California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been frantically trying to restart a presidential campaign that appears moribund, with polls showing him losing in some states to figures such as Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In his absence, his multibillion-dollar high-speed train also seems to be going nowhere fast. A new report from the state inspector general revealed that the train will be delayed again and that the public is being kept in the dark about ongoing problems with Newsom’s signature project. Oh, and one more thing: the project will run out of money by December 2027.
Benjamin Belnap’s report revealed the project is again running out of money. It found missing details in the project’s 2026 business plan, and concluded that the project will again be out of money by next year.
The state has already spent $18 billion, but it will need at least another $18 billion to finish the first segment. It could take roughly $200 billion more actually to complete the original San Francisco-to-Los Angeles line.
Even with billions more, the current segment will not be completed until 2034.
Voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008 under Newsom’s predecessor after absurdly low cost estimates. Newsom has been a champion of the project. Influential figures and companies stood to make a fortune, and the key was to secure a “buy-in” worth billions, so that it would become increasingly difficult to abandon the project as overruns and delays sent costs soaring.
Now the official estimate of future ridership has dropped by 25%, and it demands billions more to complete a project delayed by decades. Remember that this entire project was meant to create a rail line of only 171 miles.
One would think that the California voters would be marching to the capital with pitchforks and torches over such breathtaking incompetence and waste. However, they appear to have been conditioned to accept the lowest level of performance from their public officials.
The response of Democratic leaders is crushingly predictable: they are pledging to seek a federal bailout to cover their own incompetence. The Democratic nominee for governor, Xavier Becerra, is promising to fight to get back federal funds that were cut off by the Trump Administration. While promising to seriously review any problems in the project (as if they are not obvious), no one has been held accountable for this financial train wreck. Instead, all Democrats can do is demand that citizens around the country help bail out their boondoogle.
Yet, the Inspector General is describing a failure of leadership where no one is making any real decisions:
“Exploration of specific financing mechanisms is a positive step, but because the Authority might run out of funding as soon as December 2027, and the financing strategy the Authority uses has the potential to significantly affect the amount of interest it will need to repay, the Authority and state lawmakers have little time for delay in deciding upon a strategy and implementing it.”
Belknap indicated that those in control are simply shrugging off the problem, noting that “[b]ecause the Authority has thus far not demonstrated a willingness to establish and reinforce a process that ensures accuracy and transparency in project reporting, we have directed our report recommendations to the Board.”
In the meantime, the state will continue to creep along with a project that is sucking billions into a project that has become a national disgrace. Beccera’s pledge to seek bailouts shows that the problem remains the political culture in California. There is little accountability left in a one-party state where companies and individuals have made fortunes off this debacle. The only people being taken for a ride are Californian citizens and it is not the ride that they bargained for.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Not to worry! The predicted 2027 train-to-nowhere funding shortfall can be cured with a simple 5% tax on California citizens’ assets.
Not income, friends. Assets. (Earning is already a punishable activity in California; this new way of taxing being introduced now, is to punish saving.)
By 2027, the camel’s nose will be in the tent. The “Down with Savings, Up with Government Waste!” proposal will be law.
To keep paying for the net 18 years of train-to-nowhere boondogglery, the fine representatives in Sacramento will only have to adjust down, the amount of untaxed principal (not interest; interest is already taxed) that California citizens should be allowed to have.
Taxing people’s wages is not enough. Taxing people’s homes is not enough. Taxing gas and cars and clothes is not enough. Now Sacramento wants the principal in people’s savings accounts. Money they already got a piece of when it came in as income.
All so that they can throw that money off the train-to-nowhere caboose.
More MAGA diversion. Newsome is advocating for a high speed train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, which, if you’ve ever driven in California and experienced the traffic jams, would know is sorely needed. The citizens of California support the project, which is running way over estimated cost— but how is that Newsome’s fault? But, this is no vanity project. California desperately needs and wants more public transportation.
Now, by comparison, what are Trump’s priorities and how do they align with what the people want? Trump has blown billions on the war based on a lie, after lying about never starting any new wars to get elected. Our service members do not have the basic needs to carry out their duties and Trump and Hegseth don’t care. Closure of the Strait of Hormuz has driven up the price of gas, fertilizer, helium, groceries and everything delivered by trucks.
What are Trump’s priorities? A vanity ballroom no one wants that he lied about costing $200 million, all covered by donations, but which is costing three times as much, all covered by taxpayers. After a court enjoined the ballroom, Trump’s DOJ is appealing, arguing that the ballroom is needed for national security.
