On July 6, 2012, Judy Lin writes on the Associated Press Web site that California lawmakers approved billions of dollars Friday in construction financing for the initial segment of what would be the nation’s first dedicated high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The state Senate voted 21-16 on a party-line vote after intense lobbying by Gov. Jerry Brown, Democratic leaders and labor groups.
The bill authorizes the state to begin selling $4.5 billion in voter-approved bonds that includes $2.6 billion to build an initial 130-mile stretch of the high-speed rail line in the Central Valley. That will allow the state to collect another $3.2 billion in federal funding that could have been rescinded if lawmakers failed to act Friday.
“The Legislature took bold action today that gets Californians back to work and puts California out in front once again,” Brown said in a statement. He later celebrated with Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, a fellow Democrat.
Brown pushed for the massive infrastructure project to accommodate expected population growth in the nation’s most populous state, which now has 37 million people. He said the project is sorely needed to create jobs in a region with higher-than-average unemployment.
The bill, which passed the state Assembly on Thursday, now heads to Brown for his signature.
Once again, taxpayer monies and pledges are being allocated to enrich private sector productive capital ownership interests in the name of “job creation,” instead of ensuring that the infrastructure project is financed so that the companies benefiting from the public-supported contracts broaden ownership in the resulting productive capital assets.
Today we accept as normal public ownership of gigantic capital instruments like mass rail, subways, government office buildings, universities, water systems, and power systems. These government-owned enterprises and services could be transformed into competitive private sector companies managed by Private Facilities Corporations with the use of the asset or facility leased to the normal using body. The wages of the Private Facilities Corporation(s) are passed through to the leasing body. This would allow us to build the ownership of what is now public capital into individuals and reduce the cost of government, including public pension systems. Thus, when you build the ownership into the employees of the Private Facilities Corporation(s), who now have a vested interest in its quality of operation and maintenance, the contracted lease rental fee committed by the government entity will give the employee stockholders a reasonable return and lesson or replace the need for supplemental redistribution programs.
