The Patriot Post® · Trump Gets Taxpayers Off California's Bullet Train to Nowhere
Last week was a good week for Donald Trump and his waste-cutting agenda. In a significant win, congressional Republicans delivered a rescissions bill that clawed back $9 billion in spending. And regarding a boondoggle in California, earlier in the week, Trump announced the following message on his Truth Social platform:
To the Law abiding, Tax paying, Hardworking Citizens of the United States of America, I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced, ‘HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE. This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum, has cost Taxpayers Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we have received NOTHING in return except Cost Overruns. The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will. This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED.
He added, “Thanks to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again. This was an ill-conceived and unnecessary project, and a total waste of Taxpayer money — But no more!”
We have previously pointed to this long-running boondoggle as a prime example of government waste and overregulation.
Begun in 2008 with an estimated total price tag of $33 billion, designers envisioned that the bullet train would connect San Francisco to Los Angeles through the Central Valley. It was expected to be completed by 2020. Ten years later, with no track laid and costs ballooning to $77.3 billion, Newsom proposed in 2019 a scaled-down version: a 171-mile stretch between Bakersfield and Merced, to be completed and operational by 2030.
Seeking a source for more funding to pour into this money pit, the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) applied for an $8 billion grant from Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. At this point, the total length of the bullet train plan had shrunk again, down to 121 miles.
Now, in 2025, the projected overall cost of the high-speed train has risen to $135 billion, and there is not yet a single operational section.
California’s high-speed rail has become the dictionary definition of a boondoggle.
In February, Duffy initiated a review of CHSRA’s plan after the state agency admitted that the high-speed rail line would not meet its previously projected completion date. Last month, Duffy released his review, concluding that there was “no viable path to complete this project on time or on budget.”
Yet when Duffy pulled $4 billion in federal taxpayer funding for this train to nowhere, Newsom objected, posting on X that Duffy and Donald Trump were “handing China the future and abandoning the Central Valley — again!" He added, "But sorry to disappoint: We’re not letting that happen.”
California is now suing the Trump administration over the termination of the federal grant, arguing that the decision “reeks of politics” and is “yet another political stunt to punish California.”
The irony is that Newsom and the CHSRA would never have found themselves in this situation had the project adhered to its original budget and construction timeline. Yet thanks to the mass of bureaucratic red tape that California Democrats have erected over the years, completing construction projects on time and at or under budget is clearly an impossible task.
“This is California’s fault,” Duffy observed. “Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank check — they come with a promise to deliver results.”