Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Joins Call for Redirecting HSR Money
Fresh on the heels of the Feinstein/Boxer letter calling for any federal HSR money rejected by states such as Wisconsin and Ohio to be given to California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has authored a similar letter:
November 16, 2010
The Honorable Raymond H. LaHood
Secretary of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590Dear Mr. Secretary,
It is with a certain sense of astonishment that we note recent announcements from some of our gubernatorial colleagues that they are uninterested in federal contributions to their high-speed rail systems. You are more than welcome to redirect that money to California – where we know how to use it to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs and provide a clean, fast and low-cost way to travel.
In fact, we are proudly leading the nation in the planning and development of our high-speed rail system, with the strong support of our fellow Californians, the federal government and soon the private sector. If other states refuse your support, we would certainly welcome their shares – particularly as we continue to demonstrate how well those dollars will be spent in our great state.
In California, we have secured a total of $4.3 billion to begin construction on the core of our system. That includes a recent $715 million in federal funding, on top of previous economic stimulus funds and state and local matches. The California High-Speed Rail Authority Board is poised to select within a matter of weeks the location of the first section of the line. We are set to begin construction in 2012 and begin passenger service in 2020. In short, the progress, pace and precision of California’s project has been nothing short of remarkable.
Californians eagerly await a high-speed rail system and, with last year’s approval [sic] of major bond funding, they have done their part to make it happen. With a firm long-term commitment of federal funding, state matches that stretch your investment still further and the private funding such assurances will bring, we will be pleased to demonstrate to the rest of the nation the environmental and economic value of high-speed rail. As President Obama said, “There’s no reason why the world’s best infrastructure should lie beyond our borders.”
Sincerely,
Arnold Schwarzenegger
It’s great to see California’s leaders step up and call for this funding to be redirected to our state’s HSR project should that money come available. I particularly like Arnold’s shot at the newly-elected right-wing governors in WI and OH – I don’t find it “astonishing” that they want to abandon the money, it’s in keeping with right-wing anti-transit ideology, but their position is reckless and it’s good that a fellow Republican called them on it.
I agree, Arnold has been for HSR for a long time, I’m glad He called those of the Right wing on this, As It’s about time someone did.
I’d like to see Jerry in the mix too. Arnold and Jerry should be seen standing together in support to ensure public confidence in the continuity of the projects goal
Oh boy. Support from the worst Governor that California has ever had. Yea, I’d bank on that.
What a pathetic loser. Besides, shouldn’t he be writing the NEW Secretary of Transportation??
Alon Levy Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Surely Ronald “Universities shouldn’t subsidize intellectual curiosity” Reagan was worse…
Loren Petrich Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
There’s a little book called “Reagan’s Reign of Error” — it’s full of similar howlers.
Victor Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Me thinks His Alzheimer’s was showing Itself somewhat, But then He did get a Carrier named in His Honor. And people have made a joke of It.
jimsf Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
PEte wilson was worse than arnold I think
Loren Petrich Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
What was Pete Wilson guilty of?
Alon Levy Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
187.
Jeff Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Is that 187 meaning murder, or 187 meaning the ballot proposition to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving expensive government services?
Alon Levy Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 8:59 am
187 meaning the ballot proposition to prevent people the state thinks are illegal from receiving services, i.e. the sort of thing that in New York and Texas even conservative leaders oppose.
jimsf Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
being way to dull and frumpy and stodgy to represent california for one thing. Ugh. If we are going to have a grandpa run the place, at least get a cool grandpa like brown. Thats why meg didn”t win… it was those god awful frumpy outfits and hairdo. Californians aren’t going to elect someone with hair like that. come on.
YesonHSR Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
There is no new secretary of transportation…. Don’t worry the bulldozers will be down the peninsula soon enough.. so move
Knew something was going to happen sooner than later. Richard Katz resigns from the California High Speed Rail Authority.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Can’t say I’m surprised. I’ll have a post on this going live right after midnight.
