"If it is built, California's High-Speed Rail would be the largest public works project in state history. That fact alone appears to be intoxicating to state officials, in a perpetual quest to have California be the first state to do anything," I reported in 2011. That's how long California's High Speed Rail has served only as a jobs program and a really bad joke on California voters and taxpayers.

"Even though high-speed rail has become nothing more than a pipeline project for grabbing big money and a big lie, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the rail bill Wednesday, sealing California's economic fate. Because of the illegitimacy of the project's intent, California taxpayers will be left holding the bill."

I wrote that in 2012. Since then, the only thing that has changed is California Governor Gavin Newsom is now responsible for this High Speed Swindle.

The bill Brown signed in 2012 authorized $5.8 billion to start construction of only one high-speed rail line in the Central Valley, and included $2.6 billion in state rail bond funds, along with $3.2 billion in federal funds.

"But California will have to borrow every dime of that state money to build the high-speed boondoggle."

"And that's the only federal funding the state will receive for the entire $68-$135 billion project. The newest revised business plan claims to have reduced the cost  of the project to $68 billion from $98.6 billion by expanding the 130-mile line from Fresno to Bakersfield, to Merced to San Fernando Valley, for a 300-mile segment. But many economists and rail experts project that the project could cost as much as $135 billion."