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sputknick

In the article it says the cost for the entire project is currently $64 B. I can't fathom that kind of money

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California spends that much on our roads every four years. It is hardly unimaginable.

Divide $64 billion by 30 years.

That makes it a lot more reasonable, thank you.

But then add operating costs and debt service over 30 years.

And then subtract fares.

http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/about/ridership/ridership_revenue...

Subtract actual farebox revenues, yes. But I don't expect that their revenue projections are any more accurate than their cost estimates were.

Think of it this way... we’re going to end up spending about $7 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan having accomplished essentially nothing good.

$64billion is a rounding error for our government.

That doesn't really work though. If you earn 70k a year, $640 isn't a rounding error, that's still a significant part of your budget.

Yeah, but we’re not talking about total budget, not even the total military budget; that’s $7 trilllion just on two losing wars. You need to lose another decimal place, and remember that you also print your own money and can levy taxes.

If you don't consider the 20T of growing debt, sure. At what point do we ever care about the budget at all then? Asking as an opponent of the wars.

Care about budgets, and cut the waste such as losing wars and corrupt, broken nonsense like the F-35. Care about price controls in the health sector, and care about investing in infrastructure.

You are confusing the Federal government with the CA state government.

Try dividing it by 50: every state could get two of these projects with half a trillion left over for DC and the territories. That’s even before you factor in that California’s population and economy would merit a larger chunk than, say, South Dakota.

Seems like a better deal than paying to destabilize a region and create a lot of long-term enemies.

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