Spend a whopping $7.5 billion to renovate or give a face-lift to Washington’s historic Union Station (“Amtrak's Union Station plan sketchy on funding,” Web, July 25)? That’s an outrageous sum and definitely a huge ripoff of taxpayers.
With this large amount of money, we could build 10 brand-new Union Stations from scratch. I don’t have any doubt that if we can hand over this project to some honest people in the private sector, it could be finished for a lot less — maybe one-tenth of the money — and be done much sooner.
If the government and Amtrak are left in charge of this project, I would not be surprised if, at the end of it, the total cost goes up to $75 billion, with the majority of the money going to line the deep pockets of people who are friends and relatives of those at the helm and to the campaign coffers of their politician bosses.
HARISH G. BHATT
Springfield, Ill.
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By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
