The Moonbeam Express gets derailed

Rich Terrell

California’s bullet train was (and is) the Green New Deal in miniature. . . . "California’s new governor, the prim and grim Gavin Newsom, announced that the project would be taken off its $650-million-a-month life-support apparatus and euthanized. The end of the project leaves Californians with no way to travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco except a 90-minute, $149 flight.

"(Or driving.)

"For perspective, if you went to Starbucks 35 times for a venti latte, you’d spend more money — and more time — than you would on round-trip air travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco. This is the “problem” that California has tried to solve with a $77 billion boondoggle.

"At the time of its demise, the bullet train was years behind schedule, had spent more than seven times its originally allocated budget, and, of course, carried no passengers.

"Governor Newsom — and this is the truly hilarious part — apparently intends to finish up the little bit of the project that already has been started, meaning that there will be a high-speed bullet train connecting Bakersfield with Merced, 100 miles away. This will come at a cost that is simply astonishing." . . .