The Central Pacific was as crooked as the UP and Credit Mobilier, but wisely burned all of their records, before Congress could look at the reason the Big Four got so rich so fast on the construction contracts.

Several of these CHSRA critics are way too negative, and too focused on a "my alternative is better than your alternative" argument, and thus, not very constructive in changing the way the incompetent and possibly corrupt CHSRA does business or makes decisions. But, have no doubt the continous problems, poor planning, lack of oversight, lack of accounability, and very real danger of massive cost overruns from this incompetence at CHSRA are a very real concern.

Right now, no true "Private Partner" is willing to share true "risk" by investing in this project, because of the incompetent design, resultant astronomical costs, and the ludicrous business plan, with inflated and unrealistic ridership. I will probably get posts contradicting that, because there are still plenty of firms that will "partner" with the State and gladly take as much of our money, as they can get the taxpayers to make the bond payments on. That would not be a private "investment" stake, however, that is a sweetheart deal to get around contract steering laws.

We need this for our future, but we need to do it right, and we need a competent and accountable process to prevent our tax dollars from being stolen by a boondoggle.

And, yes, we Americans can do these things. McCain's grandfather built and equipped 100+ aircraft carriers, and the US put together a 14 million man force, supported most of our allies, and in just 4 years we won WWII. We built 90% of the interstate system in less than 20 years. We went to the moon in 10 years. We are not an inherently corrupt and incompetent people, we are Americans.

We did these things right, with vision, clear goals, an accountable process, competitive contracting, and good leadership. CHSRA has lacked all of those things, thus far.