Well, it just goes from bad to worse for the high speed rail project. On Wednesday, they had a budgetary hearing about it at the State Assembly. Here's the story about it from Ashley Zavala. Ashley Zavalla, by the way, who you should all look up on Twitter. Ashley Zavalla. She's a reporter for She's just a local news reporter in Sacramento, and she's like the only reporter who breaks any news about anything happening within state government. It's actually remarkable.
She's far and away the best person to follow about news in Sacramento. And I think she's kind of putting every every reporter for every other news outlet that's based in California to shame. Anyway, she writes, California's embattled high speed rail project will soon need at least seven billion
dollars in order to move forward. During a budget hearing focused on transportation in the State Assembly on Wednesday, Helen Kirstein with the California Legislative Analysts Office told lawmakers the project faces a seven bohbo bo bo bo bo bo bo billion dollar budget gap and the funds need to be secured by next June. So June end of fiscal year twenty five twenty six. If not, Kirstine said, it will create yet another delay for plans to finish the
project's first segment between Merced and Bakersfield. There is no specific plan to meet that roughly seven billion dollar gap. We also think there is some risk that gap could grow. I'm gonna interpret that as it's AB's a freaking loutly going to be more than seven billion dollars. Kirstine said. This isn't a way out in the future funding gap. This is a pretty immediate This isn't a way out in the future funding gap. This is a pretty immediate
funding gap. Wednesday's hearing on the project was brief. Well, you wouldn't want to spend a lot of time on it. This is one of the great things about the California legislature. Like they introduce a bill in committee, usually one side only gets two minutes to discuss it, and the side that they want to v for gets as much time as they want. Anyway, Wednesday's hearing on the project was brief, as the High Speed Rail Authority submitted an incomplete project
update to lawmakers in time for the hearing. Good the High Speed Rail Authority that they can't even get a full update in time for hearings. Officials said the update would be ready sometime later this summer, which irked lawmakers. We have no plan, we have a good likelihood it's going to get worse, and we have a short time to solve the problem, set Assemblyman Stephen Bennett, a Democrat from Ventura. That's not a good place for government to
put itself into. The project was originally pitched to voters in two thousand and eight. Ah, let's let's go back to two thousand and eight, the two thousand and eight November.
Elections in California.
What a What a wild election that was the same election where we overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama, we passed Proposition eight to define marriages between one man and one woman, and we decided to build the bullet train. What a wild election that was anyway. The project was originally pitched to voters in two thousand and eight as a forty billion dollar bullet train that would take riders from Los
Angeles to San Francisco. Since then, the price tag for the original vision has swelled to at least one hundred billion, and most of the money has yet to materialize. While the state has spent about fourteen billion on the project so far overall, it still needs more than double that amount in order to finish the merce said to Bakersfield Line, which project leaders hoped to be completed between twenty thirty and twenty thirty three, Well, that's an awfully big window.
Twenty thirty to twenty thirty that's like a four different years in which that could be completed. The Trump administration earlier this year launched an investigation into the use of about four billion dollars in federal funds, which is still underway. Lawmakers acknowledged the administration could halt future money or try to claw back the dollars. Kirstine told lawmakers the rail authorities incomplete update assumes it will still receive and keep
federal dollars. Okay, so we're we're facing a seven billion dollar shortfall.
And that's assuming that we can keep.
All the federal money which the Trump administration is actively trying to claw back. Mike Tolifson, the chief of staff for the High Speed Rail Authority, told lawmakers the project's new CEO is working to review the project. Overall, we are diligently working to get that information respect to scope schedule ridership, Toulson told the panel, You've been working on this for forever. How is that not all one hundred
percent laid out in detail already? Kirstin recommended that lawmakers try to figure this out.
Well, maybe maybe you should figure it out.
Kirstine recommended that lawmakers try to figure this out as they work to determine the state spending plan for the next fiscal year, which starts in July. The timing of the project review seems totally out of whack with when we need to be making decisions, said Assembly Member Kaddy Petrick Norris, a Democrat from Irvine.
That this is this is key.
