Progressive Failure Takes Voters for a Ride
California’s Gavin Newsom, a particularly adept politician in political gymnastics, apparently is not grasping for the lifeline offered by Donald Trump. President Trump gave Newsom a way to end California’s bullet train boondoggle, alerts Allysia Finley of the WSJ.
The Trump Transportation Department last week rescinded $4 billion in funds for the project, noting the state’s cost-overruns, delays and funding shortfalls.
From President Trump:
“The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED.”
There is no way Gavin Newsom doesn’t understand this. At the current rate of construction, the 500-mile gateway between San Fran and Orange County won’t be completed during the governor’s lifetime. As of last month, the state began to lay down tracks on the first 119-mile segment between Madera (pop: 68,079) and Shafter (pop: 21,915).
Rural Central Valley, lightly developed and populated, should have been easy. Unlikely was there to be much hue and cry over razed strip malls or housing developments. As Ms Finley notes, a private company built a 235-mile high-speed train from Orlando to Miami in 11 years for about $6 billion.
Yet it has taken California more than a decade merely to bulldoze permitting barriers and clear lawsuits.
“A Sense of Disequilibrium”
In response last week to the state suit to restore the federal funds (that could mean years of litigation and more delays), Gavin Newsom swaggered, “Trump wants to hand China the future and abandon the Central Valley. We won’t let him.”
No more blank checks and only accountability going forward, promised the governor. About finishing the 500-mile train, Newsome now allows, “There simply isn’t a path …” adding that the train “would cost too much and take too long.”
Conning Voters?
Why won’t Newsom cancel and write off his bullet train to nowhere? The fear is voters will realize they have been conned, according to Ms. Finley.
In 2008 Democrats sold the train to voters with fanciful promises—the same sort they make about free, universal healthcare. Democrats claimed the train would cost a mere $33 billion and be complete by 2020. The 500-mile train trip from San Francisco to Anaheim would supposedly take only 2½ hours and cost less than flying. Yippee.
There was more gravy: Subsidies supposedly weren’t needed due to the abundance of rail riders. Despite their deceptions, writes Ms. Finley, Dems focused on early train investments on electrifying commuter rail in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, fulfilling the fancy of many legislators.
But the Obama administration required the state to build the first leg in the Central Valley as a condition for $3.5 billion in grants. Why?
To help Rep. Jim Costa, a longtime champion of the bullet train. The Blue Dog Democrat faced a tough race in 2010 owing to his unpopular vote for ObamaCare, but he was able to ride the subsidy train to victory.
An Obvious Question
Californians just passed $321 billion budget bill. Was it not possible to take a little money from their government union friends or peel off healthcare for undocumented immigrants (estimated to cost $12 billion this year)?
If Democrats in Sacramento won’t pay for their vanity project out of their own coffers, why should taxpayers in Cleveland or Atlanta?
- Democrats spent $24 billion to combat homelessness, yet the result was more homelessness.
- State K-12 spending has risen by 50% since 2018, but student test scores have fallen. Electric rates have surged yet power has become less reliable.
Whether or not the bullet train carries passengers is almost incidental. Instead, the bullet train symbolizes colossal failures of modern progressive government.
From welfare programs to public schools, Democrats make illusory promises as they shovel out money without regard to the results.
Alysia Finley wonders when California voters will decide they’re tired of getting taken for a ride.
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