Posted on 05/12/2026 9:53:54 AM PDT by John Semmens
This week, the California Assembly passed legislation that would allow the state to keep future high-speed rail bad news from the general public. Assemblymember Lori Wilson (D, dist 11) justified the bill, saying "previous disclosures of the overdue and over-budget project have only served to lower support for the project. The disclosures make the project's directors look inept or corrupt. The expenditure of so much money with so little progress to show for it raises suspicion that, like the state's medicaid expenditures, most of the money was stolen."
"Unsurprisingly, Republicans have been using the publicly available data to hammer Democrats," Wilson complained. "We don't expect them to stop hammering us, but we shouldn't be handing them the data that vindicates their criticism. The new law will give us the ability to restrict data to a 'need to know' audience. Since the Republicans' interest is in winning over voters' support--something that we feel is unnecessary to successfully complete the project--they don't need to know about the project's shortcomings."
Senator Tony Strickland (R, dist 36) pointed out that "in 2008, the project was originally expected to cost $33 billion to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles/Anaheim and be completed by 2020. So far, not a single mile of track has been laid. Now the expected cost is estimated to be $231 billion and begin to carry passengers sometime in the 2030s. It will never earn its cost of operation. Taxpayers will have to cover billions of dollars of losses every year it operates. It is not an asset. It has been and will continue to be a dead-weight burden dragging down the state's economy. We should cut our losses and give our taxpayers a break."
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California...Fiascos R Us
But this "project" is totally free of corruption, incompetence, and malfeasance, right? And clearly, the best way to reassure everyone that there ISN'T rampant fraud and corruption, is to prevent anyone from seeing how much of their tax money is being thrown down that hole/into connected people's pockets.
California needs another proposition. Then after this clump of thievery is over they need to arrest anyone responsible for this dumpster fire of fraud waste and abuse.
Then where DID THE MONEY GO¿????????.....
This reads like the Babylon Bee.
thx
Maybe... consulting fees, campaign contributions, expensive cars, luxury estates, world travel, illegal drugs...
If rail transports certain medicare/medicaid recipients to their medical appointment at the other end of the line, then HHS will pay for it. Soon we could have ghost riders... the dead still on the rolls riding the rail to the doctor.
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