.A. Times’ 2011 editorial that invoked “The Little Engine That Could” to describe the LAT editorial board’s optimism the project could be built.
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What do you expect from the Sac Bee? It’s the voice for JB and Steinberg. It’s an editorial, so who gives a rip. It just shows that Sacto and its’ paper is out of touch with most of the rest of the state these days.
“If the Bee editorial board actually thinks the bullet train holds the moral high ground, that is shocking.”
No it’s not, it’s exactly how I would expect them to behave. The partisan journalistic hacks and progressive ideologues who control the Sac. Bee live in a alternate moral universe. They don’t really care about all the broken promises or the smoke and mirrors accounting by the Rail Authority. They think voters need to be tricked for their own good! And they will never admit they are wrong about this, ever.
Don’t fight it….pack and ship with us.
Don’t fight it….pack and ship with us.
Oh they are Ulysses…err I mean Teds other personality. Don’t fight it….get the meds you need to still the voices in your head!
Teddy is the sage of CWD. He is the only bright spot enlightening many dim doomer’s bashing California.
The Bee is a company newsletter in a company town. The business is Democrat politics and its corrupt.
Nice to never be alone huh Ulysses…..both you and “Ted” (just who is the dominant personality anyways) both skipping around holding hands in your communal skull.
Fish are you still clerking at the Adelanto truck stop with your squeeze Big Betty ?