The timing of the project review seems totally out of whack with when we need to be making decisions. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, ex backing a different outcome. So I think the point she's trying to make is, you know, the governor starts working on next year's budget in I don't know, like December January. We're in March. We're now learning about this seven billion dollar shortfall, and if we don't get that money by June of next year, the high speed
rail will be delayed until. I mean now the window is twenty thirty to twenty thirty three, what'll it be, I don't know what it'll be like, twenty thirty two to twenty thirty six, I don't know. Meanwhile, State Senate Transportation Committee Chairman David Cortes Cortesi told KCRA three he is hoping to schedule a hearing on the high speed
rail project in May. Wednesday's hearing happened hours after Governor gavenue From released the latest episode of his pot cast featuring political commentator and author Ezra Kleine, in which the governor defended the project. We did the railhead. We're starting to lay track. This thing is starting to get very very real, the governor said. The episode focused on how now that's actually interesting. I maybe I need to go listen to Gavin Newsom.
Gosh, it would really suck. As part of my job.
I need to actually listen to a Gavin Newsom podcast every week. Ezra Kline is a columnist for The New York Times, and he's been highly critical of democratic leaders basically being unable to accomplish big goals in the high speed rail was one of the chief objects of his approbrium, So it seems that Newsom is trying to have him on to say, oh, no, it's not that bad.
I think this is.
Newsom trying to lay the groundwork for his twenty twenty eight presidential campaign and so oh no, no, no, high speed reel isn't total failure. The episode focused on how Democratic leaders have struggled to build and finish major projects in recent decades, which has frustrated the party's supporters and voters overall. Newsome acknowledged the challenges with the California's high speed rail project, but claimed, now the hard work is
behind us and now we're laying track. Well, clearly the hard work is not behind you, because you've got a seven billion dollars short fall. When Klein pressed him about the money shortfalls to complete the project overall and then are said to Bakersfield line, Newsom replied, at the end of the day, we've got these constraints that are well established in existing constraints. That's not an answer. At the end of the day, we've got these constraints. Yeah, the
constraint that you don't have enough money. There's not a high speed rail system that doesn't have some popularity and success. Most are wildly popular. It's an experience no one has had in the United States of America. At least we're out here. We're out there daring, he said. I was in middle school when this happens, said Assembly Member Alexandra Mesido, a Republican from Tularry who was elected to the state Assembly in the last election.
We don't have the time, we don't have the money.
We just need to pull the plug on this project, she said, as the voters passed it in two thousand and eight.
It's never going to happen. Hard to argue with that.
I mean, I am really struggling with how Democrats can't come to that analysis. The sunk cost fallacy, all right, The sunk cost fallacy is basically, I've got a failing project, but I've invested so much into it that I can't just give up on it. That is feeding into the sunk cost fallacy. No, at a certain point, you need to just accept the loss, cut your losses and move on. Will actually be a better outcome than continuing to stick
with something that's doomed. And Gavin Newsom is desperate. That's the other thing is that we have people with lots.
Of different motivations. So let's think about this.
Nobody currently in the state legislature was in the state legislature in two thousand and eight. Okay, California has term limits, twelve year term limits, So nobody who's currently in the state legislature was in the state legislature in two thousand and eight when the high speed rail was passed.
Okay.
There are very few people left in the state legislature who feel some kind of political need to keep defending the high speed rail. Now, Newsom was around in two thousand and eight. He was supportive of it then and critically Newsom made this big decision after he was elected governor in twenty nineteen. A lot of people thought that Newsom would cut bait on the high.
Speed rail project.
There's a lot of reporting that he was less enthused about it than Jerry Brown was, and it seems of what happened was he got convinced of this idea well, merced to Bakersfield, merceaid to Bakersfield, and Newsom's entire governorship, all we've heard about is we're cutting our loss, We're going to focus on let's just get merced to Bakersfield done, and once me said to Bakersfield is done, it will demonstrate the viability of the system as a whole, which
was always an argument that it just didn't make any flippant sense. Merceaid to Bakersfield was never going to be. That's not representative of the system as a whole. Okay, it's building it across the least populous and flattest stretch of California, with the least amount of problems with eminent domain seizures, the fewest engineering challenges as far as navigating
the terrain. Okay, you don't have to blast through mountains, which apparently we I don't know that we even today, I don't know that there's a great strategy for how we get this high speed rail across the Grapevine. And it's also I also have always thought that there's no way this is going to demonstrate the viability of the high speed rail just based on ridership, because who in the San Joaquin Valley, the San Wauquin Valley, which is the most negative region in the in the state with
regards to its opinions on the high speed rail. Who in the San Joachin Valley is gonna ride this thing. There's no trip all right. Merced to Bakersfield itself is roughly a I don't know, a three hour car drive, and there's not a lot of direct mer said to Bakersfield traffic.
