First "Shovel Ready Stimulus Project" in Nevada

No. 6 -- VIRGINIA AND TRUCKEE RAILWAY -- Nevada Railroad Reconstruction Chronicles

A detail from the mid-May budget meeting of the Nevada Commission to Reconstruct the Virginia and Truckee Railway...

The Commission is supposed to be receiving $3 million from the ARRA / stimulus package, otherwise affectionately known as "porkulus." Commission Chairman Bob Hadfield says this will the the first project to get started in Nevada using stimulus money. He said another $20 million will be coming behind that.


Here's a link to the full list of NDOT funded Nevada projects:

ARRA-Nevada-NDOT-stimulus.pdf

Notice a couple things:

First, the V&T Commission has jumped in front of the Highway 395 project in Carson City, which still awaits funding. The 395 freeway is only built halfway into Carson City, going south you exit on Highway 50. It's supposed to continue south a few miles and relieve traffic congestion. This project has been in the works for years, and has lacked funding for a long time. They certainly are "shovel-ready." How a poorly planned, poorly managed, well over budget questionable tourist railroad got funding over a clear highway project is beyond me.

Second, notice that these highway funds are being used to continue a tourist railroad. Now go read the recovery.gov website, if they disclose this funding to an over-budget boondoggle of a railroad, I can't find it. The site says DOT/FHWA ARRA/stimulus grants are for highway projects. Because this is a continuation of TEA-21/ISTEA funding, rail-oriented commuter projects also qualify. There's even a way for transportation musuems to get funded.

Now that brings us to a really sore point. The Nevada State Railroad Museum has been begging for funds for a long time. The rumor is they are going to cut back hours this year due to budget shortfalls. Certainly they have drastically cut back their steam operations in favor of motorcar operations.

While the museum must go through the normal legislative process, the V&T Re-con project was able to bypass the Nevada Legislature. This $3 million in funding comes courtesy of the Nevada State Transportation Board. That's right, a committee of unelected members picks and chooses where this money will go.

(MORE DETAIL HERE AND IN THIS POST: V&T Serving Public Transportation Needs?

On my initial checks, I called the State Transportation Board and unelected body, like the V&T Reconstruction Commission. I turns out that the STB is the same as the Nevada Department of Transportation Board of Directors. This includes Governor Jim Gibbons, Attorney General Katherine Cortez Masto, Lt. Governor Brian Krolicki and State Controller Kim Wallin. This board of Directors approved the NDOT Stimulus project list with almost no debate or dissent, as that top level board doesn't dig very deep into the ARRA spending staff recommendations. Also, at some level, I am told these spending recommendations are passed through the Nevada State Assembly and Senate Transportation Committees. I am still pulling the minutes of those meetings to see if there was discussion or if these committees simply rubber-stamp the STACC lists.

END OF MORE DETAIL, SEE LINKED POST FOR MORE EXCRUCIATING DETAIL)

One more subject before I wrap up this post. Let's follow the money.

The V&T people will tell you how much stimulative effect this project has in Nevada. I will post some reports I wrote and link them here later, for now let's consider that most of their projects have gone to Granite Construction. While Granite employs locals, they are a publicly traded corporation in Watsonville. They have an international shareholder base. All of the profit goes out of state.

It's true that the current Phase 2C of the project is being done by Q&D, a company based in Sparks, Nevada. Hopefully they get the next phase. But the trackbuilder has almost always been H&H Trackbuilders, a California based company. While some of the money goes to local motels to house the out-of-state employees, the bulk of their paychecks goes to stimulate California, not Nevada.

This whole stimulus plan is based on Keynesian economics, which has been proven wrong over and over again. Despite this, it gives government a cheap excuse to print and spend money so your kids will pay the bill. Currently the velocity of money is not that high, so the stimulative effect is lessened even more.

If goverment could really take a dollar and create many dollars in economic activity, why don't we just pay 100% taxes?