If you live in Bakersfield, Calif., and you’re looking for the most expensive way possible to travel to Merced, 164 miles to the northwest, well then, did you ever just luck out.
If you live anywhere else, or if costly travel is not your thing, then your feelings must be a bit bittersweet right now.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has just announced what is probably the wisest decision anyone in California has made since before voters narrowly approved a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco in a 2008 referendum. He is canceling the project, except for the segment between Merced (population 83,000) and Bakersfield (population 380,000).
Of course, this would be much better news if not for the billions already poured down this rathole by Newsom’s Democratic predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown.
In truth, Newsom would probably also abandon the short and useless Bakersfield-Merced segment of the project, except that such a move would force California to return $3.5 billion in federal money that the Obama administration committed to the project.
Still, Newsom deserves credit for lifting a $75 billion burden off the backs of California taxpayers. Likewise, this is a good moment to remember the wisdom of three Republican governors, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Rick Scott of Florida, and John Kasich of Ohio, who turned down billions in federal money for high-speed rail in 2011. For all the fire they drew at the time from the Obama administration and its allies in the media, they had at heart the best interests of their respective states.
The money they rejected actually went to California’s project instead. But it was evidently cursed, as it is now forcing Newsom to throw more good money after the bad.
Even if the news out of California is not uniformly wonderful, it still could not have come at a better moment. Just last week, the new socialist bloc in Congress introduced its “Green New Deal” plan. Multiple Democratic senators who are running for president in 2020 had already endorsed the plan, sight unseen.
They lived to regret it. In addition to ridding the world of “farting cows,” this plan in the draft form released by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., aspired to replace air travel with high-speed rail throughout the U.S. for the sake of reducing carbon emissions.
Needless to say, the “Green New Deal” looks even dumber today than it already did last week. For if high-speed rail couldn’t even work in California, with all the sacrifices Brown was willing to make and all the money he was willing to waste to make it happen, both now in construction costs and later in operating subsidies, then it can’t work anywhere.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., now plans to force a floor vote on the “Green New Deal.” Good for him. Americans deserve some clarity on this issue. They deserve to know who in Congress will vote for such a thing and who takes their job seriously enough to vote against it.
