Written by Amanda Angulo
On Thursday, Joe Biden had restored a $929 million grant for California’s high-speed rail that former President Trump had revoked back in 2019. However, while Trump had called the project a disaster, Biden claims that the grant will support high-speed rail and ensure that it is “the cleanest, safest, and fastest rail system in the world.”
California State Treasurer, Fiona Ma stated, “to be clear, a repeat effort that spends billions without getting any new lines operational after another decade will be the death of high-speed rail in America,” in a letter she wrote Monday to congressional leaders.
This alludes to how in 2009 and 2010, the Obama Administration had allocated over $10.5 billion to high-speed rail projects yet there were no operational rail lines after that. In addition, voters had initially approved $10 billion for the project, back in 2008. Nothing was done. “There is simply no way the public will continue to support such an agenda without seeing tangible results” states Fiona Ma.
The fact of the matter is simply this: high-speed rail is just out of date. Spending time and finances on such a project will just be a waste, especially since voters no longer see a use or reason for such a project to be built. Also, since the project would not be completed until the 2030s, it is not worth pouring $69 billion to $99.8 billion into a high speed rail system.
The grant should instead be used and focused on something that actually matters and needs to be addressed by the administration. Let’s say we start with the border crisis.
