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Florida’s Rick Scott Pulls The Plug On High Speed Rail.

Florida’s new Governor, Rick Scott turned down the Feds offer of  $432 million of Obama’s “winning the future” stimulus funds this week, as announced during the unveiling of his state budget proposal. Governor referred to the project as a recipe for disaster, while facing down the Obama administration as being “addicted to spending.” Florida has followed Wisconsin and Ohio Republican Governors in refusing to accept federal funds that would lead to bloated, expensive additions to deficits that are already at historic highs. Governor Scott was elected to get spending under control, and he appears determined to do just that, with the help of a Republican majority in the Florida House and Senate. That luxury also leaves Scott without any wiggle room, or excuses for not making the cuts necessary to repair Florida’s sluggish economy. His common sense approach is quite refreshing in his latest statements on the cancellation of the high speed rail project.

“I was elected to get Floridians back to work and to change the way government does business in our state.” And Governor Scott explained exactly why he turned down the federal funds; “Capital cost overruns that could put Florida taxpayers on the hook for an additional $3 billion,” “overly optimistic” ridership and revenue projections, and $2.4 billion owed to the feds if the project “becomes too costly for taxpayers and is shut down.”

There is that same catch that caused Governor Christie to stop the New Jersey to New York high speed rail project.  The truth is that they failed to do any true Life-Cycle budget and revenue projections for proper cost analysis. Add to that the fact that when it becomes proven to be too expensive to complete, the taxpayers would still be on the hook for $2.4 Billion dollars and this truly had all the makings of a disaster!  Thank you Governor Scott, I sure am glad I voted for you, instead of high-speed-rail-at-any-cost, Democrat  Alex Sink!

Governor Scott is a realist when it comes to Florida’s revenue, and also sums up a fact that the federal Government needs to be reminded of when he said, “Government has no resources of its own. Government can only give to us what it has previously taken from us… Higher taxes and more government spending is a recipe for disaster. Government has become addicted to spending beyond its means and we cannot continue this flawed policy.”  The fact that this was still being pushed onto the backs of Floridians, even though we voted down a tax to help pay for this project just last year, is very indicative on just how out of touch our Governments have become today. What part of  “No high-speed rail”  do you people not understand? Apparently, we still have some further house-cleaning to do in our State legislature in 2012. Those names will be duly noted and published, as we get closer to the 2012 elections. We the people of Florida, and across America are tired of being ignored, and being told that career politicians know better than we do on how to spend OUR tax dollars.

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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2 Comments

  1. What a major mistake! For someone who ran on creating jobs this a curious move. He is running the state like a corporate dictator and allowing his personal agenda to cloud his decisions about what’s best for this state. High speed rail would help tourism tremendously, improve standard of living (which corporations note when locating) and of course create thousands of badly needed construction jobs. Scott’s figures and concerns are pure fantasy. At most the state’s contribution would be no more than one-tenth of overall cost.

    Anyone who makes the frustrating drive between Tampa and Orlando can tell you it’s desperately needed and will be used. Especially when gas rises to more than $5 a gallon.

  2. Hi Amy,

    How does Scotts “personal agenda” fit into the Feds putting out 430 million and putting taxpayers here on the hook for 3.2 billion dollars? ( Just for starters) Sure jobs are great, but at what cost? 60 million for a temp job? Did you read the whole piece here? Do you understand about maintenance and over-run costs always prevelant in these projects?
    Do you understand that there is only one rail project similar to this that even comes close to breaking even and it is in heavily populated Toronto Canada? We dont have the population to even come close to the fake revenue “projections” within the plans for this project by those trying to sell it.

    Scott is a businessman, not a politician throwing taxpayer dollars down a black hole irresponsibly. He has no agenda other than making this state economically sound.I live near Tampa.My brother is in Orlando.I worked in Orlando for 5 years off of University drive. FYI- Scott wanted to see about using the funds to widen I-4 and I-75, and the feds said NO! Now why would they do that? Because they are the ones with the agenda here when we look at the big picture, instead of denying the reality of how government has a complete history of appropiating funds for projects and cost over-runs end up costing 10, 20 even 50 times higher than projected! This isnt luring tourism from Tampa to Orlanda or vice versa either. That statement is a joke that holds no basis in reality in conjunction with what I have seen in 28 years near Tampa and also living in Orlando.

    People might want to acknowledge that Florida voters turned down high-speed rail last November also.So the voters say no, and we are supposed to be over-ruled by a minority working with Tyrants wanting to put us billions more in debt? Thats not how things work in America and Florida. It is the people’s money, they have said no to this boondoggle, and now Governor Scott has done the right thing and delivered a great decision!

    PS: If you are concerned about the price of gasoline maybe you should be writing to Obama and demanding that he release the 600 oil drilling permits he has illegally suspended against a federal judges ruling.
    As far as Scott’s figures being fantasy? Put up some facts to back that statement up and I just might take you seriously. Until then you have basically been a Scott basher along the standard liberal lines of denial of reality. Hope and Change hasn’t got us “winning the future”, nope, instead it has us 14.5 trillion dollars in debt with another 1.6 TRILLION for this year projected by the CBO.

    Thank God we didn’t let that big government Liberal Alex Sink near Talahasee!

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