You will recall that late Friday afternoon a story made the rounds (and was repeated on this blog) that Florida had been given one more week to come up with a proposal to acquire the $2.4 billion in federal funds to begin a high speed rail line from Tampa to Orlando.
The way the story came down via the press never seemed to make much sense: that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood had "given" Florida officials one more week to come up with a plan to get that rail money.
But as anyone following this saga knows, it's not Ray LaHood that is holding up this deal. It's Florida Governor Rick Scott, who has let any reporter who asks him know that he still hasn't change his mind one iota since he announced 12 days ago that he thought the deal was a bad one for Florida taxpayers.
As recently as last night and today , when he was a guest at the White House, the Governor reportedly blew off pitches by President Obama that high speed rail is an amazing thing, telling the St. Pete Times that "I'm still not convinced."
Nevertheless, a stalwart group of elected officials in Florida are doing whatever they can in believing that maybe the Governor really deep down does want to be convinced about rail.
This afternoon Hillsborough area Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor sent a letter to Scott, quoting extensive passages from famed investor Warren Buffett's annual newsletter to his shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway that was published on Saturday. In his newsletter, Buffett wrote that he was most pleased about his company's purchase of Burlington Northern Sante Fe, writing that "When traffic travels by rail, society benefits."
