Speaker 1: So listen, here's the story. Glorious sounding projects that will
Speaker 1: only cost x and we only need to borrow a
Speaker 1: few billion, and the private enterprise will get on board,
Speaker 1: and the federal government WI help us out, and yeah,
Speaker 1: this will work out great. That is the modern sirens
Speaker 1: song of the Kynesian maniac, the person who just wants
Speaker 1: the government to spend and spend and spend. They think
Speaker 1: that's good public policy. And uh and and how these
Speaker 1: things catch on and then how impossible they are to
Speaker 1: kill All wrapped up in the story of the California
Speaker 1: bullspit Train, also known as the Crony Express, and we
Speaker 1: hear at the Armstrong and getting show have been trying
Speaker 1: as hard as we can to drive a stake into
Speaker 1: the heart of this vampire for a very long time,
Speaker 1: as has California Assemblyman Jim Patterson, who represents the twenty
Speaker 1: third Assembly District of Carreptafornia, and joins us. Now, Jim,
Speaker 1: how are you, sir? Good Joe, thank you appreciate being
Speaker 1: with you. Oh yeah, it's it's always good to talk. Listen,
Speaker 1: we understand the federal government made a move yanking away
Speaker 1: some of the federal money um that was going towards
Speaker 1: this debacle. How much money and what does that mean? Well,
Speaker 1: right now about a billion dollars. But also they have
Speaker 1: they're making a claim on about two point five billion,
Speaker 1: maybe three billion of uh federal taxpayer money that went
Speaker 1: to the project early on the State of California high
Speaker 1: Speed Rail Authority grossly misspent and misused. Uh. Look, California
Speaker 1: high Speed Rail has done this to themselves. I'm a
Speaker 1: little little tired of, you know, Gavin Newsom and the
Speaker 1: Democrats in charge of this stay basically saying this is
Speaker 1: this is just Donald Trump attack in California. Now, look,
Speaker 1: here's the truth. The truth is that high Speed Rail
Speaker 1: entered into an agreement. The Federal Rail Authority approved it.
Speaker 1: You had to do certain things, you had to do
Speaker 1: it on time, and you had to conform with the
Speaker 1: with the plans that the federal government said will help
Speaker 1: you pay for, including that there has to be a
Speaker 1: fair amount of private investment, and there is virtually none.
Speaker 1: And it's it's even worse than that. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was supposed to go two D and fifty it's now
Speaker 1: slow slow speed. It was supposed to go between l
Speaker 1: A and San Francisco. Now it's going between Bakersfield and
Speaker 1: and Madera, the initial operating system in central California, where
Speaker 1: I represent and live in Fresno. We've got billions of
Speaker 1: dollars of concrete in the air, and what are they
Speaker 1: going to put on top of that concrete? Regular slow rail? Not.
Speaker 1: So they basically took billions of federal taxpayer dollars, said
Speaker 1: they would do one thing and have done something entirely different,
Speaker 1: and now they want to blame the federal administration for
Speaker 1: pulling back funds. California did this to themselves, and the
Speaker 1: administration and the Federal Reil Authority has every right to
Speaker 1: claw back billions of dollars. It is done often. This
Speaker 1: is how the federal government keeps the states honest with
Speaker 1: the kind of money that they that they send. So
Speaker 1: I think this up is going to be more than
Speaker 1: a billion dollars. I think there's a high probability that
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to send back a couple of billion
Speaker 1: to the Feds. And here's how they clawed that back.
Speaker 1: Maybe next year or the year after, they're gonna send
Speaker 1: us what ten billion dollars for highways and streets, and
Speaker 1: they'll they'll send us eight billions. Wait a minute, that'll work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there will be many court cases that they're
Speaker 1: gonna Look, they're gonna they're gonna lose the court cases.
Speaker 1: This is the oversight responsibility of federal funds. These kinds
Speaker 1: of agreements are typical. I was mayor Fresno for eight years.
