California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) proposed Wednesday to spend $1 billion per year on the state’s failing high-speed rail project through cap-and-trade programs, even as his budget drowned in massive deficits.
As Breitbart News reported, the governor’s revised budget plan sought cuts to a variety of programs to make up a $12 billion deficit. He even proposed cutting off new enrollees for “free” health care to illegal aliens.
But high-speed rail — a program that is decades late and $100 billion over budget without a single station being built — will continue to be funded, as Newsom continues to embrace it as an environmental dream.
Politico reported:
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday proposed a 15-year extension of California’s signature cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases — a cornerstone of the state’s climate policies and a reliable revenue generator.
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Newsom’s plan would also address another California initiative under attack from the Trump administration. Specifically, it would convert the proportion of revenue that funds the state’s hot-button high-speed rail project from a 25 percent carve-out to a guaranteed minimum funding level of $1 billion annually.
“California won’t bend the knee to a federal administration hellbent on making America polluted again,” Newsom said in a statement provided to POLITICO. “Cap-and-invest is the next chapter for one of our most effective tools to clean the air and keep our communities healthy.”
Ironically, it was Newsom who first canceled the high-speed rail program upon taking office in 2019, saying the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles project “would cost too much and, respectfully, would take too long.”
But in an effort to shore up political support in the swing districts of the Central Valley, Newsom sought to preserve the rural portion of the project, despite low consumer demand for travel between small towns.
The first Trump administration clawed back $1 billion in federal spending on the program, which was later restored by the Biden administration. The new Trump administration is now auditing the project for fraud.
Newsom is using his support for high-speed rail to rebrand the state’s costly cap-and-trade tax as “cap-and-invest,” and as an effort to stand up to Trump. But he may also have created a political problem for himself.
By cutting off new “undocumented” applicants from the state’s Medicaid plan, Medi-Cal, while also funding high-speed rail for rich, climate change-conscious passengers, he has set up a likely fight with Latino groups.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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