DOGE Comes For California's High-Speed Rail
It’s debatable that President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is firing too many people at agencies such as the Department of the Interior or the Food and Drug Administration. But no government entity has earned the scrutiny of DOGE more than the government of California and its white elephant high-speed rail project.
First approved by California voters over 15 years ago, the California High-Speed Rail Authority was given $10 billion in state bond money to build 380 miles of track between San Francisco and Los Angeles for a total cost of $33 billion. CHSA was to obtain the $23 billion balance needed for the project from the federal government and private investors.
Fast forward 17 years, and CHSA has spent more than $15 billion without building a single mile of track. The route has now been shrunk to just 171 miles between Bakersfield and Merced. The new smaller project is set to cost more than the entire original project ($35 billion) and won’t be completed until 2033 at the earliest.