Rail tax income down, Mufi's Rail plan to continues anyway
Posted by Tony Kawaguchi, RA on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 1:24pm.I guess at this point, the Rail program is about as hard to stop as an oncoming train, but today the Honolulu Advertiser reported that "Tax collections needed to build Honolulu's planned $5.5 billion elevated rail transit line fell 30 percent in October from a year earlier. The total collected — $8.9 million — was the lowest amount since February 2007, when just $2.2 million was collected during the second month after the excise tax surcharge was enacted."
If a person put their business or family in a position to spend money they didn't have with no prospect of being able to pay it back, we would call them stupid. In the case of the Rail program, we call that - government.
The explanation from City officials seems almost like sarcasm - They "have said that they expect lower transit tax collections to be offset by lower construction costs and a future economic rebound. The city also plans to rely on increased federal funding — including diverting $305 million in federal money intended for TheBus — to help make up for the lower-than-anticipated tax revenue."
I'm sure at least a couple hundred people will ride the Rail everyday. Sure, that's worth $5billion of taxpayer money, isn't it?
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