Peter Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Like I predicted. Katz would pick and choose, and Pringle will simply wait out another month.
YOu know aside from being a good transportation project, the great thing about the cali hsr is just seeing californians up and moving and doing something big and bold, they way we always have when we are at our best, they way we always show up the rest of the country, even while the country wallows in negativity, californians don’t have time for it, always too busy looking forward to the next wave, too busy solving a problem, and being excited about the future. No one here has time so sit around saying, ” we are doomed, california is dead” ITs just not the way californians think. We are too busy going to parties and the beach and shopping and driving on the 405 with the top down and stuff. Whatever those tired old dull big drag states and those boring stuffy politicians are doing is irrelevant to us cuz we just keep going, This state has built in restart buttons everywhere. I was out walking around town tonight… uh.. there’s no recession here. People are out having a blast, the town is lively as ever. I love it here. its just like its always been in sf, the party never stops.
wu ming Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 12:38 am
of course there’s no recession there, SF is far wealthier than the rest of the state.
jimsf Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 7:15 am
its not a party because its wealthy, it wealthy because its a party. Starts with the outlook on things. The wealth follows.
Its like if you are a frumpy stuffy valley town where the mode is “we can’t do that, that just isn’t done” and your all buttoned up with your ankles covered, then of course no one is going to want to hang around. But, if you put on your party hat, kick up your heels and say “sounds good to me, lets go” then everyone wants to hang out with you.
Thats why sf gets such crap from the rest of the country. They are jealous. ;-)
Union square is packed with holiday shoppers this week. When hsr opens, I predict sf will be the highest passenger count location.
You know, I am an Independent who voted for Obama in 2008 and mostly Democrats in 2010. I registered as Republican for the primaries in 2008 only to vote against Huckabee. I am not a Republican, but I think the Republican bashing, mostly be a few people here in particular, is a bit much sometimes. The goal of this blog (I think) is to educate people about HSR issues and to raise support for it. Well if the state is 40% (?) Republican, you might be alienating lots of potential supporters by continuously bashing Republicans and doing more harm than good.
Go ahead and bash Palin, the Tea Party, and all the right wing extremists. And go ahead and make factual statements that call out Republicans (or Democrats) who want to shut down HSR. But to keep on throwing out blanket statements about Republicans in general is just dumb and makes you look dumber. Believe it or not, there are lots of moderate Republicans out there who are supportive of HSR. And now with some people like John Mica making some positive statements about HSR, some additional moderate Republicans might follow his lead.
jimsf Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
California has a lot of moderate, even socially liberal republicans, the problems with them is just like with the muslims, the good ones won’t stand up and condemn the bad ones. Republicans are a minority and the the things they really stand for ( welfare for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class) doesn’t sit well upon closer examination by the electorate, so the only way they ever win is by using their fringe who they keep on a short leash to be jerked back when needed. I’ve seen this over and over again since the 60s. It just gets so tired. Give us something fresh, and forward and realistic in the way of a leader and californians might keep them around while. We are reasonable people.
Jon Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 10:16 am
the problems with them is just like with the muslims, the good ones won’t stand up and condemn the bad ones
I have a problem with this sort of language. There are 1.6 billion Muslims who share very little in common with each other, other than that they practice the same religion. Demanding that the good ones stand up and condemn the bad ones would be like me demanding that all the Christians I know stand up and condemn Fred Phelps. Why should I assume that they share the opinions of Fred Phelps just because they practice the same religion?
A political party like the Republicans is a little different in that by being a member of that party people consciously associate themselves with Republicans as a whole. But even so, you see Republicans criticize other Republicans all the time- see Schwarzenegger’s recently letter to Ray LaHood, or the bitter selection battles for the recent elections.
Caelestor Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
ITA. The information age has given the extremists far more voice, but don’t forget the moderates out there. Avoid generalizing a bad bunch to an entire group.
