In this Washington Post op-ed, even their editors shake their collective heads in amazement at what has happened in California. A referendum on a high-speed rail line that was estimated to cost 9 billion dollars has now skyrocketed in costs to over ten times the original estimate.
There are governors who are hitting the reset button on various infrastructure projects that aren't economically viable. Chris Cristie put the kibosh on a train tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan in late 2010. Scott Walker and Rick Scott have refused federal money for high-speed rail projects that were obvious boondoggles, and which would be financially unsustainable once the lines were open for business. The governors were roundly criticized by the mainstream media and Progressives for actually applying cost/benefit ratios and logic to these problems and pulling the plug on them when they didn't make financial sense. In the case of New Jersey's train tunnel, there were already sunk costs. But governor Christie knew that there were going to be cost overruns that his state was responsible for, and he put the project on indefinite hold.
So fiscal sanity rules at the state level, where state budgets have to balance at the end of the year. Jerry Brown aught to stop this insanity, or if he doesn't have the spine, put a referendum on California's ballot initiatives to ask the voters if they really want to be on the hook for a rail line that will cost California tens of billions in money they don't have.
