California’s high-speed rail project, championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is teetering on the edge of collapse, bleeding cash faster than a progressive budget in a deficit year, as Breitbart reports. The ambitious plan to connect the state’s major cities by bullet train now demands an extra $1 billion annually from California’s already strained coffers. This boondoggle, once hailed as a visionary leap, is proving to be a fiscal black hole.
The project, decades behind schedule and billions over budget, needs $1 billion yearly from the state’s cap-and-trade program to survive after the Trump administration yanked $4 billion in federal funding in July. Originally slated for completion in 2020, the rail line is now projected to limp along until 2038, with costs soaring past $100 billion. What began as a $33 billion dream has morphed into a taxpayer-funded nightmare.
Back in 2008, voters were sold on a sleek, high-speed link from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Construction, however, has been confined to the Central Valley, where demand for such a service is questionable at best. The promise of a transformative rail system has been sidelined by technical glitches, environmental hurdles, and land acquisition disputes.
The original 2020 deadline for the rail’s completion came and went without a single operational stretch. The Central Valley segment, the only part under construction, won’t be finished until 2032 and is expected to operate at a loss. Meanwhile, connecting the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles will require an additional $87 billion and another 13 years.
Newsom, ever the political chameleon, has flip-flopped on the project’s merits. He opposed it under Gov. Jerry Brown, championed it during his campaign, then axed the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco route in 2019. Newsom’s claim that the original project “would cost too much and, respectfully, would take too long” sounds like a rare moment of clarity, yet he still clings to the Central Valley stub.
Newsom’s latest plan is to funnel cap-and-trade revenue -- money from polluters buying carbon emission credits -- into the rail’s bottomless pit. This program, which lets companies trade unused credits at auctions, generates billions for the state. Diverting these funds to a failing project while California grapples with back-to-back budget deficits reeks of fiscal irresponsibility.
The Trump administration’s decision to pull $4 billion in July was a gut punch to the project’s already shaky finances. This wasn’t the first hit: In 2019, Trump withdrew nearly $1 billion, though President Joe Biden later restored it and added $3.1 billion more. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s June report, declaring “no way forward” for the rail, underscores the federal government’s growing skepticism.
Duffy’s blunt assessment that the project is a waste of money resonates with conservatives tired of seeing tax dollars vanish into grandiose schemes. California’s rail authority, undeterred, insists on plowing ahead, betting on cap-and-trade cash to keep the dream alive. But with the state’s $100 billion surplus from the pandemic era gone, this gamble looks increasingly reckless.
Contrast this with a privately-run high-speed rail project linking Southern California to Las Vegas, which secured billions in federal funding under Biden. Trump hasn’t touched that project, likely because it’s not a government-led money pit. Private enterprise, it seems, can still outmaneuver Sacramento’s bureaucratic bloat.
California’s fiscal woes make the rail’s demands even more galling. After burning through a $100 billion surplus, the state now faces consecutive years of major budget deficits. Asking taxpayers to prop up a project with no clear path to completion is a tough sell, especially when essential services are on the chopping block.
The rail’s Central Valley focus raises eyebrows, given the region’s low ridership potential. Newsom’s decision to prioritize this stretch while scrapping the more viable Los Angeles-to-San Francisco route defies logic. It’s as if the state is building a bridge to nowhere, only shinier and pricier.
Environmental challenges and right-of-way disputes have plagued the project from day one. These aren’t mere hiccups but systemic failures that expose the rail’s poor planning. Throwing more money at a broken system won’t fix what’s fundamentally flawed.
The high-speed rail’s ballooning costs -- tripling from $33 billion to over $100 billion -- should serve as a warning against unchecked government ambition. While progressive dreamers push for flashy infrastructure, taxpayers bear the burden of their overpromises. California’s rail saga is a textbook case of good intentions derailed by reality.
Newsom’s cap-and-trade funding scheme is a desperate bid to keep the project on life support. But diverting billions from a program meant to curb emissions to a rail line with dubious environmental benefits is peak progressive irony. It’s green-washing a fiscal disaster.
As California stares down another decade of construction and billions in costs, voters deserve better than a half-built rail to nowhere. The state’s leaders must face the music: Sometimes, cutting losses is the only path forward. For now, the high-speed rail remains a costly monument to government hubris, chugging along on borrowed time and taxpayer dollars.