Speaker 1: We had housing and urban development funds. When I got elected,
Speaker 1: I inherited a mess uh And Hudd was basically saying,
Speaker 1: if you don't fix it, uh, we're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 1: get you know, maybe million next year. We're gonna claw
Speaker 1: back thirty million of it because you've spent it incorrectly.
Speaker 1: This is done all the time. So look, California, you
Speaker 1: did it to yourself. This is a project that is
Speaker 1: absolutely uh, disintegrating in front of our very eyes. And
Speaker 1: what really bugs a day like about of me Joe,
Speaker 1: is that central California was promised all of this great stuff.
Speaker 1: What are we going to get out of this? A
Speaker 1: rump railroad slow speed from Bakersfield to what Madera said,
Speaker 1: we already have that. It's called Amtrak. Well, right, and
Speaker 1: you know what, Jim, it's funny you should mention that
Speaker 1: I happen to be on one of the most popular
Speaker 1: Amtrak lines in California recently at rush hour, and it
Speaker 1: was maybe half full when we started. Then people obviously
Speaker 1: got off the train, but I mean half full at
Speaker 1: rush were in a major metropolitan area, And now they're
Speaker 1: going to build, at the cost of many billions of
Speaker 1: dollars regular speed in the middle of the Central Valley
Speaker 1: between a couple of towns, which are absolutely lovely towns
Speaker 1: in great places to live and work. But you don't
Speaker 1: need a freaking train line. And if the federal government
Speaker 1: did not hold California accountable this way, they would have
Speaker 1: to go apologize to Georgia, apologized to Florida. This has
Speaker 1: been done in the past for rail projects that were
Speaker 1: screwed up by states. I think Florida had to to
Speaker 1: to get like a billion dollars clawed back. I think there.
Speaker 1: I think Georgia is in the middle of a of
Speaker 1: a of a bit of a dispute over this. I
Speaker 1: think Michigan might have been. So Look, the storyline we're
Speaker 1: getting from the governor and the Democrats is this is
Speaker 1: all Trump's fault. No, it isn't, Governor, this is your fault.
Speaker 1: This is the fault of the state of California. You
Speaker 1: have spent billions, ripped up thousands of acres of prime agriculture,
Speaker 1: taken people's businesses and their homes in central California, ripped
Speaker 1: up streets in Fresno from one side of the city
Speaker 1: to the other. And what are you leaving behind for
Speaker 1: those billions of dollars, including a bunch of federal tax dollars.
Speaker 1: A rump railroad, slow speed to ride. It's just this,
Speaker 1: h Joe, I'm gonna I'm gonna go one step further.
Speaker 1: Something is going on inside the High Speed Rail Authority
Speaker 1: that smells like conflict and corruption. I think you can't
Speaker 1: just explain what we see today as nothing more than incompetence.
Speaker 1: If you'll recall, the l A Times did a really
Speaker 1: good investigative story about how the High Speed Rail Authority
Speaker 1: was captured by the consultants and the companies that are
Speaker 1: getting the billions of dollars to build this. There's only
Speaker 1: one interest group that us at the core a conflict
Speaker 1: and maybe even a corrupt intent to keep the cash
Speaker 1: flowing even though it's building. Uh, you know, this rump railroad,
Speaker 1: and that's the big time contractors who uh, benefit from it.
Speaker 1: And by the way, they're the same group of contractors
Speaker 1: who put up hundreds of thousands of dollars so they
Speaker 1: bought that vote for a train line no one wants
Speaker 1: that will never be finished. And then as the price
Speaker 1: quadruples quintuples, they're the ones that profit and they're cash
Speaker 1: on the check. Well, as you dig into that gym,
Speaker 1: please do keep us in the loop and we will
Speaker 1: absolutely gladly be your mouthpiece. California Assemblyman Jim Patterson, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are still some good people in politics. Who represents
Speaker 1: the assembly district in corrupt Affnia gym? Thanks a million
Speaker 1: thanks at you got it.