You probably don’t remember, but there’s a high-speed rail project being built here in California. And you’re helping to pay for it. The bullet train is/was supposed to eventually connect Los Angeles to San Francisco by way of the Central Valley.
For those of you not familiar with California geography, the Central Valley is about 60 miles wide by 450 miles long and is nearly entirely farmland. Sure, Sacramento is about 1/3 down from the north, and that’s a pretty big city. But the train isn’t going anywhere near Sacramento, so it’s kind of irrelevant to this discussion.
Like I said, originally the plan was to go from Los Angeles to San Francisco. But, the plan was created back when San Francisco wasn’t the cesspool it is today. 15 years ago, it was a fairly nice place. Today, you couldn’t pay me to visit San Francisco. And pretty much everyone I know feels the same way.
It doesn’t really matter though, because the bullet train isn’t going to go to San Francisco for…well…no one actually knows. Maybe never.
Back in 2008, the estimate sold to the voters was that it would cost $33 billion, and service would start in 2020. Land was purchased, homes and businesses displaced, and construction was started. Starting last year, people were supposed to be able to travel really fast between the shithole that LA has become and shithole that San Francisco has become.
But that didn’t happen.
In 2019, after numerous cost overruns (the current estimate is more than $100 billion), Governor Newsom decided to scale back the project to run only between Bakersfield and Merced (which, by anyone’s measure is in the middle of freaking nowhere). The hope, not the plan mind you, the hope, is that that 171-mile section can be completed by 2030.
So, with a little luck, by the end of this decade, we’ll have spent tens of billions of dollars to connect one relatively unpopulated portion of California to another.
I guess the plan is that people will drive 120 miles from LA to Bakersfield, park their car, ride the train to Merced, rent a car, and then drive the remaining 130 miles to San Francisco, quickly realize it isn’t somewhere they want to be, and then reverse the process. After waiting in the train stations and rental car counters, I estimate the time saved compared to just driving there directly to be about 7 minutes.
Anyway, Trump looked at the project, realized what a big money pit it was, and pulled federal funding. I remember when that happened. I was thrilled because I didn’t want to see good money thrown after bad. I know a lot of people, but I don’t know anyone who thinks continuing to build the bullet train to nowhere is a good idea.
This week, the Biden administration restored a grant of almost $1 billion for the project. With a budget deficit of more than three trillion dollars, we don’t have an extra $1 billion laying around.
Let me put this another way. The United States is going to borrow a billion dollars to give to California to be spent building a bullet train that nobody will use.
I realize that when compared to a $6 trillion budget, a billion dollars might not seem like much. But, as the late Senator Everett McKinley (R-Illinois) said, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
And that begs the question: How many other wasteful billion-dollar grants are being handed out like candy by Biden and his team? How much of their six trillion dollar budget will be spent on other things nobody wants and no one will use?
It’s not a good idea for anyone to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need. That also applies to the government. Spending a billion dollars on a train to nowhere isn’t an “infrastructure plan”. No, it’s exactly what it looks like…careless government spending.
