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Posted on 02/09/2026 10:12:36 AM PST by Bullish
$16 billion and still no train and no track 18 years later
California Governor Gavin Newsom and the state’s elected Democrat politicians show a strange level of desperation to build any part of California’s boondoggle High-Speed Rail system.
$16 billion has already been spent on the High Speed Rail project, originally slated to be completed in 2020. But there is no track and no trains, and a missing $16 billion.
A quick refresher on California’s High Speed Rail project:
In 2008, California voters approved the Proposition 1A bond initiative, authorizing $9 billion in bond money for the construction of a statewide high-speed rail system, to travel at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour. The state received $3.5 billion in federal stimulus money in 2010 for the project. But California’s High Speed Rail plan was wrought with cost overruns, mismanagement, and numerous lawsuits, delaying the project, but still costing California taxpayers billions of dollars spent on consultants.
At one time the motivation was to get their hands on billions in federal stimulus money, but that train left the station with the first and second elections of Donald Trump.
In his 2019 first year State of the State address, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the high speed rail project, as planned to go from Sacramento to San Diego, “would cost too much and take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency,” Newsom said. However, rather than scrapping the entire project, he doubled down on keeping a segment from Bakersfield to Merced in the Central Valley.
The following day President Donald Trump demanded the California Governor return the $3.5 billion it received from the federal government for the “disaster” high-speed rail project. “California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars,” Trump tweeted. “They owe the Federal Government three and a half billion dollars. We want that money back now. Whole project is a ‘green’ disaster!”
So there is history – a lot of history.
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom doubled down on the derailed train to nowhere, which is nowhere close to functioning.
On X Newsom posted:
I’m proud to announce the completion of @CaHSRA‘s Southern Railhead Facility in Kern County, a significant step forward in building the nation’s first high-speed rail system. We’re laying the foundation for a transportation future that’s cleaner, faster, and more connected.
This caught the discerning eye of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) on the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, who filed this missive:
Instead, gross mismanagement by California leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, has led to countless delays and ballooning costs. After more than a quarter of a century and $6.8 billion in awarded federal funds, not a single high-speed train is operational in California. On July 16, 2025, the Trump administration announced it would terminate $4.2 billion in funding previously awarded to the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) after the Federal Railroad Administration concluded CHSRA would not meet its commitment to begin operating by 2033 a 171-mile project segment between Merced and Bakersfield.
Last year, CHSRA further admitted that the Merced-to-Bakersfield line would not be profitable even once operational and therefore, incapable of recouping taxpayer dollars spent on its construction. As for the project’s original promise of high-speed rail service between San Francisco and Los Angeles, CHSRA admits trains will not begin running until 2038—more than 12 years later than its original estimate. With this in mind, Congress acted this week to permanently rescind $929 million for California High-Speed Rail in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026.
But every hole that is plugged, every detail that is softened or tweaked, and every cost estimate that is changed causes a bigger problem. The cover-up is worse than the original crime.
I wrote that about the High Speed Rail, already a scandal in 2012.
This has been an 18-year government scandal of immense proportions.
On X there was this juicy tidbit:
U.S. Attorney for California Bill Essayli says Gov. Gavin Newsom is the KING of FRAUD. “They told the California people they would spend a few Billion Dollars to build this rail.” “We are talking over $100 BILLION now. There is NO RAIL!” “There is no rail in California! Who took the money? He is the KING OF FRAUD. Never has there been this much fraud in the history of America!”
In 2024, the Globe reported that the Los Angeles Times openly touted how California’s high-speed rail project “trains workers and provides thousands of jobs in the Central Valley.”
You read that right. They finally admitted that California’s high-speed rail project is just a union jobs program. We’ve been saying this since it was evident back in 2010.
In 2012, the then-revised business plan was reduced to $68 billion from $98.6 billion by expanding the 130-mile line from Fresno to Bakersfield, to Merced to San Fernando Valley, for a 300-mile segment.
We have been talking about the Merced to Bakersfield rail line since 2012 – more than 14 years, and no track, no trains. But billions spent – on what?
And the original Proposition 1A bond requirements were already being illegally altered – in 2012.
What Voters Approved in 2008 with High Speed Rail Proposition 1A:
* Prop. 1A stipulates 11 requirements that must be met before funds can be released for the construction of a “corridor” or “usable segment.” Specifically, some of these requirements include actual high-speed train service, ridership, revenue projections and planned passenger service.
* “The high-speed train system shall be planned and constructed in a manner that minimizes urban sprawl and impacts on the natural environment,” the law states. But the impact of the rail system may actually create suburban communities around train stations within reasonable distances from urban areas and higher employment areas.
The train system will also dissect both urban and rural communities which will be problematic, as well as a serious violation of the “natural environment.” The trains will travel through densely populated cities, but also through sensitive agricultural and natural areas in the state.
