Californians Smell Railrunner Skunk

Newsmax - A majority of voters no longer support building a $68 billion high-speed passenger rail system connecting California’s population centers, a new poll shows, even as Governor Jerry Brown is pushing the project forward. While 53 percent of voters approved a bond issue for the project in 2008, a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll published in yesterday’s edition of the newspaper, found that 59 percent would oppose it if given another chance to vote.

Jerry Brown

Brown, a 74-year-old Democrat, allocated some of the $9.95 billion of bonds for the system in his budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, even though a deficit in the spending plan has ballooned to $15.7 billion. He wants voters to increase sales and income taxes or slash 3 weeks off the school year while still spending money on the rail line.

“California voters have clearly reconsidered their support for high-speed rail,” said Dan Schnur, director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll and director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at University of Southern California. “They want the chance to vote again -— and they want to vote no. The growing budget deficit is making Californians hesitant about spending so much money on a project like this one when they’re seeing cuts to public education and law enforcement.” Read full story here: News New Mexico

Californians Smell Railrunner Skunk