-CA screws everyone with carbon tax – wastes the money on bullet train

There is no crisis so grave that it cannot be solved with higher taxes.  Or, in this case carbon offset fees.  You see, global warming is so serious that we have come up with a scheme whereby industries that generate carbon emissions (industries that coincidentally drive our economy) will need to buy “offsets” to allow them to continue their carbon emissions.  It’s a win-win!  They get to pay to stay in business and the State gets a $1 billion payday!  And you get to pay higher prices for electricity, gasoline and probabaly damn near everything you buy.

I think the mafia used to have a program like that: “youse gets to pay us and then youse don’t get your legs broke.  Everybody wins.”  Then the government arrested, prosecuted and jailed the gangsters.  This is known as “eliminating the competition”.

The halls of the Capitol must be positively awash in the saliva of drooling legislators and lobbyists anticipating the new funding that awaits their pet projects.  There’s money a-waitin’ to be spent!  This week it was reported that as part of the budget agreement, California’s High Speed Rail would receive 25% of anticipated cap-and-trade revenue.  Anticipated cap and trade revenue.  We’re going to spend anticipated money on an imaginary train.  We could just replace the state goverment with a Sim City game.  Jerry Brown’s not gonna stand for this foolishness, right?  He’s fiscal hawk!  He wants a rainy day fund!  Oh wait…the crazy train is Jerry Brown’s pet.  He wanted 33% of the cap-and-trade “windfall” to go to the Fresno to Lodi express.  Oh, snap – no adult in the room on this one.

$250 Million probably won’t pay for the paper clips when this boondoggle gets underway.  This is like saying we need to spend $20 Billion to dig a giant hole to throw money in.  But the good news is we get to keep throwing money into it…forever!  And create hundreds of jobs!  Because – transportation!  Trains are the future!