California High-Speed Rail Boondoggle Cost Soars to $105 Billion

Commentary I’ll give California’s high-speed rail project one thing. For 14 years, it’s given me something to write about as an example of government waste. From the beginning, when it was advanced as Proposition 1A in 2008, I have pointed out it existed only to spend billions, never to get near completion. The original cost was pegged at only $40 billion for the whole shebang, with $10 billion coming from the Prop. 1A bond, itself bankrolled from the state’s general fund...