I can imagine what will happen to our credit rating if we start issuing bonds indiscriminately like that. We will just keep on issuing them until the project is complete. If that doesn't bankrupt us it will certainly put an extreme heavy burden on the present taxpayers and their children in the future and cause our credit rating to drop causing us to issue bonds at higher rates. This may actually be a worse idea than the increase in property taxes. 

Don't worry, that's not a problem for the "progressives". They have even more extensive plans to confiscate increasing percentages of the wealth/income earned by people with jobs in order to redistribute to the "needy", which includes the contractors and other businesses who generously donate to their campaigns. For them bankruptcy (indicating "the failure of capitalism") is a sign that the "revolution" is working (see: Venezuela). As said (simplified version) by Margaret Thatcher: "The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money". If they cared about "ordinary" people, this would be a problem. They don't. They have another, far more "important", agenda.

And not just the progressives... the (few) Republicans are in on it too...

Leeward GOP silence over rail missteps is deafening

Here's the Hawaii Free Press commentary on the original article. (HFP article contains links to original article and several others related...7th article down: http://hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesDailyNews/tabid/65/ID/19804/June-11-2017-News-Read.aspx):

Shapiro: …Rep. Bob McDermott, one of five Republican state legislators and a candidate for governor next year, ripped Gov. David Ige for not immediately calling a special legislative session to ram through another rail excise tax extension for a project that’s nearly $5 billion over budget and growing.

He dismissed concerns of House Democrats about indefinitely extending a tax that was promised to last only 15 years by saying, “We’re already paying it, and the sky isn’t falling.” …

Now there’s a rock-ribbed Republican tax philosophy.

(Ex-Republican) City Councilwoman Kymberly Pine, the only Republican on the Council and a future mayoral aspirant, promised a year ago to present a plan to finish rail all the way to Ala Moana without further tax increases.

But there she was during the Legislature, prominent at Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s side, pressing for some $3 billion in new taxing authority for rail while soft-pedaling the gross mismanagement and broken promises….

It’s no surprise, or a problem, that McDermott and Pine support rail; they both represent West Oahu districts that benefit most from the train.

The problem is their lack of leadership you’d expect from an opposition party in demanding the city correct its clueless rail management and out-of-control spending.

McDermott’s essay in Honolulu Civil Beat pitching more taxes to finish rail didn’t have a single word calling for better cost efficiency.

Leeward lawmakers who have the most at stake should have protected rail by voicing the loudest demands for responsible cost management.

Instead, they kept mostly silent as missteps multiplied, enabling the city to avert needed course corrections. If rail fails, it’s on them.

The only current elected Republican to come down hard on rail accountability is Rep. Cynthia Thielen, who says extending the excise tax would “convert a disappointment into a disaster” and reward “reckless hubris and aggressive incompetence.”….….

Rep. Cynthia Thielen talks with retired law professor Randall Roth about the rail system. Good summary of the absurdity of it all. Cost for average family of four: $25,000 (exclusive of the $200 million per year operating and renovation budget and based upon likely extremely high overestimate of actual ridership (the last rail project the "expert" for the Honoluly rail worked on had an actual ridership of 25% of the "expert's" projected ridership)).

The whole thing is completely insane and could only happen as a government project where they take people's money at the point of a gun.

After watching the video interview, this rail project is even more F'd up than I imagined.  I am glad I no longer live on Oahu.  I feel sorry for my many friends on the Windward side where I used to live.  They will get no benefit but still have to bear the cost.

I knew it.
As I thought all along.
I'd be comfortable knowing everyone will be taking the rail so that I can have the freeways to myself...
I wonder how much people think like I do...

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/35731875/rail-critics-raise-transparency-concerns-at-hart-board-meeting

Honolulu rail clearly a fiasco

http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/19892/Honolulu-rail-clearly-a-fiasco.aspx

by Mark Coleman, Grassroot Institute, June 27, 2017

There so many good reasons to be skeptical about Honolulu’s still-under-construction rail project that it’s surprising the City and County of Honolulu was even able to get this wildly over-budget undertaking off the drawing table.

