California’s Dying Bullet Train Is A Preview Of A Newsom Presidency |
1 Trending: How Israel ‘Chain-Ganged’ The Trump Administration Into War Against Iran
2 Trending: How To Stay Sane And Not Look Stupid When Talking About The Iran War
3 Trending: I Wish GOP Senators Got As Excited About The SAVE Act As They Do About War
4 Trending: Thanks To Democrats, Potential Iranian Terrorists Are Already On American Soil
California’s Dying Bullet Train Is A Preview Of A Newsom Presidency
California’s high-speed rail project, approved in 2008 and under construction since 2015, is running out of money and time, while failing.
Share Article on Facebook
Share Article on Twitter
Share Article on Truth Social
Share Article via Email
After decades of effort and $15 billion in spending, California’s plan to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco with a high-speed rail line is falling apart. A pair of documents from the state’s High-Speed Rail Authority reveal an urgent effort to keep the project alive by making it much more modest in scope and effect, violating state law and undermining every promise made at its conception. And most of what passes for the news is badly misrepresenting the latest developments, celebrating retreat as rebirth.
There are two lessons from California’s stillborn bullet train. First, Gavin Newsom can never become president, which would inject the appalling failure of blue state political culture into the national bloodstream. Second, the decision of the Trump administration to withdraw $4 billion in federal funds from the project is proof of competence, and a policy win for Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Newsom’s bullet train has failed the way Hemingway’s protagonist went bankrupt: suddenly, and then all at once. There have been hints about the growing disaster, but they became very public on Monday at a long legislative hearing in Sacramento. To borrow a bit of phrasing from the legacy media, critics of the project pounced and seized on the open discussion of the emerging failure.
To complete high-speed rail from Bakersfield to the outskirts of Merced by 2033, the Authority has to borrow against cap-and-invest revenues promised for 2034-2045. But as the LAO analyst politely explained at yesterday's hearing, that is a LOT easier said than done. pic.twitter.com/3587MIe8Jf— Marc Joffe (@marcjoffe) March 3, 2026
To complete high-speed rail from Bakersfield to the outskirts of Merced by 2033, the Authority has to borrow against cap-and-invest revenues promised for 2034-2045. But as the LAO analyst politely explained at yesterday's hearing, that is a LOT easier said than done. pic.twitter.com/3587MIe8Jf
Did you notice those dates? California is hoping to pay for initial construction that ends in 2033 by borrowing against........