Zorn: romance v reality for trains. Yesterday was resistance to you keeping your money, apparently none for them redistributing yours though. Lastly: a plum graft update.
Romance vs Reality Indeed.
I really enjoyed the RM Voice op ed linked below because of its focus on numbers.
I have shared the Lord Kelvin quote attached to this post before. It's just as true when it comes to railroads as it is for many other endeavors.
Paraphrasing and straying form it a little, if you want to truly understand something, phrase it in the language of numbers.
And, as Mr. Zorn has it below, the numbers on rail don't look encouraging.
https://rockymountainvoice.com/2024/06/zorn-colorados-passenger-rail-romance-vs-reality/
Last minute addition:
I heard from the author who told me he did an expanded version after the first version linked in this post. See below.
https://gazette.com/opinion/perspective-rail-vs-reality/article_f0dde032-2431-11ef-9aa0-8bff46adc86f.html#google_vignette
The redistributive measures passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Polis may eat up your TABOR refund.
I posted a lot about the government saying that cuts in property taxes would mean drastic cuts to government services.
I wanted to follow on that today with the Axios article linked below.
While the State's Budget Director bemoans a property tax initiative that would lower your property taxes and ease a burden on you as catastrophic to the government's ability to keep the lights on, the tax credits put into law by the Democrats and signed by Polis, threaten the same budget AND your state TABOR surplus/refunds.
Maybe that part of the budget director's speech fell out of his briefcase.
Quoting from the Axios breezer:
"Greg Sobetski, the chief legislative economist, called the reductions in revenue caused by the new tax credits 'enormous' and noted it will create more risks to the state's budget in future years."
and
"The size of the tax breaks is already generating concern from lawmakers because it's contributing to a $164 million shortfall in the current budget. State law requires a 15% reserve but it now sits at 13.5%."
If you have the feeling that many running this state think that you are there to serve them, that you exist mostly to fund their profligate spending, you are not alone.
https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2024/06/20/colorado-tax-breaks-eliminate-tabor-refunds
An update on my plum grafts.
I posted earlier about how I grafted some plum scions onto my apricot tree (as well as taking the sticks I cut off the apricot to graft to my sour cherry).
Well, it turns out I was wrong about what I'd written. I thought some of the grafts would take and were just slow, but I kept waiting and waiting and after about 8 weeks decided to unwrap. Nope. All of them failed but one. One plum scion took and is growing on the apricot.
Picture 1 is a close up of the graft joint (boxed in red) between the apricot and the plum. Picture 2 shows the scion with a lot of growth. It's really growing well (of course, you can also see the scars from where our hail storm pounded it).
I had hoped for better of course, but remain proud that I got one to work. Now that I have a taste for it, I intend to try again next spring.
Instead of pruning some of the branches on my pears (you prune espalier trees a couple times year), I'm going to leave a couple on and use them as scions to interchange among the two trees. I'd like to make each tree self fertile.
I'm also going to try and order (or collect from colleagues with mature trees) some more and different plum (as well as some peach) scions to try grafting into my sour cherry and apricot.
I'll have a couple fruit salad trees if all goes to plan: a variety of fruits without having to have a whole lot of trees. I'll probably end up buying and planting more trees anyway (if Home Depot puts an espalier apple on sale again this coming year, I may just bite), but for now that's as far as I go.