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The Wall Street Journal has the backstory about how Governor Jerry Brown is insisting on trying to complete the high speed rail plan despite a budget shortfall of $16 billion: Transportation experts warn that the 500-mile bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles could cost more than $100 billion, though the Governor pegs the price at a mere $68 billion. The state has $12.3 billion in pocket, $9 billion from the state and $3.3 billion from the feds, but Mr. Brown hasn't a clue where he'll get the rest. [Snip] In 2008 voters approved $9 billion in bonds for...

We wrote for the weekend (see our column Sunday morning when it goes up here) that Gov. Jerry Brown is a bad guesser. The ink wasn’t even dry yet – in fact the Sunday paper hasn’t even been printed yet – and we learn that Brown guessed wrong again. Back in January Brown guessed that the state budget would be $9.2 billion in the red. Wrong. Monday Brown revised his estimate. Then he said it would be $15.7 billion in the red. Wrong. Today the independent Legislative Analyst affirmed that Jerry’s wrong again. It will be $17 billion plus some...

Poker players often use the phrase "betting on the come" to describe a willingness, if instincts and odds indicate, to wager big on the hope that they will draw winning cards. That's a perfectly valid tactic when one is playing with one's own money and therefore bearing the risk. But is it appropriate for California politicians to bet on the come by approving many billions of dollars in spending on very shaky assumptions that the money will be there when it's needed to pay the bills? Risk was the underlying theme of two hearings in the Capitol on Tuesday. One...

They are from the federal government and here to help. Or so goes the classic line by the last decent president. Federal transportation Sec. Ray LaHood has “warned” California lawmakers not to wait until the fall to vote on the Moonbeam Express high-speed rail boondoggle. “We need to make sure that the commitment is there to obligate the money,” LaHood lectured. In short, the feds are threatening,...

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood warned the California Legislature today that the Obama administration will not wait until fall for a vote on high-speed rail, urging its approval in a budget vote next month. "We need to make sure that the commitment is there to obligate the money," LaHood told reporters at the Capitol, where he was meeting with lawmakers and with Gov. Jerry Brown. The state's commitment, LaHood said, will be demonstrated when lawmakers "put it in the budget and take a vote on it." Brown and the California High-Speed Rail Authority want to start construction on a $68...

For the sake of argument, let’s concede the high-speed rail will cost only $68 billion as most recently advertised. Of course, it will cost far more, probably even more than the $98 billion to $117 billion previously estimated, and certainly nowhere close to the $33 billion originally estimated. But let’s give them that. For the sake of argument. And let’s concede, for the sake of argument . . .

Prison crowding seems to be improving, but the bullet train still lives and Gov. Brown still pursues billions more from an overtaxed populace. . . .

With the state budget mired in deficits, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislators, especially his fellow Democrats, are searching under every fiscal rock for money to spend. That search has spawned an odd syndrome involving what could be three big pots of money – a competition among liberals over how they should be spent if, indeed, they materialize. The pots: • What could be several billion dollars a year in "cap-and-trade" fees that industries must pay as part of the state's anti-greenhouse gas crusade. • Another billion-plus bucks that it's believed would appear were the state to change taxation of multi-state...

Real-life Futurama tube-transport will catapult you from New York to Beijing in 2 hours The Simpsons have the monorail. Futurama has the Tube Transport System. The difference is that tube-transport is a fantasy — at least for now. The folks at ET3 want to make what they call "Evacuated Tube Transport" a reality. Their proposed maglev system would be capable of propelling six-person-capacity cylinders to speeds of over 4000 miles per hour, making it possible for people to travel from New York to L.A. in just 45 minutes, or from New York to Beijing in two hours. What's more, ET3...

The state's top analyst has urged lawmakers to pull the emergency brake on California's $68 billion bullet train, saying the recently revised plan carries way too much risk of failure. The Legislative Analyst's Office report released late Tuesday may give the Legislature political cover if it decides to ax the polarizing rail line as it begins debating whether to approve high-speed rail Wednesday.