I mean, mostly it's okay.
If you live in Fresno and you want to go to Bakersfield, what are you gonna do? Well, you can either get to a train station forty minutes early, get on the train, take the train to Bakersfield, takes about an hour. You get off in Bakersfield, and then what.
Are you gonna do? You're gonna take an uber or something.
You haven't really saved any time, so, I mean, and then when you're.
In Bakersfield, you don't have the flexibility of your own car.
I just don't think anyone is gonna actually ride this thing from Merced to Bakersfield. I just don't see how this is going to happen unless you have I don't know, you work in downtown Fresno and you're going to someplace that happens to be right next to the train station in Bakersfield or Maderra, Merced or whatever. But to me, it just seems like there's no way anybody's going to ride this thing or its ridership is going to be really small. How is this going to demonstrate the viability
of anything. Newsom sort of decided in twenty nineteen this was what he was going to do, and he needs this to work. He can't abandon it like a sunk cost because it's about his presidency. When we return, I want to talk about how important the high speed rail is for his presidential ambitions.
That's next on the John Growardy Show.
Gavin Newsom needs the high speed rail project to work because he needs to run for president.
He needs it. It's an essential cog in his desire to run for president.
If at least merced De Bakersfield isn't completed or well on the road to completion, this is what the debate stage is gonna look like for the presidential election. You want to talk about infrastructure, This guy can't even get his high speed rail project done. He's been working on it in California. He worked on it in California for eight years. When he started. There wasn't a single inch of operable track. When he left office, there wasn't a
single inch of operable track. They had to and Newsome is so vulnerable about the high speed rail, He's gonna get roasted on a debate stage when that subject is brought up, whether that's in the primary debates against other Democrats or if it's on the main debate stage going up against Jade Vance, he's gonna get fried.
So here's the thing.
I think most lawmakers, even on the Democrats side, would be open to the idea of is this the sunk cost fallacy? Should we just cut our losses? Should we just say forget it? We need to just abandon this project. It's never gonna happen. It's just not viable. Forget it, We're done, roll it all up, deconstruct it, get all the stuff for salvage or something, and move on.
I think a lot of Democrats would be open to that.
I think particularly a lot of Democrats from the Los Angeles area. Los Angeles was always less supportive of high speed rail than San Francisco was. It was always going to be more of a benefit to San Francisco. Why well, home prices in San Francisco are too insane. The trend has been in the San Francisco in the Bay area just to move further and further south away from the
Bay Area and have longer and longer commutes. Speed rail was a very attractive thing if you're a young if you're an urban professional, you want to buy a big old house in Madera or something and commute twice a week to San Francisco, get a high speed rail train and by to being by a bang baa boom. That made a lot of sense for the Bay Area. It doesn't make as much sense for Los Angeles. So, I mean, I don't think anyone's going to buy a home in Bakersfield to go, you know, commute two hours to go
into Los Angeles or something. So high speed rail was always more popular in the Bay Area. I could see a lot of LA Area lawmakers thinking this is dumb, Like why are we still This is not really going to benefit our region all that much. It's going to cost a lot of money, and like, you know, it's not very environmentally sensitive to say, but we have a high speed system to get from to San Francisco.
It's called airplanes.
We got a gazillion planes that shuttle back and forth forty minutes flat you go from Los Angeles to San Francisco. So I could see lawmakers from Los Angeles saying, you know, forget it. I'd never voted for the Look I could see a lawmaker from Los Angeles saying, hey, I was like sixteen when the state voted for the high speed rail in two thousand and eight. Alexandra Mesdo, the assembly member from Visalia, is saying that same thing.
