Government Spending Archives - Page 7 of 27

California’s High Speed Rail to No Where a Monetary Black Hole for Bankrupt CA & US

Gas 2.0: “California has plans for an 800-mile high-speed rail system running the length of the Golden State, and initial estimates place the cost somewhere around $45 billion . . . . Even a 800 mile journey begins with the first step, and California has been trying to find the area most receptive to the idea of a high-speed rail line. They found that place in the Central Valley, between Borden and Bakersfield, with stations to be built in Fresno and the Hanford area of Kings County. In total, the plan calls for 65 miles of track and stations at a cost of about $4 billion.”

The government idiots spending other people’s money the governments don’t have plan to build the 65 mile rail segment in central California complete with tracks and stations, but let it sit dormant without trains or riders for years until the 500 mile LA to SF segment is complete some time in a future that is far far away. The proposed 65 mile segment between the towns of Borden and Corcoran would truly be the rail system from nowhere to nowhere. There is no guarantee that the remainder of the rail system would ever be built.

In an article called “Subsidy Trains to Nowhere,” the Wall St. Journal estimates the actual cost to be between $62 billion and $213 billion. Wisconsin Governor elect Scott Walker and Ohio Governor elect John Kasich asked the Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood if he would use the $1.2 billion in federal funds allocated to those two states to repair roads in their states, but LaHood reallocated all of the money to high speed rail projects in 13 other states.

Incredibly Stupid Federal Regulation that Requires all Street Signs in the U.S. to Have Upper & Lower Case Letters will Cost Phoenix $11 Million to Comply

If you want the best example ever of how the United States has gone from a country of freedom and limited government to a country that is a nanny state and government control of everything, here it is. The federal Highway Administration issued a regulation that requires every street sign in the United States to contain upper and lower case letters. The bureaucrats say it will make it easier for people to read street signs while driving. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had a problem reading street signs because the letters were in all capital letters. Whenever a street sign is hard to read it is because the sign is too small, not because of the lack of lowercase letters.

All the street signs in Phoenix, Arizona, are entirely in all capital letters. Big brother says no, no, no. The signs must have upper and lower case letters. For example, CAMELBACK RD is now a violation of federal law. The street sign must read Camelback Rd. The cost to replace all the street signs in Phoenix – over $11.5 million the city does not have to replace 320,000 signs. The cost for all the cities in the U.S. to comply must be in the mega billions. As my beloved cartoon character Pogo said many years ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Reparations? When Pigford Flies

Investors Business Daily: “Congress has OK’d nearly $5 billion for black and Native American farmers who claim they were discriminated against. This is redistribution of wealth in the name of environmental and social justice. Reparations have begun. . . . Pigford v. Glickman was a class action lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture alleging discrimination against black farmers in its allocation of farm loans between 1983 and 1987. . . . One of the fruits of this lame-duck session has been the approval of $1.15 billion to the black farmers and $3.4 billion to the American Indians to settle the two lawsuits. At last count, more than 94,000 black farmers have signed up for payments under the settlement.”

“At last count, more than 94,000 black farmers have signed up for payments under the settlement. Based on census data, however, there were only 33,000 or so black farmers in existence during the period in question. Based on that number and the number of denied applications, the department had originally estimated that only 2,000 such claims would be filed.”

“Pigford Witness Report: Applicant Claimed Discrimination by Nonexistent Chicago USDA Office, Was Paid Anyway“

“Number of Black Farmers Who Will Get Payments from $1.25 Billion USDA Settlement Tough to Determine, Attorneys Say” – ““We’ve already paid out compensation to 16,000, and now we’re giving out $1.15 billion to an additional 94,000 claimants, there is obvious fraud here that can’t be accounted for”

History Shows Higher Tax Rates Do Not Produce More Tax Revenue

Wall St. Journal: “Tax revenues as a share of GDP have averaged just under 19%, whether tax rates are cut or raised. Better to cut rates and get 19% of a larger pie. Even amoebas learn by trial and error, but some economists and politicians do not. The Obama administration’s budget projections claim that raising taxes on the top 2% of taxpayers, those individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning $250,000 or more, will increase revenues to the U.S. Treasury. The empirical evidence suggests otherwise. None of the personal income tax or capital gains tax increases enacted in the post-World War II period has raised the projected tax revenues.

Federal Tax Rates & Revenue

Cities, Businesses Mull Spending Money Government Doesn’t Have for Railroad Opportunities that are Money Losers

The Arizona Republic reports that a group of idiots called the Southwest Valley Rail Partnership got together recently during these dire economic times to discuss how they can convince elected officials to take government deeper into debt to purchase the money losing sink hole called passenger railroads. These people are not interested in learning the facts that passenger rail in the United States cannot make money, but they do love railroads and spending other people’s money on railroads that few people will ever use. If you don’t believe that passenger rail is a big money loser, read these articles:

1. Government-Run Rail System Losing $32 per Passenger, Study Shows

2. High Speed Rail Going Nowhere Fast

3. Money train: The cost of high-speed rail

“It is a fact that no nationwide passenger rail system anywhere in the world is considered profitable when all costs — including capital — are accounted for,” . . . “Amtrak released a study in April to demonstrate that Europe’s system is heavily subsidized. Germany’s high-speed rail network, the most expensive in Europe, required average annual subsidies of $11.6 billion during the 10-year span that ended in 2006, according to the Amtrak study.”

Previous 678 Next