California voters are still hoping for the state’s high-speed rail project to get built despite the fact that it is billions over budget, had its federal support yanked and is years behind schedule, according to Politico.
Nearly two-thirds of Golden-State voters support the high-speed rail project despite its crawling progress and the Trump administration recently pulling billions in unspent federal tax dollars for the initiative, according to a Politico poll. The state has been trying to build the high-speed rail project for the last 17 years, though progress has been slowed and the budget has been ballooned by environmental reviews and lawsuits as well as political and financial hurdles.
“This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on July 16 when federal funding was revoked. “Not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again.”
Sixty-two percent of California voters still want the state to keep bankrolling the project, while 21% of registered Democrats and 62% of Republicans say it should be abandoned at this point, according to the poll. Relatively few on both sides of the political aisle in California still think the high-speed rail project could be finished, with 27% of Democrats and 23% of Republicans maintaining a positive outlook, Politico reported.
The project’s cost has surged from $33 billion to an estimated $135 billion since 2008, according to Deseret News.
“There definitely is this sense that the state can’t do big things,” Andrew Acosta, a California Democratic campaign consultant, told Politico. “Californians would like to see it happen, but show me the last project that came in on time or under budget.”
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and labor unions have continued to vouch for the project, proposing to route $1 billion in funding from California’s cap-and-trade program annually. Newsom’s office referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to the governor’s most recent statement on the project in which he blasts Trump for pulling the federal funding.
“Trump wants to hand China the future and abandon the Central Valley. We won’t let him. With projects like the Texas high-speed rail failing to take off, we are miles ahead of others,” Newsom said on July 16. “We’re now in the track-laying phase and building America’s only high-speed rail. California is putting all options on the table to fight this illegal action.”
Notably, the House Oversight Committee recently launched an investigation into the project over its funding.
“As part of our investigation, we are seeking to understand whether the Authority knowingly misrepresented the ridership projections and the associated financial viability of the California High-Speed Rail Project (CHSR Project) to secure federal and state funds,” House Oversight Chairman and Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer wrote to Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy on Tuesday.
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