Peter Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
I think everyone thinks the extremists have a lot more influence than they actually do. As in, the newsies always cover the extremists because they give better sound bites. But when the chips are down, most people don’t actually side with lunatics.
jimsf Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
hmff.. prop 8 withstanding.
wu ming Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 12:45 am
you might have a point were it not rather unusual for a republican governor to support any public infrastructure spending these days. hell, schwarzeneggar, who is getting all the praise right now for not being as hit-own-head-with-hammer dumb as the 2010 cohort of republican governors, delayed CA HSR for years, and severely defunded the planning agency, before it became inevitable and he got out in front and acted like he’d been for it all along.
while there are a handful of vestigial moderate republicans here and there, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that the vast majority of elected republican officials at the federal level are on the whole so reactionary that ronald reagan and richard nixon would be seen as anethema today by their political descendents. they’d impeach eisenhower for his socialism.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 6:17 am
I don’t think arguments about tone and language are really appropriate in this day and age. They tend to let people off the hook for their actions.
I take care not to bash all Republicans. There are many Republican voters who back HSR, and there are many Republican politicians that do, from Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin to Governor Schwarzenegger to Rep. John Mica.
But it is also a fact that many other Republican politicians, whether it be Assemblymember Diane Harkey, Rep. Devin Nunes, the new governors in WI and OH, oppose high speed rail and all mass transit projects. They do so out of a right-wing ideology that hates passenger rail, or out of a desire to keep their oil company contributors happy (and sometimes both). On the other hand, virtually all Democrats in Sacramento and in Congress back HSR. It would be wrong to hide from pointing that out.
When people complain about tone or language, they’re usually trying to avoid the real issue. Which in this case is the fact that too many Republican politicians oppose HSR. Their attitudes won’t change just by playing nice. We have to be honest – and accurate – about their opposition if we’re ever going to mobilize people to ensure HSR gets built.
Donk Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 7:56 am
FYI, Robert I wasn’t talking about you, your statements about Republicans are all pretty well supported and informative. I was talking about people posting in the comments who say that make statements to the effect that all Republicans are idiots.
jimsf Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 9:14 am
I suppose it would easier to moderate tone and language if one wasn’t facing the type of daily hypocrisy coming from the party. For example, lets look at all the blathering about reducing the big scary debt. ( and these are excerpts from this week)…..
“According to Republicans, if you make more than $250,000 a year, you should get a tax cut on all of the income above that level in addition to getting tax cuts on income below that level.
In order to achieve just that extra amount of tax cuts, just for the rich people, just for people earning over $250,000, Republicans are willing — in order to do that, Republicans are willing to add $700 billion to the debt, $700 billion”
On the same day Republicans redoubled their efforts to kill health reform, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office highlighted that the Democrats‘ new health reform law, if fully implemented, would result in a, quote, “notable improvement in the long-term debt outlook.”
Earlier this year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office calculated that health reform would reduce the deficit by $138 billion.
Republicans apparently want that $138 billion added back on to the deficit
A majority of all of the discretionary spending that we have in this country is defense spending.
–Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona is the Republican who is making the direct Republican response to that. As of today, Jon Kyl‘s response has been to secure $14 billion of brand new nuclear weapons spending from the Obama administration. He‘s apparently holding out for more
– Here‘s the top Republican on the House side. His name is Republican Congressman Buck McKeon of California. He‘s the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.
What does he think about this defense cuts idea? Yesterday, Mr. McKeon said of the defense cuts, quote, “Let me put this in the simplest terms possible: cutting defense spending amidst two wars is a red line for me and should be a red line for all Americans.”
–On the Senate side, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee is a man you might have heard of named John McCain. Senator John McCain now leading the charge in the Republican Party against anyone in his party who would dare suggest any cuts to defense.