She said, I was in middle school when the state voted for this. A lot of these.
Lawmakers from LA could say, look, I wasn't a prominent person pushing for the high speed rail in two thousand and eight. I don't have any commitment to this. I'm out. I'm not going to keep voting for its funding anymore. Democrats could do that, but there's one Democrat who needs it to succeed, and it's Gavin Newsom. If Gavin Newsom, if his own Democrats rebel and say we're done with
the high speed rail, we're giving up. If Gavin Newsom, seven years into his eight years of governorship, were to finally pull the plug on the high speed rail.
Now.
There's no way he's running for president. Now it's different. If Newsom on day one had said forget it. This high speed rail is a it's a train of nowhere. It's never gonna happen, and he withdrew support. If he withdrew support for it in twenty nineteen when he started as governor, he'd be in a much better position right now. He wouldn't have this issue hanging over his head.
But he's in too deep now.
He has the high speed rail has to work for his political ambitions.
There's no other option for him.
If if the state legislature pulls all the funding for the high speed rail and gives up on.
It, he's done.
I think I don't think he's got a prayer in a Democrat presidential contest against Jade Vans if they can just say, look at this idiot who supported this high speed rail project that was such a waste of money, such a disaster that his own Democrats couldn't even support it anymore. I think he's cooked, and I think he knows it. I think he understands that's why he's bringing Ezra Clin on to try to onto his podcast to try to like talk to him about oh, no, no, no,
it's not a disaster. And then of course the next day here's the budgetary thing where they say, yeah, there's actually a seven billion dollars short shortfall that we need to get resolved by June of twenty twenty six. He's I mean, if he doesn't get the high speed rail on track to be completed in twenty thirty twenty thirty three,
he's cooked. And if the state legislature undoes it there, I mean, he's if the state legislature eventually pulls its support, if all the Democrat lawmakers from Los Angeles southern California join with all the Republicans, it could be doomed for him, and I think that's what he's worried about. I wonder how much juice he still has. Our lawmakers still afraid of him. I think they are, probably because he's got
such a good connection with the donor class. Probably still be a bad idea to make an enemy out of him. So I'm I don't know that Newsome. I think a lot of lawmakers are willing to accept this is a sunk cost. We got to just cut our losses and move on. But he can't. He can't if he wants
to run for president, he can't make that decision. So as a result, I think he's gonna have enough sway with his fellow Democrats to move them to keep on, keep on, keeping on, keep on funding this thing in a state where we're running deficit every year, we don't have enough money for it. I think he's gonna keep pouring money into this. I wish he'd be willing to sort of accept reality, but he can't do that and then run for president.
It just it won't work.
When we return the alternate universes of Gavin Newsom next on the John Zarardy Show, it's funny to think how it all could have gone so much differently for Gavin Newsom. If he had made a couple of different decisions, he would be the rock star of the left and probably the shoe in for twenty twenty eight.
The left would look at him the way you know.
I mean, if if Trump had not come back to run in twenty twenty four, Ron DeSantis would have been the rock star for the right. And I think DeSantis probably would have kicked Biden's but I think DeSantis probably would have kicked Kamala Harris's but and would would have had this rock star. And DeSantis is a very popular Republican governor. I think Newsom is not that to the left.
I think he's disliked by the hard Bernie left, and I think a lot of people look at him skeptically, even on the more moderate left, the kind of the the John Fetterman types. I don't think he's a beloved figure. And it's so interesting to think what kind of a governorship he could have had if he had just taken a couple of different steps, even on things that don't necessarily touch on like core liberal beliefs, or on things where he could have been more liberal. So let me
count the waves. So Gavin Newsom comes in in twenty nineteen. He's sworn in January of twenty nineteen. It was right then where there was all this talk about is Newsome gonna abandon the high speed rail? A lot of people thought he was going to abandon in the high speed rail, broad understanding that he was less enthused about it than Jerry Brown, was less idealistic about it. He was cutting, we were going to cut our losses, were done with
high speed rail. He comes in though, with this half measure of like, well, he basically cannot bring himself fully
to abandoned high speed rail. He gets convinced to well, we'll just finish merceaid to Bakersfield without hending seemingly that merceaid to Bakersfield is an incredibly tall order still for which we still don't have the money, and he basically takes the position we will finish merceaid to Bakersfield in order to demonstrate the viability of the system as a whole, so he doesn't abandon high speed rail when he could have. He had an opportunity to credibly do that in twenty nineteen,
he didn't do it. That's a big sliding doors moment. You know, take the red pill or take the blue pill.
