“Traditionally, transportation projects of this magnitude can rely on the federal government as a funding partner with grants of up to 50 percent or higher. The Legislature and the voters of California, in approving Proposition 1A, assumed significant federal participation – 1/3 of the total cost. With a federal contribution for these extensions, its share of the total funding for the Silicon Valley to Central Valley line would still be only 25 percent of the total investment, far below the norm,” the report states in section 6, which details long-term funding strategies, assumptions and plans.

But based on what’s happened in Washington in recent years, the notion that “traditional” federal support for major transportation projects will help California secure more funding doesn’t seem grounded in reality. The prospect of Congress earmarking funds to help one state build a bullet-train network seems unlikely for two reasons.

‘Monumental waste of precious transportation dollars’

One reason is specific. House Republicans, led by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, have been critical of the California project for years. They’ve cited the decision to give more than $3 billion in 2009 stimulus bill funding to the state as an example of wasteful stimulus spending and highlighted missed deadlines for starting construction. McCarthy co-authored a January 2015 op-ed for the Sacramento Bee spelling out his implacable opposition:

The current plan for high-speed rail is nearly twice as expensive as promised to California taxpayers. The projected travel times and fares have nearly doubled. The plan bears no resemblance to the one put before voters in 2008. One analysis after another has raised these red flags, but supporters in Sacramento refuse to admit that fundamental flaws exist and continue to press on, no matter the cost.

 

These objective reviews expose a business plan flawed at its core – unrealistic ridership numbers, a ballooning price tag (just last year, the California High-Speed Rail Authority increased its cost estimate for a Central Valley segment by $1 billion) and private investment that is still nowhere to be found. …

 

This is not what voters envisioned when Proposition 1A was presented to them. It is now clear that this project remains wholly unviable and is a monumental waste of precious transportation dollars that would be far better spent on roads, light rail and traditional heavy rail.

Last year, hopes were raised after Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who is California’s senior senator, and House Republicans reached agreement on a drought-amelioration package that included pushing for more water storage projects and increasing water exports south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. A bill introduced by freshman Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, passed the House in December, but some of its details relating to the relaxing of environmental regulations led Feinstein to oppose the measure, and it failed in the Senate.

Six months later, the California drought has gotten far more attention because of Gov. Jerry Brown’s April order of massive cutbacks in use by residents and most businesses. But as McClatchy is reporting, the House-Senate split over what to do remains intact:

WASHINGTON — Five months into a new Congress, and deep into a lasting drought, California water legislation still stymies and splits the state’s lawmakers.

 

Draft copies are tightly held, as if stamped Top Secret. Myriad details are in flux. The legislative timing, though a June 2 Senate hearing could yet happen, remains unsettled. Democrats are divided; some are distinctly unhappy.

 

It all sounds so familiar, and yet there’s still no telling how this movie ends.

 

“Right now, I don’t know,” a gloomy sounding California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Thursday, when asked about the prospects for a bill. “It’s very difficult to put something together. Obviously change is controversial, so to propose something and then not to be able to do it makes no sense.”

Fellow Dems accuse Feinstein of ‘secret jam job’

A bloc of Northern California House Democrats, meanwhile, has pressured the senator to be given a role in negotiations over a compromise.

That led to unusual on-the-record criticism directly from Feinstein: “It doesn’t do any good to say, ‘Let us see your language so we can rip it apart.’”

On water, she appears to have more agreements with Republicans than Democrats on some key issues — and they’ve noticed, as McClatchy has reported:

“We certainly hear about it, involving a sub-group of stakeholders working on drafts that we haven’t been allowed to see,” Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said in an interview. “Far from a transparent regular order, it feels like we’re right back to secrecy and exclusion, and that’s very disappointing.”

 

Complaints about secrecy and exclusion helped undermine legislation last year. Huffman and six other Northern California Democrats subsequently met with Feinstein in January.

 

That was their high-water mark. Since then, the lawmakers who represent the Delta say they’ve effectively been shut out even though they’ve been asked what they want.

 

“It’s a terrible way to do a bill,” Huffman said. “Instead of trying to do this right, which is inclusive, deliberate and transparent, this is a secret jam job.”