What are some of those reasons?

[Long list follows, with references.]

Video interview with the author:

http://hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/20007/Grassroot-Special-Session-Should-Order-Rail-Audit.aspx

I drove by the site of the previous precast yard for the guide rail segments yesterday. The precast yard has been completely dismantled and removed from the site. It took the previous contractor over a year to build the precast yard, concrete plant and quality control lab and man everything. It took several more months to organize and develop the methodologies to make it run it at optimum speed and efficiently. I don't know if the new contractor has a different plan that can ramp up faster but assuming they don't it will be another year or two before we begin to see anything significant happen on the second half of the rail. The longer it takes the more it costs.

Every time I read or hear about rail problems I laugh.  Been laughing a lot lately. Hehehe.

Here is another article claiming we have the money to pay for rail without having to raise taxes...

http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/20017/16B-Available-to-Pay-for-Rail--Without-Raising-Taxes.aspx?utm_source=July+30%2C+2017+News+from+Hawaii+Free+Press&utm_campaign=July+30%2C+2017+Email+&utm_medium=email

Here is another article claiming we have the money to pay for rail without having to raise taxes...

http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/20017/16B-Available-to-Pay-for-Rail--Without-Raising-Taxes.aspx?utm_source=July+30%2C+2017+News+from+Hawaii+Free+Press&utm_campaign=July+30%2C+2017+Email+&utm_medium=email

Was watching a show on Netflix this past weekend while I was waiting for some work to get done on my car.  It's called Scam City, where this guy goes around the world and "researches" the various scams at popular tourist destinations.  Anyways, he often tries to get his money back after getting scammed.  Yeah, that usually works out well.   

Was watching a show on Netflix this past weekend while I was waiting for some work to get done on my car.  It's called Scam City, where this guy goes around the world and "researches" the various scams at popular tourist destinations.  Anyways, he often tries to get his money back after getting scammed.  Yeah, that usually works out well.   

So what your saying is that Honolulu's new nickname is "Scam City".

True dat.

Seriously.

So what your saying is that Honolulu's new nickname is "Scam City".

True dat.

Seriously.

Unfortunately, yeah. . . 

Unfortunately, yeah. . . 

Don't look so sad DRCK, you know it could be worse...

We could be in the same position as Chicago or Detroit!!! 

Don't look so sad DRCK, you know it could be worse...

We could be in the same position as Chicago or Detroit!!! 

Chicago dogs. . . Mmmmm!!! 

Chicago dogs. . . Mmmmm!!! 

Darn you making me hungry! 

Don't look so sad DRCK, you know it could be worse...

We could be in the same position as Chicago or Detroit!!! 

Permit not required to own,carry and discharge a firearm at others in public?
 

Ooops, that was bad.

Darn you making me hungry! 

Ahhh. . . I'm still on a diet now, so salad and fruit for lunch. . .

Maybe with bringing home lunch, I can save enough to pay for rail.   

*ssholes. FOAD.

Lawmakers Plan for Neighbor Islands to Pay for Rail

http://hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/20084/Full-Text-Lawmaker-Leaks-Plan-to-Make-Sister-Isles-Pay-for-Rail--Public-Hearing-Set.aspx

*ssholes. FOAD.

Lawmakers Plan for Neighbor Islands to Pay for Rail

http://hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/20084/Full-Text-Lawmaker-Leaks-Plan-to-Make-Sister-Isles-Pay-for-Rail--Public-Hearing-Set.aspx

You had to know they would try. They don't have the taxes necessary to even run the thing once its built. Look for more attempts to have the rest of the state pay for this debacle.

You had to know they would try. They don't have the taxes necessary to even run the thing once its built. Look for more attempts to have the rest of the state pay for this debacle.

Heard them discussing this on NPR (or maybe it was on HNN) this morning.  Something about how the rail will boost overall tourism to Hawaii and that will translate to more visitors to neighbor islands.  But that's also not quite how funds are distributed.