I last wrote about California’s high-speed rail to nowhere in Democrat’s dying and dead mass people movers in June:
Approved by California voters in 2008, it was supposed to have run from San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2030 at a cost of a mere $33 billion. Eventually, it was downscaled to a very short route in the Central Valley, and the costs are over $100 billion and still rising [it’s now around $130 billion]. All that and not a single foot of rail—for a railroad!—has been laid. A variety of bridges and other concrete and steel monoliths have been constructed, which will surely baffle future archeologists as they have no discernible purpose for a railroad that never was or will be. Might they have had some religious significance? Were they primitive astronomical observatories? Fertility temples?
Let’s repeat that. In 17 years, not a single foot of track has been laid, and California has a budget deficit of at least $12 billion dollars. I ended that article with this observation:
Well, at least Dems are consistent. They always choose the least efficient, most costly solutions to non-existent problems.
At PJ Media David Manney suggests the entire mess is Governor Gavin Newsom’s vanity project, a concrete and rebar—but no railroad track—monument to his greasy greatness. It’s a bit of greatness that Newsom scaled back in 2019 from a coast-to-coast wonder to a Central Valley “proof of concept” “test section.”
To date, that “test section” has absorbed the full cost of the original, bigger project with no end in sight. Give Newsom credit though, he’s proved the concept is impossible to build in California. If California wants to build this epic boondoggle, it will have to finance it alone. American taxpayers are out:
Graphic: Truth Social post
California's embattled high-speed rail project suffered a major setback after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the termination of $4 billion in unspent federal funding by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
Citing 16 years of failure, no completed high-speed track, and escalating costs, Duffy declared the project, dubbed the "train to nowhere," a mismanaged and over-budget "boondoggle."
"This is California’s fault. Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank check – they come with a promise to deliver results," Duffy said in a statement. [skip]
"After over a decade of failures, CHSRA’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget. It’s time for this boondoggle to die. President Trump and I will always fight to ensure your tax dollars only go to projects that accomplish great, big, beautiful things."
Graphic: X Post
Duffy canceled $4 billion and also directed the FRA to review every additional grant connected to the project. In addition, the DOT is looking at clawing back everything spent on the project thus far and whatever legal action is necessary to accomplish that. Newsom, who is running for the Democrat 2028 nomination, is talking tough:
"Trump wants to hand China the future and abandon the Central Valley. We won’t let him. With projects like the Texas high-speed rail failing to take off, we are miles ahead of others," Newsom wrote.
"We’re now in the track-laying phase and building America’s only high-speed rail. California is putting all options on the table to fight this illegal action," he continued.
In a sane state, a private railroad contractor could have built the project on time and under budget, but it’s unlikely that would be possible in California. Even while the state was trying to build it, all manner of regulations, permitting processes and lawsuits bogged construction down.
Newsom has painted himself into a corner. He obviously feels he has no option but to continue to waste money on this disaster. Fellow Democrats, and Republicans, are surely delighted. The campaign commercials write themselves: “Gavin Newsom: he’ll to do America what he did to California!” Newsom will blame Trump, but by 2028 that’s not going to work anymore. It really doesn’t now, but what else do Democrats have?
A recent Quinnipiac poll is deadly for Democrats. They’re at a record 19%(?!)—low in congressional approval since the issue was first polled in March of 2009.
Graphic: X Post
One would think Democrats, including Democrats hoping to be reelected in 2026 and running for the nomination in 2028 would completely revamp their positions and messaging, even admit error and promise to do better with policies Americans want. But noooooooo! as John Belushi used to say.
Without federal taxpayer dollars, with tens, even hundreds, of thousands of Californians fleeing California for red states every year, not as missionaries but political refugees, with California facing huge deficits and a legislature dedicated to going full commie—never go full commie—the “pilot project” will never be finished. Even if a few feet of track are eventually laid, California will be stuck with abandoned, half-finished concrete and rebar monuments to Newsom’s folly.
They’ll look splendid in campaign commercials and will persist for centuries, too expensive to tear down. China, which is also in deep economic trouble, can have that future. A railroad with no rails isn’t ahead of anything.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.