Another vanity project— an arch with gilded angels dedicated to— guess who? That would destroy the aesthetic view of Arlington National Cemetery.
Next we have the JFK Center for the Performing Arts that Trump put his name on, ahead of that of our slain president. After a court ordered Trump’s name removed, Trump ordered the signage over the main entrance covered with a tarp. Now he’s gotten the sycophants on the Board of the JFK Center to vote to close the center down for 2 years for “renovations”, and installation of a new sign honoring Trump for restoring and renovating the building. (Trump, of course, wouldn’t be paying for any renovations or refurbishing—taxpayers would). They also voted to name the entire campus after Trump. Did I mention that the Trump appointed members of the board include Maria Bartiromo and Laura Ingraham?
Another vanity project— Trump wants to blow more millions of our tax dollars to rough up the surface of the Old Executive Office Building and paint it, something not only unnecessary, but Ill-advised. It would be another debacle like the reflecting pool disaster. That would cost millions, and painting would need to be redone done every few years. The building was designed with a granite exterior so that it wouldn’t need maintenance. It is beautiful just as it is.
There is obviously no comparison between the public transportation project California needs and citizens want and Trump’s vanity projects that are costing taxpayers money and that we don’t want. MAGA media ignore Trump’s money wasting vanity projects. They are only going after Newsome because he is a potential presidential candidate.
Newsom found $236 million to spend on the La Brea Tar Pits Reimagine Project.
Change the subject. That’s all you got?
In 1886 the Railroads of the southern United States re-gauged a total of 11,500 miles of track to better interoperate between each railroad and those of the North. The problem was that there were over 23 different track gauges in the US and the goal was to standardize the track to a compatible gauge.
The effort required a great amount of planning and coordination, yet in the end the down-time for the conversion was only 36 hours.
http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html
So 140 years ago, we could change the track gauge of 11,500 miles of railroad lines in one and a half days using manual labor and spike hammers, but today in CA we can’t build one operational mile of high-speed rail with all our modern machinery, billions of dollars in funding. and decades of time.
Here’s some perspective. The Erie Canal took 8 years to build. The U.S. built the Panama Canal in about 10. Hoover Dam took 5 and was finished ahead of schedule. They did all of that without computers, GPS, modern earthmoving equipment, or a fraction of the technology we have today.
California voters approved high-speed rail 18 years ago, roughly $18 billion has been spent, and not a single passenger has taken a ride. At some point you have to stop blaming the complexity of the project and start examining the system trying to build it. This isn’t an engineering problem. It’s a management and accountability problem.
Olly – Darren: The issue is NIMBYism. All those projects you two cited were built on mostly undeveloped land. But California’s coastline is one of the most developed stretches of land in the country. So trying to bring a railroad through, in a straight line, is all but impossible. And I don’t think the challenge was completely realized when ground was first broke.
Anonymous, but isn’t that exactly what planning is supposed to account for? California’s development, NIMBYism, environmental requirements, land acquisition and litigation didn’t suddenly appear after voters approved the project. If those realities made the original cost and schedule unrealistic, they should have been incorporated into the plan presented to the voters.
Nobody is arguing that building high-speed rail through modern California should take five years. The comparison simply raises the question of how earlier generations completed enormous projects with vastly inferior technology while ours can spend 18 years and $18 billion without carrying a passenger. If the answer is that our own processes make building things extraordinarily difficult, then perhaps the process is exactly what we should be examining.
Olly, you’re a Navy guy aren’t you? Maybe you’d like to address our current inability to build and service warships.
Anonymous, I am, 20 years Navy, and I went through multiple shipyard overhauls. My late father-in-law also ran a major ship repair company in San Diego, and my brother-in-law negotiated the contracts. So yes, I have some familiarity with that problem.
One issue was the contracting system itself. Contractors bid exactly what the RFP called for, even when experienced people could see work that had been left out. Win the contract as the low bidder, then the omissions become contract modifications once the ship is already torn apart and the government has little choice but to pay for them. That’s not primarily a shipbuilding problem. That’s a procurement, oversight and accountability problem. Which is exactly my point about high-speed rail.
Olly, are you familiar with Trump’s demand that the ‘islands’ on new warships be moved back to center so they resemble WWII ships? The NYT is covering that today. Trump’s demand has no engineering rational and could cost billions in redesign costs. It would also leave less room for planes on deck.
Anonymous, presidents wanting things that may be stupid, impractical or technically unsound is nothing new in the history of this republic. If we’re going to catalog every stupid idea proposed by a politician, we’ll be here awhile.
