In the first full week of January, CL posted a piece on a report released by the Liberatarian Reason Foundation that gave a "Florida taxpayer risk assessment" written by Wendell Cox and Robert Poole. Cox, who attended a Tampa Tea Party event back in September which featured former County Commissioner Brian Blair and others assembled to oppose the Hillsborough County transit tax, is a virulent critic of light rail and high speed rail.
It wouldn't be surprising if Rick Scott and/or his aides took notice of the Reason report. However, the phrasing that Scott employed on Wednesday morning in announcing he would vote no is eerily similar to what the Reason report surmised. Check it out.
Reason wrote:
Florida taxpayers face two potentially significant financial risks from the project:
1. Capital Cost Escalation: If construction cost projections prove overly optimistic, costs could increase substantially from the current estimates. The state of Florida would be responsible for virtually all of any such increase. This report estimates that the cost to Florida taxpayers could be $3 billion more than currently projected.
2. Operating Subsidy Liability: If ridership and revenue projections prove overly optimistic, it could become necessary for the state to provide an annual operating subsidy for the service. A state operating subsidy could also be necessitated by operating costs that are greater than projected. This risk could easily run into the hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
On Wednesday, Scott said:
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2011.