Walker to Spend over $25 million of taxpayer money on Railroads, equivalent to 34 years of high speed rail costs. Brilliant.

Republican economics crashed the global economy; Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Republican Senate and House lawmakers have admitted their culpability in testimony and in the press.

Now we can add Scott Walker to the list of bad fiscal planners. The facts are clear when it comes to our railroads. Taxpayers are 100 percent on the hook for track maintenance now, forever and ever.

Dailyreporter: Gov. Scott Walker has announced 11 state awards totaling $25,515,123 that will be used to build freight rail-related facilities, and preserve and upgrade rail infrastructure.

That’s our money, Wisconsin taxpayer money. It didn’t have to be that way:

Jsonline: Walker turned down $810 million for upgrading rail in Wisconsin, with only a small percentage of maintenance costs shared by the state. Walker has said he doesn't want the state to pay $7.5 million a year in operating costs. A state transportation official has said federal aid could cover as much as 90% of that amount, as it does with the Hiawatha.

Let’s compare the numbers. Walker’s current plan spends $25,515,123 of taxpayer money for state rail support. That doesn’t include future maintenance costs once the upgrades are made.

Now let's go back in time. If the state saved 90% of the estimated costs per year for high speed rail, that would require the state to come up with $750,000 now and in the future. That would be equivalent to 34 years of maintenance costs for high speed rail if compared to Walker’s current $25 million spending plan. 

If you were to include economic development income injected into the economy built around the high speed rail corridor, we might be even better off. But I guess we’ll never know.  

Republican economics is not penny wise, but entirely pound foolish.