Doubling Down on Stupid

What do you do after you tell your agencies to prepare for a 10% across the board budget cut in preparation for an $8 billion budget shortfall?

If your answer is "spend money on stupid stuff", congratulations, you can be Ted Strickland's next political appointee.

Toledo is now being considered as a city Ohio would like to connect as part of its developing passenger rail project.

The state signed a $7.8 million contract with an engineering firm to study new routes that would branch off from Ohio's marquee federal stimulus project -- a $400 million rail system.

Idiots.

To begin, I won't bother getting into all the negatives of the $400 million 3-C rail project. We all know them already.

But what I do want to focus on is the waste of even more taxpayer dollars to study the next step of something that doesn't even have a plan yet.

Remember, earlier this month we learned planning for the 3-C project is waaaaayyy behind schedule.

Some 10 weeks after lawmakers approved a $25 million study of passenger rail service linking Ohio's largest cities, the state has yet to ink a contract with the firm picked to do the study, raising fresh questions about the 2011 goal for getting the trains running.

So now Strickland finds it fitting to spend even more money to plan for something that doesn't even exist yet? Seriously?

Next time you see him, can someone please remind the Governor that we have an $8 billion shortfall that's looking meaner than a Mel Gibson conversation with his girlfriend?