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The CA train to nowhere runs out of taxpayer money
American Thinker ^ | 20 Jul, 2025 | Mike McDaniel

Posted on 07/20/2025 5:01:11 AM PDT by MtnClimber

I last wrote about California’s high-speed rail to nowhere in Democrat’s dying and dead mass people movers in June:

Approved by California voters in 2008, it was supposed to have run from San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2030 at a cost of a mere $33 billion. Eventually, it was downscaled to a very short route in the Central Valley, and the costs are over $100 billion and still rising [it’s now around $130 billion]. All that and not a single foot of rail—for a railroad!—has been laid. A variety of bridges and other concrete and steel monoliths have been constructed, which will surely baffle future archeologists as they have no discernible purpose for a railroad that never was or will be. Might they have had some religious significance? Were they primitive astronomical observatories? Fertility temples?

Let’s repeat that. In 17 years, not a single foot of track has been laid, and California has a budget deficit of at least $12 billion dollars. I ended that article with this observation:

Well, at least Dems are consistent. They always choose the least efficient, most costly solutions to non-existent problems.

At PJ Media David Manney suggests the entire mess is Governor Gavin Newsom’s vanity project, a concrete and rebar—but no railroad track—monument to his greasy greatness. It’s a bit of greatness that Newsom scaled back in 2019 from a coast-to-coast wonder to a Central Valley “proof of concept” “test section.”

To date, that “test section” has absorbed the full cost of the original, bigger project with no end in sight. Give Newsom credit though, he’s proved the concept is impossible to build in California. If California wants to build this epic boondoggle, it will have to finance it alone. American taxpayers are out:

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: boondoggle; cahsr; california; demagogicparty; democrats; ecoterrorism; ecoterrorists; fraud; gavinnewsom; globalwarminghoax; greennewdeal; grift; itsthemarxismstupid; leftism; rail; sociopath; starvetheleft; train; trainbrains

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To: Wuli

THE CONTRACT WAS AWARDED TO DIANE FEINSTEINS’S HUBBY


21 posted on 07/20/2025 6:45:04 AM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: MtnClimber

Carl DeMaio (Republican in Assembly District 75 and chair of Reform California on YT) rallied against the HSR in California. He said it will go from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere - and you’ll need to drive a car from the station to LA or San Fran.


22 posted on 07/20/2025 6:55:50 AM PDT by DeplorableTrumpSupporter (FKA ConservaTeen)
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To: MtnClimber

This project will still remain an obsession of the “public transportation” coalition (which is far more about social engineering and wealth redistribution than choo-choo trains).


23 posted on 07/20/2025 7:02:44 AM PDT by niteowl77
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To: MtnClimber

“”Well, at least Dems are consistent. They always choose the least efficient, most costly solutions to non-existent problems.””

Yes, but... at least there is usually some “product” or end result of their boondoggles, no matter how stupid, useless and yet costly they are. This is fraud on an even more grandiose scale than previously imagined. We need to trace and track where all that money went. I’m betting it all went into Democrat coffers and maybe also to whoever their favorite foreign, America-hating leaders, happen to be.


24 posted on 07/20/2025 7:04:12 AM PDT by Danie_2023
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To: airborne
And WHERE did the money go?

Check Gavin's mansion...

25 posted on 07/20/2025 7:12:00 AM PDT by DeplorableTrumpSupporter (FKA ConservaTeen)
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To: Fireone

Bingo. The exact process in CaCaLand.

But, don’t believe for a moment that any Fed funds approved into such a system will be spent as intended. WuhnFlu funds were spent all over the place. Ditto for ANY “homeless” $$. Green $$ were just sprayed about.

This system will always divert and skim.

So, not a penny for CaCaLand without strict IRS-class audits on a quarterly basis.

Pretend you are dealing with a heroin addict. Do not trust them with so much as a candy bar.


26 posted on 07/20/2025 7:31:21 AM PDT by bobbo666
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To: MtnClimber

It was a very happy day when Trump defunded this boondoggle on the federal level - a train from nowhere to nowhere - Shafter to Merced, neither of which is a population center, mostly agricultural land.

Newsom has already said he’ll sue.

See you in court, buddy.

Can’t wait to see you get slapped down again by the feds.


27 posted on 07/20/2025 7:35:53 AM PDT by Bon of Babble (You Say You Want a Revolutioan?)
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To: MtnClimber

“Well, at least Dems are consistent. They always choose the least efficient, most costly solutions to non-existent problems.”
This statement should be prominently displayed on a bronze plaque inside the Capitol building.


28 posted on 07/20/2025 7:38:35 AM PDT by wjcsux (On 3/14/1883 Karl Marx gave humanity his best gift, he died. )
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To: rbg81

Sometimes a project is not taxed until it is finished.