* The success of any legitimate transportation system must be based on connectivity. “For each corridor described in subdivision (b), passengers shall have the capability of traveling from any station on that corridor to any other station on that corridor without being required to change trains,” the law states. “Stations shall be located in areas with good access to local mass transit or other modes of transportation.” This means that unless there are extensive connecting rail systems already in place in the high-speed rail destinations, cab companies, limo services and car rental companies should be lining up to rent space in the train stations. Commuters will not have the necessary train and bus systems to transfer to with the existing plan.
* The California High-Speed Rail Authority must have all of the funding ahead of time, before any construction starts on a new segment.
* The high-speed train system must operate on its own entirely, and in the black. That means operating profitably, and includes caveats of no government subsidy. The plan relies heavily on a projection of 100 million users by 2030, a notion that was created with manipulated data, and is absurd.
Even though voters were deceived by the ballot summary and language, the entire project has always lacked in private, public and debt funding to complete even the most minor operating segment.
“Jobs, jobs, jobs” was the campaign rally cry for Jerry Brown during his run for governor in 2010, and when he vowed his support for high-speed rail. He supported it so much the project earned the nickname the “Browndoggle.”
Brown continued to blindly support the rail plan, even as the High-Speed Rail Authority claimed that the project would create 20,000 jobs. However, a January 2012 report by the Assembly Republican Caucus found that there was evidence to prove that the rail authority overstated job creation by nearly 50 percent.
Jumping ahead to 2026, California Democrats have just proposed AB 1608 to allow the the High Speed Rail Inspector General to hide “personal papers and correspondence of any person providing assistance to the Inspector General when that person has requested in writing that their papers and correspondence be kept private and confidential.”
Gov. Newsom claims he has no knowledge of the scheme to hide information, but KCRA’s Ashley Zavala reported that Newsom’s administration has “filed nearly identical legislation.”
KCRA reported:
The governor’s administration has filed nearly identical legislation. The legislation says weaknesses could include information security, physical security, fraud-detection controls and pending litigation.
The California Department of Finance on Tuesday confirmed the Office of the Inspector General requested the proposal be put into legislation, known as a budget trailer bill. Budget trailer bills are ways in which the administration can tuck changes to state law into the state spending plan. The proposals typically get very little public review and go into effect when the budget takes effect in July.
California’s High Speed Rail scheme has not resembled the Proposition 1A bond initiative sold to voters back in 2008 since about 2009.
The secrecy law would only barely delay the prosecution of Newsom’s corruption. But the powers that be think they are buying him time for 2028. Let that sink in.
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Why did they do this? One of the primary reasons is that the knew they could get away with it.
How to bury the scandal? Not that hard. The MSM will simply ignore it and focus on the fact that Newsom is “embarrassingly handsome” (per Vanity Fair).
It’s technically not theft if it ain’t finished.
Newscum is a dyslexic, adulterous, corrupt, lying POS whose only goal is power, never forget that.
The spirit of Dwight Yokum can be heard late at night in down town Bakersfield.
A thousand miles from nowhere.
The theft is only double that of the Somalians in Minnesota. No big deal. </sarcasm>
Like they do with all of their democrat royalty. Clinton, Obama, Hillary, they all got the same 'hands off' treatment from the MSM.
Is there no one responsible for telling where all that money went?
That’s a big part of their game, billions are missing but no one’s responsible. Just ask them and you’ll get nothing but diversions.
There’s nothing much in Buttonwillow but a coffee shop and a couple of gas stations.
Theft, grifting and misappropriation of BILLIONS by corrupt politicians and institutions - and no one goes to jail.
What's beyond galling is that if you and I steal $1000 in PA, here's what you get:
The Pennsylvania Crimes Code establishes the following maximum limits for the classifications relevant to a $1,000 theft: First-Degree Misdemeanor (M1): Punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
Third-Degree Felony (F3): Punishable by up to seven years in prison and a fine of up to $15,000
Nobody
Very few people commute between those two cities and if they do, they are in no hurry to get there
Merced has a population of around 98,000 and Bakersfield has a population of about 400,000
This high speed train line is going to cost about $40000 per combined the residents of Merced and Bakersfield
California would be better off giving every family between Merced and Bakersfield a Ford diesel truck and it would save billions of dollars
There has to be an answer, and there has to be someone demanding it.
Daycares without children.
Feeding our future with no feed.
Autism Support without Autism. High Speed Rail, with no high speed rail. Big Digs, Tunnels under the Hudson that will never go under the Hudson. SBA loans to no Small Businesses. Vaccines that aren't vaccines. Borders that aren't borders.
Nothing but schemes, scams, theft, and corruption.
Yeah, it’s a very large scale scheme of corruption and we’re the suckers.
Allow me:
Welcome to the corporate feeding frenzy of Democrat fascism. Any other questions?
People who vote for him don’t care about this. Maybe out in flyover they’ll care. But the media covers for him. That he’s even in the running is ridiculous
People who vote for him don’t care about this. Maybe out in flyover they’ll care. But the media covers for him. That he’s even in the running is ridiculous
Newsom’s looks are no substitute for the money that has already changed hands with no results. News om & several others should probably have been incarcerated for all this before now. They have been given every chance there is & have shown.....zero results. It’s jail time past due.
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