You've got to hand it to California: it's a state that goes big on everything. And now, one of the voters' big ticket purchases from recent years is engendering a super-sized case of buyer's remorse.
In 2008, a majority of Golden State voters approved Proposition 1A, a bond proposal for the state to borrow nearly $10 billion for the construction of a statewide high-speed rail network. The initiative's passage was owed at least in part to the grandiose claims of its proponents -- claims that included the creation of 450,000 jobs and an annual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 12 billion pounds. The reality, however, has proved to be starkly different. Three years later, not a single inch of track has been laid. And the project's original cost estimates -- pegged at about $40 billion -- have now soared to nearly $100 billion (it doesn't help that the state's public High Speed Rail Authority has dumped more than $12 million into PR efforts).
As a result, California voters seem to have had enough. A new Field Poll reveals that nearly 60 percent of the state's residents would dump the high-speed rail project if given the chance to vote on it again.
In 2008, a majority of Golden State voters approved Proposition 1A, a bond proposal for the state to borrow nearly $10 billion for the construction of a statewide high-speed rail network. The initiative's passage was owed at least in part to the grandiose claims of its proponents -- claims that included the creation of 450,000 jobs and an annual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 12 billion pounds. The reality, however, has proved to be starkly different. Three years later, not a single inch of track has been laid. And the project's original cost estimates -- pegged at about $40 billion -- have now soared to nearly $100 billion (it doesn't help that the state's public High Speed Rail Authority has dumped more than $12 million into PR efforts).
As a result, California voters seem to have had enough. A new Field Poll reveals that nearly 60 percent of the state's residents would dump the high-speed rail project if given the chance to vote on it again.
As the Sacramento Bee reports:
Of voters who supported the bond measure in 2008, 37 percent would vote against it today, according to the poll. People who originally voted against the measure remain nearly unanimous in their opposition, at 96 percent, while those who didn't vote three years ago or can't recall how they voted oppose it by a 2-1 margin, 57 percent to 28 percent.There are two lessons here. The first is to beware of public sector supplicants promising that their utopia is only one bond issuance away from reality. The second is that California's initiative system is a bad way to set spending priorities. As I noted in a recent piece for City Journal California, the result is almost always what we're seeing here: aspirational public policy that sounds good until the bill comes due.
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