I have seen three story houses in Greece with the top floor having columns with re-bar sticking out. The house is lived in.


29 posted on 07/20/2025 7:49:04 AM PDT by Scrambler Bob (Running Rampant, and not endorsing nonsense; My pronoun is EXIT. And I am generally full of /S)
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To: MtnClimber

The wheels have come off the Corrupt CA Rail Project. Good that Trump stopped this Corruption.


30 posted on 07/20/2025 8:16:39 AM PDT by tennmountainman ( (“Less propaganda would be appreciated.” JimRobr 12-2-2023 DITTO)
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To: MtnClimber
Contract Cali with Brightline in Florida.

You just can't out-race the trains when driving on 528, but it's fun to try. The only issue with the service is train/vehicle crashes due to idiots driving around the crossing gates.

31 posted on 07/20/2025 8:18:12 AM PDT by NonValueAdded (First, I was a clinger, then deplorable, now I'm garbage. Feel the love? )
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To: MtnClimber

Merced to Bakersfield. 160 miles or so. One billion dollars per mile of track before it’s done. Only government can call that an “investment.”

And once every politician rides it once for show, no one will ride this stupid train except bums who will get free passes to use it as a shelter like they do on subways. What do they think is in the cities along the Central Valley that will have people clamoring for a ride on the train? There are no tourist attractions. Any tech companies can already work remote and have local talent. Welders who make farm implements are going to be local and aren’t going to use a train to commute. Farm laborers camp out near the crop and travel with the season. MAYBE a couple university students but why would they?

The AG needs to have a financial audit of this whole mess. Which politicians got paid for recently acquired land and what political connections did the construction companies have.


32 posted on 07/20/2025 8:23:45 AM PDT by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes.)
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To: Bon of Babble

“”Newsom has already said he’ll sue.

See you in court, buddy.

Can’t wait to see you get slapped down again by the feds.””

Newscum isn’t going to sue over this because he knows that the “discovery” phase will nail him to the proverbial wall re: where all that money was actually allocated to (like also his bank account, perhaps?).

Look at how the other scumbag leftist Democrats roll. Leticia James, Shifty Schiff, etc., all have committed crimes in the duration of their corrupt terms in office. Newscum will also have too many skeletons in his closet to dare to bring this to any court of ‘law’, considering that ‘real law and justice’ is like garlic and crosses to these political vampires.


33 posted on 07/20/2025 8:32:56 AM PDT by Danie_2023
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To: MtnClimber

It was never really intended to be a railroad. It was always primarily a graft enterprise, even if a little bit does get built.


34 posted on 07/20/2025 8:36:18 AM PDT by Salman (It's not a slippery slope if it was part of the program all along.)
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To: MtnClimber

They’ve got enough trains at Disneyland. They should go ride on them. Geez. What a waste of money.


35 posted on 07/20/2025 8:51:37 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (If you have asylum in the U.S. and you go home to visit family, is it like violating a Protect Order)
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To: Fireone

You got it.


36 posted on 07/20/2025 9:24:00 AM PDT by Revel
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To: MtnClimber

Suddenly Governor Scum says he’s almost ready to lay track if he can just get some free money.


37 posted on 07/20/2025 11:23:00 AM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again," )
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...

38 posted on 07/20/2025 11:52:18 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (The moron troll Ted Holden believes that humans originated on Ganymede.)
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To: Danie_2023

I wish that were true - Newsom has absolutely no sense of self awareness - or shame for that matter - he is convinced in his own warped mind that he and HE alone is right and everyone else is wrong.

He’s been caught repeatedly lying, covering up, making lame excuses - his hypocrisy knows no bounds - he closed the schools in California for a year - while his own kids went to an in-seat private school - he closed the restaurants down and then met up with his buddies in the $200/plate French Laundry in Napa - eating inside.

On Friday:

“California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the state will sue the Trump administration over the cancellation of more than $4 billion in federal funds for the high-speed rail project.”

“Newsom described the termination of the funding as ‘petty, political retribution’ driven by President Trump’s personal animus toward California.”

As a taxpaying Californian, this is one of the best thing Trump has done, IMO, to end this boondoggle.

As for Newsom - see ya in court, buddy. Let the discovery begin...


39 posted on 07/20/2025 1:16:30 PM PDT by Bon of Babble (You Say You Want a Revolutioan?)
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To: Fireone

Buying the land, selling the land to developers, selling those lots and sections and right-of-way to the companies headed by Pelosi and Newsome and Feinstein’s family and husbands ...


40 posted on 07/20/2025 1:37:46 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (Method, motive, and opportunity: No morals, shear madness and hatred by those who cheat.)
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