And, of course, it‘s an article of faith that Republicans are against cap and trade climate legislation, right? The Congressional Budget Office estimates that cap-and-trade—which remember was a Republican idea in the first place—cap-and-trade would reduce the deficit by $19 billion. Republicans are against that, too.
Think about the distance between what Republicans say they are doing and what they are actually proposing. Republicans spent all day bragging about how much they want to cut the deficit, while simultaneously proposing adding to the deficit $700 billion, plus $138 billion, plus $14 billion, plus $19 billion—all added to the deficit as they proclaim that they want to cut the deficit
And that is par for the course. I’ve been watching it happen for the last 30 years. Its so very very tired. And while they want tax breaks for the wealthiest people in america, they are saying that the unemployed will have to tighten their belts and go without in the name of reducing the debt.
I have nothing but pure unadulterated disdain for republicans and any one who supports them and I’ll say it right out loud. They make me ill.
Donk Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
While I agree with most of your points, you make it sound like the Democrats are perfect. The Democrats are almost as guilty about the tax cut extensions. Their stance against continuing the tax cuts for the wealthy was just empty rhetoric. Now they are going along with an extension for the rich as well. The same people that were shoveling money into the Reps pockets are now shoveling it into the Dems pockets.
And what is the real reason why Democrats are supporting HSR? It is not because they are nice people. It is because of the unions.
jimsf Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
And as I union member I support that…. along with the principles of the party. I know they are perfect and don’t expect them to be but the worst democrat is still better than the best republican. As for temporarily extending tax cuts, if they don’t make deals they won’t get anything done. Its a necessary evil. Im not happy we didn’t get a public option either, but having received my new benefits enrollment and seeing the improvements thanks to obamacare, and the improvements already evident at my doctors office thanks to obamacare, I know that its a lot better that what the reps would have done, (which wuld be nothing.)
Donk Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Fine, as much as I hate the unions, I can understand your unabashed support for the Democrats. But come on – the worst democrat is still better than the best republican? Seriously? They are the same damn thing, it only that each side is getting their pocked filled by a different source. The current Republican bashing of Obama is equally as disgusting as the Democrat bashing of GW.
And I still don’t understand why the Democrats are such pansies with the tax cuts. They don’t need to make a deal – they still have the Senate and the Executive Branch, and the tax cut is set to expire in December, so they have a lot of leverage. The only possible reason why they are weakening their position so much is because there is some behind the scenes lobbying going on.
Missiondweller Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Thank you. Agreed.
Anyone watching maddow today, She’s on fire!
What ever happened to that media showcase trip that was to be held on a “high speed” train from LA to SD? I thought it was to be held this month.. Has that idea gone out the window or are there just delays?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 8:20 am
That’s an excellent question. I’ve not heard anything more about it, so I am assuming it isn’t going to happen. (I mean really, would they host such a showcase and not invite me? I think not.)
LAofAnaheim Reply:
November 17th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Because it was becoming a cost boondoggle to run trains south of LA to Anaheim. It was going to cost $2.2 billion…when passenger rail tracks already exist between LA to Anaheim for Metrolink and Amtrak. So, HSR is looking into making something more affordable without having to re-do a whole corridor. The tracks are there..just electrify them and give few more grade seperations.
Peter Reply:
November 18th, 2010 at 9:28 am
What are you talking about? Michael is referring to Schwarzenegger’s plan to run some ICE TD trains on the LOSSAN corridor so that people get to see a “bullet” train in action, not upgrading the entire LOSSAN corridor.
@ Robert.. Haha! I do believe that of anyone, you would be invited. I’m rather disappointed that the idea has fallen apart. It would have been a great publicity event.
@LAofAnaheim.. I was referring to a specific “HSR for a day” event that was planned, not the HSR alignment chose to San Diego. In addition to the planned inland HSR route I do believe there are plans to upgrade tracks Anaheim-San Diego (existing coastal alignment) to 110 mph. I could be wrong about that though.