Et Tu, Newsom? Is Anybody Left to Support Gov. Moonbeam’s Bullet Train?

There have been a lot of
technical, financial and
legal hitches that could have and should have already killed
Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed high-speed rail, but we all know hard
it is to kill a darling government project no matter how bad it
is.

When the project becomes so bad, though, that politicians start
seeing it less and less of a darling, that’s when it’s time to
start looking for the man in the executioner’s hood. Lt. Gov. Gavin
Newsom, a Democrat, has pulled his support for the state’s
high-speed rail project. The San Francisco Chronicle

reports:

Newsom has a knack for getting out in front on issues – most
famously in his 2004 backing of same-sex marriage, and more
recently in endorsing legalized marijuana. Although he was an early
and ardent supporter of the bullet train, Newsom said in a phone
interview Tuesday that “it’s not the same system that was being
promoted” when it first came before voters in 2008.

“We were selling a $32 billion project then, and we were going
to get roughly one-third from the federal government and the
private sector,” he said. “We’re not even close to the timeline
(for the project), we’re not close to the total cost estimates, and
the private sector money and the federal dollars
are questionable.”

Newsom would prefer state leadership to focus more on
California’s drought and the state’s perpetual water issues as a
smarter investment of public funds.

Is Newsom a harbinger of more Democrats jumping off this mess of
a project? Is it possible that politics could actually kill what
common sense could not? We’ll just have to see.

(Hat tip to Sevo.)