Which way are you going to go? He chose the easier way out, easier as far as Democrats were more okay with it, and as a result, for his presidential ambitions, he eats all the blame for high speed rail because he committed himself to it and he's too deep in you know, as I talked about in the first two segments, just on Way, there was a budgetary hearing in which it was revealed that we need seven billion dollars before June of twenty twenty six for this upcoming budgetary cycle.
We need seven billion dollars for the high speed rail. If we don't get seven billion dollars. High speed drill is going to be delayed further, so Newsome doesn't look good.
With high speed rail. Here's another sliding door.
I don't know how many of you remember this, but when Newsom was campaigning in twenty eighteen, he was a very big proponent of single pair health care. The idea with single pair health care is instead of a marketplace of insurance companies, there's only one insurance company, the government, Calcare.
And Newsome advocated for it, and he even very specifically used language like I don't like it when these liberal politicians they say they're going to push for single payer healthcare, and then when they actually get in a position to do it, it's, oh, it's not the right time and it's too difficult, and oh and they kicked the can down the road.
I don't like that.
He was so explicit about how these other politicians they just say they're going to pursue single payer, and then when the rubber meets the road, they don't.
Actually do it.
Well, that's precisely what Newsom did. He when the rubber met the road, he didn't do it. Insurance companies got to him. He realized how much taxes would have to be increased, and he just didn't pursue it.
Again, kind of a sliding doors moment.
What does his governorship look like if he actually does pursue it. It becomes the single issue of his camp, the most singular issue of his campaign. Too, was a very good year for Democrats.
I don't know.
I don't think he would have lost, and he would have moved that ratchet one way for Democrats nationwide. I think he would have become a hero on the left. Now a question is, well, what would that have done to California health care? Would that have done to California's economy if the tax if taxes had been increased to that extent, what would that have done to our revenue base?
Would everyone who's wealthy have left?
More people who are wealthy than who left the state during COVID? How would that have functioned during COVID? I mean, would that have put different kinds of strain on the system.
I don't know. I don't know if it would have made the situation better or worse.
I mean, the situation with California healthcare right now is really this sort of half measure that doesn't work where we massively expand medical eligibility so that everyone's covered by medical even though we don't have enough money in medical to cover everybody. I mean, just just about a month ago, they had the story that they need to take out a big loan to help pay for medical because, oh geez, adding illegal aliens to the medical roles is more expensive
than we thought. And that's how Newsome kind of got around that campaign promise.
What he said was, well, what I.
Was trying to do, I wasn't just really what I wasn't concerned about was single payer necessarily. I just wanted everyone to be covered by health insurance, and I've accomplished that.
It's like, all right, well that's a very different thing.
I mean, it's sort of a seems like kind of a half measure that you enacted here. And meanwhile, you know, here's Madera community hospital going out of business. Why because sixty percent of their patients are medical and they lose money on their medical patients or they can't make money.
Too many medical beneficiaries.
Not enough money going into the state's coffers to pay doctors for reimbursements for services to Medicaid patients, to medical patients, so that's.
Another sliding door.
It's very I don't now, I don't know if he would be better off worse off politically. I think he'd be a rock star on the left certainly if he had gotten single payer healthcare past it's an interesting sliding door. What would have happened if Newsom had actually pushed for single pair? The other stuff is just kind of stuff
that isn't necessarily super politically coded. What if Newsom had really taken fire prevention in forestry management, really, really seriously, if Newsom had been willing to buck the environmentalists, how popular would he be? Right, I'm well, let me correct it. How many horrible black eyes would Newsom have avoided if we had enough water going to the Los Angeles area through the California State Water System, if we had appropriate forestry management where we were actually allowed to cut down
some trees to prevent worse burns. If Newsom just decided to stop taking calls from the Sierra Club and went to his donors directly and said, listen, I understand you donate to them. I'm going to stand on my own here and I'm not going to.
