Dear Editor,
“Miracles” in mass transit are whenever taxpayers’ subsidies are less than 90 percent of fully amortized costs; Amtrak and Caltrain subsidies are running about 99 percent, VTA Lite Rail even higher, so what kind of a “gift” is the High Speed Trojan Horse, with a price-tag about $160 billion plus interest on the state and federal bonds.
That’s just for starters. Then there’s the $4 billion annual operating subsidy, based on recent boondoggle experience from former Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon’s American Public Transit Association’s members like the Valley Transportation Authority.
We cannot even pay for the pension obligations that our leaders have crucified this and future generations for, so how in hell are we going to survive with the anvil boondoggle, albatross boondoggle, bullet train tied around our necks, our children’s necks, and their children’s necks?
If Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism didn’t work in the USSR, what makes our leaders think that it will work here? Can’t our leaders learn from the history of the last century?
Joseph P. Thompson, Gilroy
