On Bullet Train, Voters Finally May Get to Apply the Brakes

Pencils have erasers. Computers have the undo command and the escape key.

If you had it to do over again, would you vote for the bullet train?

It was called the “Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act” on the 2008 ballot, and it authorized $9 billion in bonds — borrowed money — to “partially fund” a high-speed train system in California.

The ballot measure required that there would be “private and public matching funds,” “accountability and oversight” and a focus on completing “Phase I” from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Anaheim. Bond funds could not be spent on the other corridors, like Fresno to Bakersfield, unless there was “no negative impact on the construction of Phase I.”

Today the estimated cost is over $68 billion, private and federal funds are not in sight, and accountability has been cut back — instead of two spending reports to the Legislature every year, only one report every two years will be required. And “Phase I” broke ground in Fresno.

Place your finger on the escape key and stand by. State Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Fresno, has introduced a bill, co-authored by Assemblyman Rudy Salas, D-Bakersfield, to put the bullet train before the voters again. If Senate Bill 3 (SBX1-3) can muster a two-thirds vote in the state Senate and Assembly, it will be on the June 2016 ballot.

The measure would freeze spending on the bullet train and direct unspent funds to the Department of Transportation to be used for roads, which would come in handy because California needs $59 billion just to maintain the freeways for the next 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown has called a special session of the Legislature to look for revenue to fill the state’s transportation budget pothole after signing a “balanced” budget that left that item out.

The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office offered some suggestions that illustrate the difference between what tax increases can raise and what the bullet train costs.

• Raising the tax on a gallon of gasoline brings in $150 million per 1 cent increase.

• Raising the tax on a gallon of diesel fuel collects $30 million per 1 cent increase.

• Raising the vehicle registration fee nets $33 million per $1 increase.

• Doubling the vehicle weight fees raises about $1 billion.

• Raising the vehicle license fee hauls in roughly $3 billion per 1 percent increase.

There are other options. The LAO says lawmakers could prioritize the budget to use money from the general fund to maintain and construct roads. Billions in cap-and-trade revenue, collected from fees now levied on gasoline and diesel fuel, could be used for highway projects that reduce traffic and improve mileage.

Via: California Political Review

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[VIDEO] Illegal Immigrant Tells PJM They Should Have Voting Rights ‘to Get More Votes’

While the D.C. Council considers allowing non-citizens to vote in elections, some say undocumented immigrants should be able to vote as well.

“Yes, I agree with that because they still help make half the population here. They work. Their kids go to our schools, you know, they have health and everything. Yes, I think they should get a right to make a decision,” a D.C. resident told PJ Media.

She was also asked if illegal immigrants should be allowed to vote in federal elections.

“Their word counts for us. I mean, what they say and do, it still counts, whether it’s for us or against us. Yes, they’re people so their words should matter,” she said.

Another D.C. resident said undocumented immigrants should be allowed to vote because everyone deserves equal rights.

“I don’t mind. They’re here now. They’ve probably been here maybe over five years and at this point, they’re citizens now. They should pay taxes. They should be able to vote and things of that nature because they’re in the work in progress of America,” he said.

“They’re also in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital and having good jobs – some of the jobs other people could have but, well, that’s for some people that are already here as citizens. So, I mean, it’s a two-way street with that, but I’m not too concerned about it. I think it should be equal things for everybody.”

Others shared the same perspective.

“I think it’s fine. I don’t know why we cannot do that, man,” an immigrant living illegally in the U.S. said.

“I think it should be a good idea because they are going to get more votes and I mean, I’m from Mexico, and I would say I’m illegal here, and if they allow me to vote, I would do that. I don’t mind and I can have a chance to say I will vote for this guy because I think he is going to do something good for my community,” he added.

Some said only U.S. citizens should be permitted to vote.

Via: PJ Media

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Clinton campaign aims for style, substance points amid scrutiny

In the weeks since she formally, finally announced her campaign for the presidency in April, Hillary Clinton has sought to score points for style and substance.

Style, to convince Democratic voters that she won't run like an incumbent who views the primaries as a mere formality — a complaint about her 2008 presidential campaign. Substance, to signal her liberal bona fides to Democrats who long for the bank-bashing Sen. Elizabeth Warren to get into the presidential nominating contest.

So Clinton took a road trip halfway across the U.S. from New York to Iowa in a van nicknamed Scooby Doo and stopped to grab a bite at a Chipotle in Ohio. She met with small groups of voters for "roundtable discussions" in which she nodded and listened — much as she did when she began running for the Senate in 2000, breaking ground as the first first lady to run for office.

USA TODAY

Hillary Clinton goes unnoticed in Ohio Chipotle

Early reviews say Clinton has achieved what she set out to do when she launched her campaign on April 12. However, as she looks ahead to the next phase of her presidential bid and tries to continue to avoid the missteps that cost her in 2008, she will be challenged to put forward a clear rationale for her candidacy while dueling with scrutiny from press she has largely kept at bay.