Brown administration not in the mix

None of recent coverage of water legislation maneuvering indicates the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to shape the congressional legislation.

In December, however, one of his Cabinet members issued a statement objecting to House Republicans’ approach and its focus on changing federal environmental policies in the Delta. “Our collective energies should be devoted to a long-term solution for California’s water needs in a way that rewards working together, as opposed to dividing interests,” said John Laird, secretary of the California Department of Natural Resources.

Sequester We Hardly Knew Ye

The great irony of the Republican decision to bust the budget sequester is that barely two months ago, congressional roles were reversed.  The Democrats insisted on funding the government according to existing law.  The Republicans sought one simple change: that the individual insurance mandate under Obamacare be delayed for one year.  They were trying to spare the American people the Obamacare disaster that is now unfolding, but to no avail.  The American people sided overwhelmingly with the Democrats on the principle that the government should be funded according to current law without any side issues.

Why wasn’t that principle applied just two months later? Republicans were in the ideal position to hold the budget line simply by insisting on enforcing current law.  Instead, the House Republican leadership pushed through a two-year budget that will allow the federal government to spend an additional $63 billion more than current law allows – money that our country does not have.

Some of the discussion has focused on how much of the spending spree will be paid with higher taxes.  The answer is, “all of it.”  Once government spends a dollar, it has already decided to tax that dollar – the only questions that remain are who gets the bill and when.

Sixty-three billion dollars of new spending – and therefore new taxes in some form – is not a small amount of money.  It averages about $570 of added burdens for every family in America.

Not so, say supporters.  Over the next ten years, fee increases and spending reforms will pay for all of this, with $22 billion to spare for debt reduction.  The claim is a practical application of the economic principles of J. Wellington Wimpy:  “I will gladly pay you $22 billion in deficit reduction ten years from now for $63 billion in new spending today.”

The lie is given to this promise within the measure itself.  A major part of the alleged long-term deficit reduction is the assurance that after a two year spending binge, Congress will not only enforce the sequester but will even extend it for an extra two years in 2022 and 2023.  Pardon my skepticism.  We are required to believe that in the future, Congress will magically summon the fiscal discipline that has eluded it in the present.

A side deal called the “Doc Fix” offers more reason for doubt.  The “Doc Fix” has become an annual ritual arising from a previous budget deal that promised long term savings, except that Congress votes every year to ignore it (oops there goes another $8.7 billion).

True, discretionary spending will be less than the House budgets of 2011 and 2012, but this is a sleight-of-hand. Those budgets were unified packages of reforms that saved most on the mandatory side of the ledger and must be viewed in their totality -– not picking and choosing which parts to compare and which to ignore.

Finally, we are told that there are not enough votes in the House to support current-law spending.  There’s one way to find out: put a clean measure on the floor and see where the votes are.  That’s essentially how the impasse was resolved two months ago.

The sequester provided less than a third of the deficit reduction that Standard and Poors warned would have been necessary to maintain our triple-A credit rating, which is why many conservatives opposed it.  But it was at least a step in the right direction. It was an agreement that Congress made with itself, and given the political realities of a divided government, it became the only viable instrument to keep spending under some modicum of control. The busting of that limit now calls into question any promises of future fiscal restraint.

Perhaps the most stinging indictment of the budget deal comes from former Reagan budget director David Stockman. Under Stockman’s guidance, the Reagan administration reduced both spending and the deficit as a percentage of GDP, produced a period of prolonged economic expansion and won the cold war.   His verdict is chilling: “It’s a joke and betrayal. It’s the final surrender of the House Republican leadership to Beltway politics and kicking the can and ignoring the budget monster that’s hurtling down the road.”

The new Congressional budget is a mistake at a time when we can’t afford many more mistakes.  The path of least resistance, even if paved with good intentions, is not a path America can afford to travel any longer.

McClintock is a better writer than a heck of a lot of journalists. How do I know he wrote this himself? I hosted a talk-radio show for two years. He was one of the very few people I ever interviewed (Victor Davis Hanson was another) whose responses were always like cogent mini-essays. Thesis. Supporting evidence. Factual poke at opponent’s counterargument. Restate thesis.

He writes like he talks.