Support their policies.
Where would he be I mean he would have avoid I mean, it's sort of hard to know because it's disasters that would have just not happened. But I think his presidential ambitions in twenty twenty eight are not going to be helped by the fires that we experienced last year in Los Angeles. I don't think his presidential ambitions are going to be helped by the horrible forest fires
in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty. And lastly, I sort of wonder if Newsom had taken a page out of the DeSantis Kemp playbook during COVID, what would life what would his perception be. Desantasen Kemp became significant figures on the national right because of COVID, because of how they managed their states during COVID, their willingness to go against the grain and to say no, these lockdown measures aren't really necessary for public health, and they're destroying businesses and
we just can't do this. Newsom went whole hog the other way. I don't think anyone in California loved it.
There was a real moment where the.
Recall effort and sort of the Larry Elder recall effort against Newsom, there was a real moment where it looked like Newsom could lose, and then what happened, Well, Nwsom opened up all the schools, like, you know, two months before the recall election, and then he wins sixty three percent. But I don't think anyone got out of that feeling like, oh, we love.
Gavin Newsom so much. And that's the thing with COVID.
It was so bizarre with COVID, how one strategy versus another got coded as liberal versus conservative, left wing versus right wing. It was all just sort of artificial grouping of people together because I think the left perceived that Donald Trump it was all like it really it honestly felt like so much of it was the left organizing itself against what they perceived Donald Trump wanted. I mean, all the raging against hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were purely because
Trump said something positive about it. Yeah, I feel like there was literally no other reason, Like the whole healthcare is establishment seemed to organize itself around the principle of we don't like Donald Trump, or we don't like Trump supporters or something.
So it it kind of.
I don't think there was really any like core liberal beliefs that Newsom would have actually violated if he would have just had to go against the grain of all the rest of the Democrats in the country, and possibly against the grain of you know, Joe Biden in twenty twenty one. But Newsom could have stood on his own two feet and said, no, you know, no, we're not going whole hog the way all these other liberal states are going. We're not going to be like New York.
We're not going to be like all these other states. We're going to be pretty open and we're going to let people conduct business. But Newsom didn't do that. If if he had governed California the way to Santis governed Florida, you probably would have had a a lot fewer people leaving the state to go to Texas, to go to Idaho, to go here.
There.
We lost a lot of people and a lot of tax revenue during COVID. Would we be facing the kind of budget shortfall we have now if we didn't lose all those people to COVID and if we had abandoned high speed rail project right away. Honestly, Gavin Newsom, if he had done a lot of these things, you know, is it better, is it worse?
I don't know.
The single payer healthcare, that's a wild card. Maybe that would have made him a lot more hated in some ways.
Maybe that would have driven more business out of the state.
I don't know, but it's a fascinating thing. How he had a couple of really big time moments where he had to decide, who am I going to listen to? Am I going to do what my backers tell me or not? Am I going to stand on my own two feet and be my own man? Or am I going to do what all the money'd interest want me to do?
It?
Shut downs A lot of that were prompted by the teachers' unions. Teachers unions didn't want to go back to work,
and he felt he had to listen to them. It's really a fascinating sliding doors thought experiment because Newsom will I think a couple of changes, and Newsom would be standing right now as the rock star likely hero heading into the twenty twenty eight election, and heck, maybe he throws his hat in more aggressively for twenty twenty four when we return the United Kingdom really get into the root of their problems with public violence.
Banning ninja swords.
Next on the John Girardi Show. Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, just tweeted out his announcement that Great Britain would be banning ninja swords.
Saying, when we make commitment, when we bloody well make commitments, we follow through on them. I don't know why assume that here Starmer sounds like Winston Churchill. You know, here's
the funny thing about banning ninja swords. This is the problem is that there is likely a clandestine group of highly trained, secretive warriors who are one the most likely group of people to use ninja swords and because of their martial arts, prowess, their ability to operate in the shadows, and their deadliness, the most likely to evade your silly little ban on ninja swords. Keir Starmer, the.
Ninja assassins are coming for you and for all Britannia.
That'll do it, John Girardi Show. See you next time on Power Talk.