Florida's CSX deal..from $491 million in 2006, to $650 million in 08, to 2.6 billion this year.
And as this powerful editorial in The Ledger today points out....no one in the Republican legislature really pays much attention to it. It will bring much damage to the way of life in Central Florida along the I-4 Corridor...politicians don't seem concerned.
CSX Sunrail deal grows unaffordable.All of this nonchalance by our politicians toward this massive rail expansion at the public's expense....all of this during one of the worst times in Florida's economic history.
Questions already swirl about the enormity of the project's price tag. So far, the Florida Department of Transportation is prepared to dole out$795 million in state money - $432 million to CSX for acquisition of its A Line and to make improvements on CSX's other Florida tracks.
Meanwhile, local governments in Orange, Volusia, Seminole and Osceola counties are on tap to kick in another $764 million toward the project. Add to that hundreds of millions in federal matching money, and start-up and operational costs, and the state DOT's own estimate for the total tab for getting SunRail up and going comes in at about $2.6 billion.
Remember, too, that this started out as a $491 million deal in 2006. By last spring, it was at $650 million. Now, by the state DOT's own figures, the total buildout carries a price tag of $2.6 billion. Yet many legislators in Tallahassee seem unconcerned.
All in the midst of the state's worst financial crisis in memory - maybe history. All with little public debate or vetting.RIDERSHIP ESTIMATESNow comes ridership projections from the Florida Department of Transportation. If anything should cause the Legislature to pause and take stock of this massive public-works proposal and its potential return on investment, it is this analysis. The DOT projects that by 2030 - that's right, two decades from now - an estimated 14,500 passengers a day would use SunRail. That from a metropolitan area whose population is forecast to be about 3.5 million in 2030.
All that money and corporate socialism directed toward CSX to only take 14,500 passengers off the interstate in 20 years?
This is ridiculous. Charlie Crist could stop it, but he does not seem inclined.
As we have lamented in this space before, teachers are being laid off, health care is being curtailed, unemployment insurance and food stamp requests are soaring, schools are closing and public-safety positions are being left vacant, yet our lawmakers seem unbothered by the prospect of spending billions on a commuter rail line that in 20 years is projected to serve just 14,500 Central Floridians daily.
This same paper has been almost a lone voice. It has condemned this outlay of cash before.
Outrage. Florida's economy crashes, state holds $795 million in cool cash for CSX.Who, exactly, is running state government, and what happened to checks and balances?
Good question, and the answer is no one is really in charge. They are all running around like headless chickens, each one claiming to be the most conservative government-hating Republican of all.
While Florida lawmakers were making a billion-dollar raid on trust funds, draining the state's rainy-day fund, and slashing education, health care and social services last week to balance the state budget, the Department of Transportation was sitting on a cool $795 million in ready cash set aside for a sweetheart deal that may not even come to fruition.
The money is in hand and awaiting finalization of a deal between the DOT and CSX that would create a commuter line in the Orlando area. The state's plan to buy 61 miles of rail line for the Orlando commuter train would force CSX to shift much of its freight traffic to its S Line, which travels through the center of the state, including Lakeland, and already carries a large number of trains daily.
What is puzzling about the CSX deal is that, to hear our lawmakers talk, it hinges on resolving a question of liability when CSX uses the Orlando commuter rails on off-peak hours. Why aren't the fiscal conservatives or the fiscally responsible in Tallahassee asking why the state of Florida is paying a national corporation that made a record $2.2 billion profit last year - up 26 percent from the year before, incidentally - so much for a project that some observers say could be done for one-third or less than the current price tag?
This is
corporate socialism at its worst.As state Rep. Curtis Richardson, D-Tallahassee, complained last week: "Over the past eight years we have given $18 billion in tax relief to the richest 2 percent of our population and corporate special interests. Now that the economic times have turned, we choose to place the burden on balancing the budget on those who are least able to afford it."
..."The only sure winners in such public-private accommodations are the corporate owners and executives who use public dollars to offset their internal costs and artificially pad their bottom lines. Aren’t they clever?
This is one of Jeb's
legacies to Florida.Much of the funding for the $491 million, a first-of-a-kind deal for a private company, was accomplished in the 2005 session of the Florida Legislature. The Tampa Tribune reported in its Nov. 28 edition that few legislators knew of the Bush-backed Senate Bill 360 where the funding was inserted just before midnight on the last day of the legislative session, May 6.
Perhaps it's worth knowing that Ward's CSX predecessor was John Snow, who left CSX to head up the U.S. Treasury Department for Gov. Bush's brother, President George W. Bush.
It helps to have friends in high places.
The Florida Democrats need to yell and holler on this.
The Florida Republicans need to start caring more about our state and less about their ideology....
and Charlie Crist needs to act like a governor and veto everything to do with this project for now.
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