The California train wreck

Democracy, said H.L. Mencken, is the theory that people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. In 2008, Californians passed an initiative authorizing $9.95 billion in bonds to build what they were told would be a $33 billion high-speed rail system. California, constantly lurching from one budget crisis to a worse one, could not nearly afford even that, and soon the price was re-estimated at about $100 billion. Not to worry, said Gov. Jerry Brown — the real price will be only $68.5 billion. Why? Partly because it will be less than bullet-like, not requiring extra-expensive roadbed.

Note Brown’s hilarious “.5.” Such is his precision that in May his projection of a $15.7 billion state budget deficit was 70 percent higher than his January estimate.

Eager to hook states on higher spending, especially for high-speed rail, the Obama administration wants California to quickly spend $3.3 billion of federal funding (much of it borrowed from China, one source of President Obama’s train envy). Simitian says the $3.3 billion is about 5 percent of the cost “if the project stays on budget.” If. The $3.3 billion and $2.7 billion of state money would finance 130 miles of track in the Central Valley — a train from, and to, nowhere.