Bullet train

Dear Editor:Please publish the names of the Assemblypersons and state senators who voted for the bullet train, so we can arrange to put them on the first bus out of California. Yes, they'll try to rationalize their vote, but they'll be using the same lies about cost and completion times that they used to get the bond authorization to begin with. Remember, it was going to cost $33 billion and be completed by 2020. Now both the cost and the time factor have at least doubled, and that's if you believe the current figures. And why should we? Yes, the central valley needs some economic help. But you could get faster results by driving up Highway 99 throwing $3 billion off the back of a truck. You wouldn't have to pay some guy $400,000 to toss it and we wouldn't be stuck with a project that will keep us broke into the next century. Gov. Jerry Brown's father was one of California's great governors. His legacy is the California Aqueduct, a great university system and much of the freeway systems. He was indeed a visionary. But there can be a fine line between a vision and a hallucination. California's economy will recover when it can produce and move goods, not just people. Apparently Gov. Brown's desire to leave us a legacy of his own takes the form of a 200 MPH ego trip. And to do it, he'll saddle us with debt that continues to erode our ability to maintain the achievements his father left. Every "enabler" who helps push this madness should be challenged on it at election time, and whatever excuse is offered, ask if they would repeat it under oath. David Mathews Downey

Dear Editor: Congratulations are due the California legislature for its unprecedented action (only if you consider spending money we don't have on something we don't need unprecedented - actually they seem to do that all the time, which explains the mess California is in) Friday authorizing the issuance of General Obligation Bonds (those are bonds paid for out of the General Fund - meaning your taxes and mine) to finance the construction of the initial phase of the nation's first dedicated high-speed rail system: a segment of rail infrastructure that goes from nowhere, to nowhere, through nowhere! And we laughed at Alaska about their bridge. Let the lawsuits begin! Drew Kelley Downey

********** Published: July 12, 2012 - Volume 11 - Issue 13