By Jordan Melnick | February 19th, 2011 | 5 Comments

Dear Governor Scott,

It’s one thing for you to deprive Floridians of the comfort of knowing they have an earthling, eyelids and all, in the Governor’s Mansion. It’s quite another to deprive them of a really cool toy like a bullet train (see below) to appease the Tea Party. Do you not realize they won’t be happy until we retrogress to wagons and galleys?

Listen: I acknowledge the existential absurdity of a train that carries passengers between Tampa and Orlando — two places no human deserves to be — at 160 mph. But how does turning down $2.4 billion in federal dough for a project that will employ thousands of Floridians square with “Let’s Get to Work”? And I know you’re very concerned about the debt — that whole historic Medicare fraud thing notwithstanding — but how does forfeiting the $2.4 billion to California help balance the nation’s books? I can’t make sense of any of it without reaching the cynical conclusion that it’s simply a cold calculation made in the interest of keeping your own job. Which, you know, could backfire. And I don’t think there is a train out of Tallahassee, let alone a bullet.

Sincerely,

A Lowly Lad of the Lidded Masses

Update: Eureka!