By George F. Will,
State Sen. Joe Simitian’s district office near Stanford’s campus is nestled
among shops sporting excruciatingly cute names (A Street Bike Named Desire,Mom’s
the Word maternity wear) intended to make the progressive gentry comfortable
with upscale consumption by presenting it as whimsical. This community surely
has its share of advanced thinkers who think trains are wonderful because they are not cars (rampant individualism; people
going wherever and whenever they want, unsupervised).
Nevertheless, Simitian was one of just four Democratic state senators who
recently voted — in vain — to derail plans that eventually may involve spending
more than $100 billion on a 500-mile bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Simitian
makes the obligatory genuflection: He favors high-speed rail “done right.” But
having passed sixth-grade arithmetic, he has doubts. At one point, an estimate
of 44 million riders a year — subsequently revised downward, substantially —
assumed gasoline costing $40 a gallon.
Democracy, said H.L. Mencken, is the theory that people know what they want
and deserve to get it good and hard. In 2008, Californians passed an initiative
authorizing $9.95 billion in bonds to build what they were told would be a $33
billion high-speed rail system. California, constantly lurching from one budget
crisis to a worse one, could not nearly afford even that, and soon the price was
re-estimated at about $100 billion. Not to worry, said Gov. Jerry Brown — the
real price will be only $68.5 billion. Why? Partly because it will be less than
bullet-like, not requiring extra-expensive roadbed.
Note Brown’s hilarious “.5.” Such is his precision that in May his projection
of a $15.7 billion state budget deficit was 70 percent higher than his
January estimate.
Eager to hook states on higher spending, especially for high-speed rail, the
Obama administration wants California to quickly spend $3.3 billion of federal
funding (much of it borrowed from China, one source of President Obama’s train
envy). Simitian says the $3.3 billion is about 5 percent of the cost “if the
project stays on budget.” If. The $3.3 billion and $2.7 billion of state money
would finance 130 miles of track in the Central Valley — a train from, and to,
nowhere.
Simitian notes that the 130 miles would not be high-speed rail and would not
be electrified, and that there are no commitments for more federal funds, or for
any dedicated funding source, or for private funding. And the 2008 ballot
measure that launched this folly forbids tax money for operating subsidies.
California’s voters evidently understand that Washington’s $3.3 billion is
spending for the purpose of committing Sacramento to much greater spending:
Polls show that 59 percent would now reject the project they authorized. But
Democrats will not allow reconsideration. They like direct democracy
but love spending.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) rejected $810 million in federal money for a
78-mile high-speed rail project paralleling Interstate 94 between Milwaukee and
Madison. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) rejected $400 million for a high-speed (well,
about automobile speed) train paralleling Interstate 71 between Cleveland and
Cincinnati. Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) rejected $2.4 billion for 90 miles of
high-speed rail paralleling Interstate 4 between Tampa and Orlando. In
faith-based transportation policy, rail worshipers think people will park their
cars in Tampa and then rent cars in Orlando.
Brown’s reverence for his rail bauble is fanaticism. Or perhaps filial piety:
His father, governor from 1959 to 1967, built much of the freeway and water
infrastructure for postwar California. When the son was first elected governor
38 years ago, he seemed exotic; now he embodies progressivism’s banality. Then
he wanted a California space program; now he is fixated on railroads, a
19th-century technology. His prescription for California’s ailments is higher taxes
and expensive trains. Fortunately, the latter obsession may stymie the former.
Come November, Californians will vote on Brown’s recipe for reviving this
slow-growth, high-tax state: Raise income taxes “temporarily” on the rich and on
everybody with a “temporary” sales tax increase. But with public services being
slashed — some communities have lopped a week off the school year, with other contractions
perhaps still to come — voters may reject more revenue for Sacramento while it
is showering scores of billions on trains.
The 21st century may end before Brown’s sort-of-high-speed rail service
begins. Coagulated California is so clotted with environmental regulations and
lawyers that turning a spade of earth — Spare that endangered toad! — invites
decades of litigation. Regarding high-speed rail, this is the good news.
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