San Francisco (AP) -- The authority overseeing efforts to build a high-speed rail system in California approved its revised business plan on Thursday, sending the ambitious project to an uncertain fate in the Legislature. The California High-Speed Rail Authority voted 6-0, with two members absent, to approve its latest plan. Two hours of public comment preceded the vote, most of it favorable toward the bullet train.

When the state's bullet train impresarios unveiled a much-revised plan for the statewide project last fall – with campaign-style hoopla, one should note – they said it settled all of its outstanding questions and doubts. Not by a long shot. The sharply increased price tag, around $100 billion, was a shocker, several times more than what voters were told it would be when they approved a $9.95 billion bond issue. And the plan still assumed that construction would start with a short stretch in the San Joaquin Valley dubbed the "train to nowhere." Instead of quieting the bullet train's many...

Desperate to spend billions rather than allow taxpayers to keep their money, the California High-Speed Rail Authority boasted Monday that it has cut costs, scaled back and speeded up the construction schedule of a train that should never be built. Like all government boasts, it isn't what it appears to be...

There is so much wrong with the California High-Speed Rail project, it’s getting difficult to stay up to date as new absurdities are revealed almost daily. . . . But Katy Grimes raises an aspect pretty much overlooked, although we and others have mentioned aspects of this aspect previously. . .

Imagine you sign a contract to put down $9,000 on a $340,000 house situated on a beachfront in Laguna with a closing date of 12 months from now. Then imagine that a few months later, the seller tells you he has some changes to your contract. Your beachfront Laguna house will be located in Brawley, instead. And instead of $340,000, your house in Brawley will cost you $980,000. Just a technical change in the contract, the seller says. And, oh, by the way, your sale won’t close in 12 months, it’ll take a bit longer, 26 months instead of 12...

With a lower price tag and speedier plan to start zipping bullet trains up and down California, Gov. Jerry Brown's ambitious new high-speed rail proposal is still wobbly on one vital ingredient: billions and billions of dollars. The state still has no guarantee on where it will come up with about 80 percent of the funding needed for a project that high-speed rail leaders announced Monday will cost at least $68 billion. But bullet train backers are now touting a new wild card .. Anywhere from $2 billion to $14 billion a year could be in play for high-speed rail,...

California has a budget deficit north of 10 billion dollars a year, a debt that's over 600 billion dollars, and businesses are already fleeing the state because of the ridiculous regulations, high taxes, and unfriendly business climate. So, is California buckling down and starting to do the tough, but necessary work needed to get the state back on track? Well, only if you consider spending almost 70 billion dollars more on a high speed rail project that's practically guaranteed to be a disastrous money pit before it’s ever built to fit that definition. State transportation officials have slashed the price...

State transportation officials have slashed the price tag for California's controversial high-speed rail project by $30 billion and expanded the first stretch of track to run from Merced in the Central Valley south to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. The California High Speed Rail Authority's revised business plan, which will be released Monday in Fresno, calls for those dramatic changes as the agency prepares to ask the Legislature to use $2.7 billion in state high-speed rail bonds to start construction by early next year. The drastic revision, which puts the proposed cost of the system at $68.4 billion...

pparently desperate to get spending underway on the California High-Speed Rail project, Gov. Jerry Brown has dramatically cut how much it will cost. No longer will the train cost $89 billion more than state taxpayers have to pay for it. Now it’ll be only $59 billion short. Yeah, that’s like saying you will drown in only 59 feet of water instead of the deep end – 89 feet...

Voters approved $9.9 billion in bonds in 2008 to partially fund California's proposed $33 billion high-speed rail project. The price since has increased to as much as $118 billion. The completion date has been extended 12 years, to 2032. To use $3.3 billion in federal funds, train backers need legislative approve to sell $2.7 billion of the bonds. The Legislative Analyst says more than $700 million a year from the state's general fund would be needed to pay bond interest. Budget-strapped California should not pay for an initial 130 miles of track in the Central Valley that won't connect metropolitan...