Opinion: Derail the Bullet Train, Fix the Water Supply!

California voters have a golden opportunity to do something they seldom get to do- correct a colossal mistake before it gets too far down the line to fix easily.

By now, many, if not most, voters who approved the California High Speed Rail Proposition (Prop 1A) in 2008 realize they were sold a $98 BILLION bill of goods.

It’s becoming ever more apparent every day that we, the voters, were simply lied to during that campaign.

We were told that there was no way the train plan would ever consume a penny of taxpayer money. Now, transit experts worldwide have concluded there is NO way the bullet train can survive WITHOUT taxpayer support.

We were told that private enterprise would jump up and fight for the chance to invest in the high speed rail concept- now, we are seeing that NO ONE in the private sector is the least bit interested in investing, unless there ARE substantial revenue guarantees from the state.

“Revenue guarantees” commonly goes by another name: taxpayer subsidies.

There are credible people saying the train supporters knew this from the start and didn’t tell us the truth about it.

To their credit, Republican House members in Washington D.C. are calling for all federal funding for this train wreck to be halted, and they’re running into severe blowback from the Obama administration, which sees the bullet train as the wave of the future.

The federal funding cuts may work, but they may not. The concept of a “bullet train” is a sexy concept for Republicans who like to build lots of things everywhere.

That’s why it’s way past time for the voters of California to stop this thing themselves.

Bear in mind that the legislature, stampeded by bullet train high priest Jerry Brown, has committed $6 BILLION dollars to build the first link of the train.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t pay $6 to ride from San Fernando to Merced- I certainly wouldn’t pay $6 billion.

What needs to happen is for citizens to band together and form a grass roots movement to qualify a measure for the 2014 ballot, rescinding the previous approval of Prop. 1A.

Tell Sacramento and Washington that we now know the truth about the “bullet”train , and we want our money back.

If we want to spend money on something that WILL do us some good, we should link that rescission measure to another ballot measure for 2014- an $11 billion measure that would seriously upgrade and improve our state water system.

That is something we need badly, and something that will actually do all of us good.

Do I want my money spent on a travel system that will take me from San Diego to San Francisco much more slowly than Southwest Airlines can get me there- and much more expensively?

Or do I want a better guarantee that, when I turn on the tap in the morning, fresh clean water will flow, so I can have a drink of water?

To me, it’s not a hard choice to make.

Also read: Colorado River Water Shortage for Western States Foreseen in U.S. Study