The more important question is whether the system has the capacity to check it. We have engineers, procurement processes, Congress, budgets, oversight and competing authorities for a reason. If one person’s bad idea can blow billions of dollars despite all of those controls, then my concern isn’t merely the bad idea. It’s why the system designed to stop it failed.
Olly, that’s a good analogy but not the least bit reassuring.
There is no engineering rational for the Ballroom or the Arches either. ..clearly, Trump prefers form over function.
The answer is Obvious: call the Chinese.
They spit out high-speed rail like Lego trains. .. at a very reasonable cost.
*anonymous. once spent 93 days at sea on a USS Navy carrier. lost all geographical orientation, and sense of direction. .. can’t imagine 250 days at sea!
dgsnowden, the Chinese solution certainly eliminates a few steps in the approval process. 😂 But I’m not ready to trade a constitutional republic for faster trains.
Somewhere between “the government wants a railroad, so move” and spending 18 years and $18 billion without carrying a passenger, there ought to be a competent system of government.
And 93 days at sea is enough to understand why sailors start measuring distance in meals instead of miles. 🙂
“But California’s coastline . . .”
Uh, it’s route is through *central* California (Merced, Bakersfield, etc.). That is not the “coastline.”
Estovir, the train is supposed to ultimately link L.A. and San Francisco.
In one his debates about rich vs poor, Milton Friedman said that the key to accumulating great wealth these days is establishing a connection to government.
Yes indeed !!!
No truer words were spoken !!!
Look no further than Elmo the Muskrat, Bezos, Zuckerberg and the rest of motley collection of tech titans.
Boondoggles In The News:
Cyclospora Traced To Cutbacks
Cyclospora, which can cause explosive diarrhea, cramps and other severe symptoms, has been a recognized driver of foodborne illness for nearly 30 years. But this year’s massive toll — totaling more than 24,500 confirmed or suspected cases so far and two deaths — reveals shortcomings in the U.S. food safety system that may leave Americans more vulnerable to future pathogens, public health experts say.
Many point to an erosion of food safety oversight during the Trump administration, stemming in part from its aggressive efforts to roll back regulations and shrink the federal government. Last year, the F.D.A. laid off many of the staff who supported food inspectors’ travel planning and who coordinate with foreign governments on food safety. (An F.D.A. spokesman said on Friday that “travel support staff and staff that coordinated with foreign governments have been reinstated.”) The administration eliminated a committee tasked with studying problems that led to outbreaks. It also cut a program focused on cyclospora tracking.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/15/health/cyclospora-invesigation-fda.html?smid=nytcore
…………………………………………..
Key Passage From Article:
A federal rule that had been scheduled to take effect in January would have required Taco Bell to send those records within 24 hours. But last year, the Trump administration delayed the implementation of that rule until mid 2028, saying companies needed more time to prepare.
“Goofy Gavin” could have built a water (i.e. the one thing CA needs) pipeline from the Columbia River or Canada for less money.
He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
Nobody saw THAT coming!
To be fair, it was not Gavin Newsom that initiated that horrendous high speed rail project in California. Arnold Schwarzenegger was California’s Governor at the time. California hasn’t had decent governance ever since Pete Wilson left office in 1999. Since then, California voters have elected THE MOST incompetent people ever to have run for office. Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, and the entire State Legislature have destroyed California beyond any sense of redemption. California’s high speed rail project is a harbinger of what’s to come for the entire nation if America elects another incompetent person as President like the four men previously mentioned.
Nothing like a bit of revisionist MAGA history.
You seem to think that Pete Wilson was the last decent governor in California.
Pete was the one who signed the legislation enabling the rail project in 1996.
He actively championed and supported the project.
How could Wilson sign the legislation enabling the rail project when it came to vote in 2008.
No to a federal bailout. But yes to federal criminal investigations and to federal lawsuits to claw back all the federal money that was wasted on this project.
It’s painfully obvious that State govt. in California is not running a meritocracy. The complete lack of accountability is the crux of the problem, as Steve Hilton is pointing out. I remember a time around the mid-2000s when “measurable results” was the standard for public investments. Now, it’s slipped backwards into “good intentions only” — and that is a consequence factional identity politics. You don’t hold your side accountable because it will be used by the opposition to crucify and weaken your side’s leadership.
Getting back to good government means citizens not taking up partisan identities, but rather straddling the two party system as uncommitted or independent. That way, both parties have to compete for your approval, neither takes you for granted, and neither writes you off you as unreachable.
pbinca, I think you’re hitting the real problem. Once partisan identity becomes more important than measurable results, accountability is dead. If I excuse failure because admitting it might help the other side, what incentive does my side ever have to improve?
