WASHINGTON — A California congressman wants to end further federal funding for the state’s high speed rail project on the grounds that it has yet to lay any rail.
U.S. Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita) announced last week that he has introduced H.R. 9308, which he has dubbed the “No Frankenrail Act.” Officially introduced Aug. 6, the text has not yet been received by the House website for tracking bills and is not posted on Garcia’s website. In a press release, he says the legislation will “cut off funding for any high-speed rail project that hasn’t laid a single mile of track after a decade of federal support.”
“This isn’t high-speed rail, it’s Frankenstein’s monster—a clumsy, costly project that’s wreaking havoc in our communities without delivering any real benefits,” Garcia said in the release. “We need real infrastructure improvements, like expanding Metrolink and increasing freeway capacity, not wasting more money on this failure.”
Gentlemen: you missed the Congressman’s real point to California High Speed Rail: Produce a product, now! Threatening withdrawl of federal funds gets the attention of complacent government workers. I live no where close to this project and have little chance of using it. Yet, my money pays for this. What is fair, equitable and diverse about this project?
Finally, we need more contrary opinions because that makes our thinking more wise. And I thought that was what this forum is about.
GLADLY HE WASN’T! Amtrak would be gone and russian would be taught in our schools, along with Chinese and Korean.
Strongly agree!!
Garcia’s quote in the last paragraph says it all. CalHSR is disgusting, the project stinks to high hell, and that’s an undeserved compliment.
As we are soon to elect the worst person in all of California as U. S. President, look for the egregious CalHSR fiasco to be repeated nationwide.
Whatever else Trump did or didn’t do in his term as president, he wanted to take back the federal funds sunk into the bottomless cesspool that is CalHSR. That alone was reason enough for him to have been re-elected four years ago. Sadly he wasn’t.
Always nice to get a thorough political analysis from a 77 year old crackpot in Wisconsin.
Like the proverbial broken clock, a “77-year old crackpot” can be “right” at least twice-a-day.
More often, I’d say, in the case of Mr. Landey ….