So listen, here's the story. Glorious sounding projects that will only cost x and we only need to borrow a few billion, and the private enterprise will get on board, and the federal government WI help us out, and yeah, this will work out great. That is the modern sirens song of the Kynesian maniac, the person who just wants the government to spend and spend and spend. They think
that's good public policy. And uh and and how these things catch on and then how impossible they are to kill All wrapped up in the story of the California bullspit Train, also known as the Crony Express, and we hear at the Armstrong and getting show have been trying as hard as we can to drive a stake into the heart of this vampire for a very long time, as has California Assemblyman Jim Patterson, who represents the twenty third Assembly District of Carreptafornia, and joins us. Now, Jim,
how are you, sir? Good Joe, thank you appreciate being with you. Oh yeah, it's it's always good to talk. Listen, we understand the federal government made a move yanking away some of the federal money um that was going towards this debacle. How much money and what does that mean? Well,
right now about a billion dollars. But also they have they're making a claim on about two point five billion, maybe three billion of uh federal taxpayer money that went to the project early on the State of California high Speed Rail Authority grossly misspent and misused. Uh. Look, California high Speed Rail has done this to themselves. I'm a little little tired of, you know, Gavin Newsom and the Democrats in charge of this stay basically saying this is
this is just Donald Trump attack in California. Now, look, here's the truth. The truth is that high Speed Rail entered into an agreement. The Federal Rail Authority approved it. You had to do certain things, you had to do it on time, and you had to conform with the with the plans that the federal government said will help you pay for, including that there has to be a fair amount of private investment, and there is virtually none.
And it's it's even worse than that. I mean, it was supposed to go two D and fifty it's now slow slow speed. It was supposed to go between l A and San Francisco. Now it's going between Bakersfield and and Madera, the initial operating system in central California, where I represent and live in Fresno. We've got billions of dollars of concrete in the air, and what are they going to put on top of that concrete? Regular slow rail? Not.
So they basically took billions of federal taxpayer dollars, said they would do one thing and have done something entirely different, and now they want to blame the federal administration for pulling back funds. California did this to themselves, and the administration and the Federal Reil Authority has every right to claw back billions of dollars. It is done often. This is how the federal government keeps the states honest with
the kind of money that they that they send. So I think this up is going to be more than a billion dollars. I think there's a high probability that we're gonna have to send back a couple of billion to the Feds. And here's how they clawed that back. Maybe next year or the year after, they're gonna send us what ten billion dollars for highways and streets, and
they'll they'll send us eight billions. Wait a minute, that'll work. Yeah, I'm sure there will be many court cases that they're gonna Look, they're gonna they're gonna lose the court cases. This is the oversight responsibility of federal funds. These kinds of agreements are typical. I was mayor Fresno for eight years. We had housing and urban development funds. When I got elected, I inherited a mess uh And Hudd was basically saying, if you don't fix it, uh, we're gonna you're gonna
get you know, maybe million next year. We're gonna claw back thirty million of it because you've spent it incorrectly. This is done all the time. So look, California, you did it to yourself. This is a project that is absolutely uh, disintegrating in front of our very eyes. And what really bugs a day like about of me Joe, is that central California was promised all of this great stuff. What are we going to get out of this? A rump railroad slow speed from Bakersfield to what Madera said,
we already have that. It's called Amtrak. Well, right, and you know what, Jim, it's funny you should mention that I happen to be on one of the most popular Amtrak lines in California recently at rush hour, and it
was maybe half full when we started. Then people obviously got off the train, but I mean half full at rush were in a major metropolitan area, And now they're going to build, at the cost of many billions of dollars regular speed in the middle of the Central Valley between a couple of towns, which are absolutely lovely towns in great places to live and work. But you don't need a freaking train line. And if the federal government did not hold California accountable this way, they would have
to go apologize to Georgia, apologized to Florida. This has been done in the past for rail projects that were screwed up by states. I think Florida had to to to get like a billion dollars clawed back. I think there. I think Georgia is in the middle of a of a of a bit of a dispute over this. I think Michigan might have been. So Look, the storyline we're getting from the governor and the Democrats is this is all Trump's fault. No, it isn't, Governor, this is your fault.
This is the fault of the state of California. You have spent billions, ripped up thousands of acres of prime agriculture, taken people's businesses and their homes in central California, ripped up streets in Fresno from one side of the city to the other. And what are you leaving behind for those billions of dollars, including a bunch of federal tax dollars. A rump railroad, slow speed to ride. It's just this, h Joe, I'm gonna I'm gonna go one step further.
Something is going on inside the High Speed Rail Authority that smells like conflict and corruption. I think you can't just explain what we see today as nothing more than incompetence. If you'll recall, the l A Times did a really good investigative story about how the High Speed Rail Authority was captured by the consultants and the companies that are
getting the billions of dollars to build this. There's only one interest group that us at the core a conflict and maybe even a corrupt intent to keep the cash flowing even though it's building. Uh, you know, this rump railroad, and that's the big time contractors who uh, benefit from it. And by the way, they're the same group of contractors who put up hundreds of thousands of dollars so they bought that vote for a train line no one wants
that will never be finished. And then as the price quadruples quintuples, they're the ones that profit and they're cash on the check. Well, as you dig into that gym, please do keep us in the loop and we will absolutely gladly be your mouthpiece. California Assemblyman Jim Patterson, Yeah, there are still some good people in politics. Who represents the assembly district in corrupt Affnia gym? Thanks a million thanks at you got it.