Via: USA Today
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[CARTOON] Snowballing Voter Fury

Via: California Political Review

[CARTOON] Snowballing Voter Fury

Via: California Political Review

DOES GOP NEED SOLUTIONS FOR BLACK VOTERS?

This week, I heard a conservative commentator “admitting” that Republicans don’t do enough for black voters. “Why don’t conservatives offer solutions?” asked this person.

It bothers me that otherwise-sound conservative thinkers fall into this trap — unwittingly ceding the turf of the debate to their liberal counterparts. The assumption is that unless we offer liberal solutions — catering and pandering specifically to blacks — we have nothing to offer.

Republicans do offer solutions for blacks, just as they offer solutions for all other people. The conservative solution is not to increase government transfer payments to able-bodied people but to pursue policies that will lead to economic growth and opportunity.

Though many liberals would have you believe that efforts to reduce government assistance and dependency programs and to encourage self-sufficiency are heartless, they are in fact more compassionate. Have we learned nothing from a quixotic half-century war on poverty?

At the risk of cliche, it is far more compassionate and humane, as a general proposition, to teach a man to fish than it is to feed him fish. In the long run, it is irresponsible and, yes, cruel to promote policies that result in greater dependency on government for those who don’t need to be dependent.

Via: Human Events

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CBC Chairman: ‘We Cannot Even Find an Instance of Voter Fraud’

(CNSNews.com) - Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emmanuel Cleaver said Thursday “we cannot even find an instance of voter fraud,” but a Justice Department fact sheet tells a different story.

“We’ve had 176 restrictive bills regarding voting laws that have been proposed in 41 states. Now understand that we cannot even find an instance of voter fraud. In the last 20-something years, the Justice Department has investigated like two,” Cleaver said during a panel discussion on voter ID laws.

However, according to a Justice Department fact sheet dated July 2, 2008, over 140 individuals have been charged with election fraud offenses and over 100 people have been convicted of voter fraud since the Attorney General’s Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative was launched in 2002.

Cleaver claimed that the voting public has been under attack since 2011.

“We never would have predicted in the 1970s or in the 1980s that in the year 2011 that we would be fighting an attempt to suppress or discourage minority voting power,” he said.

Via: CNS News

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‘Top-Down’ vs. ‘Bottom-Up’

What does ‘top-down economics’ really mean? “We can’t afford more top-down economics. What we need are policies that will grow and strengthen the middle class.” — Barack Obama “Top-down economics” is a hijacked phrase. Objectively, it should be the label assigned to rule-of-czar capitalism steered by government officials. Instead, campaign rhetoric has been assigning it to rule-of-law capitalism driven by consumers and entrepreneurs—supposedly a system steered by the already-rich, in which money gradually trickles down to the middle class. As vivid as that image may be, it is a false depiction of what really happens in a properly functioning private sector. But once the false image captures the attention of enough voters, it’s a simpler step for political entrepreneurs to sell themselves as the better alternative—simpler, that is, than having to compete against the way a vibrant private sector actually works. Entrepreneurs cause money to gush outward, not to ‘trickle down’ There is little disagreement that today’s economy needs more private-sector jobs, and there should be little disagreement that private-sector entrepreneurs are more effective creators of new jobs than politicians are. But entrepreneurial success requires three ingredients: New ideas, sufficient drive, and adequate funding. With all three, entrepreneurs can develop new products and bring them to market, creating lasting new jobs when that process succeeds. Unfortunately, it’s the rule rather than the exception that the typical entrepreneur lacks the third necessary ingredient: Adequate funding. He or she may possess the idea and the initiative, but the necessary funding must come from an outside source. Should the government use higher taxation to forcibly extract additional money from the already-prosperous, then somehow allocate it back into the private sector as the bureaus and agencies see fit? At the macro level, solving the problem of creating millions of new private-sector jobs requires matching thousands of potentially successful entrepreneurs with the funding they need. When this match is made, the typical entrepreneur—far from starting out rich and then deciding to let money “trickle down”— starts by deciding to take on a big risk, then obtains the funding, and then dishes out a gusher of other people’s money to new suppliers and new employees. If unsuccessful, the entrepreneur is the first one to go broke; if successful, he or she is the last one to benefit. In short, the money gushes outward long before success or failure for the risk-taker becomes evident, and therefore long before the entrepreneur can be judged “rich” or “poor.” Via: The American Continue Reading...

Poll: Number of Americans Who Consider Themselves Republicans Hits Record High…

After falling for two straight months, the number of Americans who consider themselves Republicans jumped nearly three points in August.

During August, 37.6% of Americans considered themselves Republicans. That’s up from 34.9% in July  and 35.4% in June. It’s also the largest number of Republicans ever recorded by Rasmussen Report since monthly tracking began in November 2002. The previous peak for the GOP was 37.3% in September 2004. See History of Party Trends.

Via: Rasmussen Reports