My Deming training tells me that checks and balances, good intentions, and procedures aren’t enough. Plan, Do, Check, Act. Set measurable expectations, do the work, independently audit whether the system actually performed as intended, then act on what you learn. An audit isn’t an accusation of wrongdoing. It’s how a well-managed system produces justified trust. Government should have to earn that trust regardless of which party is running it.
Deming….6-sigma….government didn’t get the memo.
Anonymous, apparently not. 😂 The irony is that government may be the organization most in need of continuous improvement because it faces so few natural consequences for poor performance. A business can lose its customers and go broke. Government can miss the milestone, blow the budget, ask for more money, and call it a funding problem.
And then we’re expected to let the fox audit the chicken house and call that accountability. The “Check” in Plan, Do, Check, Act only produces confidence when the verification is genuinely independent of the people whose performance is being evaluated.
It was already a sick joke when the high-speed rail from LA to SF would in fact only go from Bakersfield to Merced in its “first” phase, as if it would get any ridership at all – much less the ridership to pay for its own operations – between those two busy metropolises.
BUT NOW, to save money (that is, to reduce the INCREASE in cost from their 2025 estimate just last year) it isn’t even going from Bakersfield to Merced – it’s going from a “temporary” station north of Bakersfield to a station not in downtown Merced! I.e., a shorter distance, as well as not having to lay tracks into “town” and buy station property in “downtown”. N.B.: “Downtown” Bakersfield to “Downtown” Merced is in the (current) authorizing law, as is a distance of 171 miles – all three of those constraints would be violated by their new plan.
So now it’s even funnier, if you like to watch California burn $$$$ (which, in fact, I do because I fled California 25 years ago and positively don’t regret it).
Just for comparison Sound Transits Link Light Rail will (when complete in 2050) will cover 116 miles in and around Seattle for a estimated cost of 185 Billion.
This fraud had a price tag of $33 billion when the $9 billion bod was put on the ballot by Jerry Clown, errr Brown. Anyone with 100 or so working brain cells knew this was a fraud. Brown should be held responsible, much more than Gov Hair Gel.
Newsom and the one-party state legislature also caused the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the fast food sector, and hundreds of restaurant closures, with raising the mandated wage. The employees lucky enough to keep their jobs had substantially fewer hours, while prices rose for the consumer. All that economic destruction for the sake of virtue signaling or being a member of a socialist cult. Now he wants to californicate the rest of the country. I say thanks but no thanks.
If the train project had been given to Trump or Musk at the beginning with means of keeping the grifters back it would have been finished long ago at a fraction of the cost.
“If the train project . . .”
Not Trump or Musk, but:
For real-world evidence of that, see Brightline — Florida’s privately owned and operated rail service. The first line took 3 years to become operational. since then, they’ve expanded rapidly.
Democrats roasted their own donors in the Palisades and still got reelected. Always expect the worst in blue counties.
Gov. Nuisance is far left, but now I hear he’s shifting left to keep up with “progressives.” Is that supposed to imply that Newsome is too moderate? Heaven help us.
It’s cultish behavior. They vote for continued misery rather than improvement, as vividly demonstrated in the recent LA mayoral election.
Come On Man!! Newscum and Californication will NEVER run out of money! As long as Cali taxpayer FOOLS are in the State, have money in their pockets, and can be incarcerated for refusing to hand over the MOOLAH, then the Money Train just keeps chuggin! Bah haha. Can ya hear that Choo Choo comin for ya Cali?
The warmth of collectivism is caused by billions of taxpayer dollars going up in flames. In blue states people will vote for their own destruction.
Please, pistol Pete Hegseth spent $18bn last month in the pointless war on Iran. The Pentagon spends hundreds of billions every year on pointless nonsense ‘going up in flames’ (see e.g. Ukraine) and hasn’t passed an audit in 8years.
The Great Grift of America continues unabated and makes no distinction between ‘blue/red’ states. .. and will continue to do so until the ‘warmth of collectivism’ stop it.
*there are no blue states, there are no red states .. . there is only the United States.
Not everyone thinks it’s pointless to degrade the Ayatollah’s nuclear weapons program, especially when they admitted they had enough enriched uranium for 11 Hiroshima bombs, and their stated goals include wiping other nations off the map, including the “Great Satan” (the USA), and the range of their ICBMs is always increasing to the point they recently proved a capability to reach every capital city in Europe. Just because you have your head in the sand, that doesn’t mean everyone else is willing to take the chance on global nuclear war.
Can the same thing be said about the billions wasted on Newsom’s train to nowhere?