Trump administration pulls $4B in federal funding for California's bullet train project

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NBC News/AP

July 16, 2025, 10:46 PM EDT / Source: The Associated Press


SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Trump administration revoked federal funding for California’s high-speed rail project on Wednesday, intensifying uncertainty about how the state will make good on its long-delayed promise of building a bullet train to shuttle riders between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The U.S. Transportation Department announced it was pulling back $4 billion in funding for the project, weeks after signaling it would do so. Overall, a little less than a quarter of the project’s funding has come from the federal government. The rest has come from the state, mainly through a voter-approved bond and money from its cap-and-trade program.

President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy both have slammed the project as a “train to nowhere.” “The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED.”

The loss marks the latest blow to California by the Trump administration, which has blocked a first-in-the-nation rule to phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars, launched investigations into university admission policies and threatened to pull funding over transgender girls being allowed to compete in girls sports. It also comes as rail project leaders are seeking private investment to help pay for its estimated price tag of more than $100 billion.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-pulls-4-billion-funding-california-bullet-train-project-rcna219248

[otchmoson]

1. California--use your Californian money for your benefit

Maybe Newsom should retain monies usually paid to the fed to fund this state project.

[azureblue]

2. Time for CA to stop supporting red states

and use that money for its own citizens.. Screw you, felon Trump..

[BonnieJW]

3. Every state should stop paying the fed any money

They need to keep it for projects and for any catastrophic events that might happen. President Putz has made it clear that the fed government will not send assistance to any state, red or blue.

[DENVERPOPS]

15. My thoughts exactly

take the money out of amount sent to the feds by Californians.......

Trump has made it obvious that even less of the money sent to washington by Blue States will be spent on their states and go to red states....

[FredGarvin]

4. China has over 40,000 km of high speed rail linking its cities

Meanwhile in the USA there are a few hundred kilometers that operate.

The Big Dig in Boston is a perfect example of US prowess in taxpayers getting ripped-off win civil construction projects.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. That's because the rest of the world

declares "eminent domain" and just runs the tracks across the property of any private owners and calls it a day. In the U.S., the court battles are fierce.

[FredGarvin]

8. Established rail lines in the US already have legal access to potential rail line upgrades

It's embarrassing how shyt our infrastructure is.

Compared to modern countries like China.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Those rail lines - notably the freight companies - are "privately owned"

In Communist countries like China, "the state" (as in "the national government" ) owns designated infrastructure with relatively little "private ownership", supposedly on behalf of "the people"

http://wap.china-railway.com.cn/english/about/aboutUs/201904/t20190408_92993.html

THAT is what distinguishes the U.S. from much of the rest of the world - the phenomena of so much "private ownership" here in the U.S., whether by individuals or businesses.

[FirstLight]

6. oooooh! He's gonna piss off Gavin!

Watch, now we're REALLY gonna see sparks fly. I hope Gov. Newsom actually DOES withold the Fed taxes ...tell Trump that we kept the $ he took away from us, etc...

[SickOfTheOnePct]

14. Well, the only federal taxes he could withhold...

...would be those of state employees and any federal taxes that the state collects. But then those state employees would have to come up with the money to pay their federal taxes, which would still be due, and possibly withholding penalties as well.

[Tarzanrock]

7. Eminent domain battles in court may be fierce but that is no reason ...

why we cannot have modern transportation systems here in the United States. The Turd's economic insanity is akin to stopping construction on a half-built skyscraper or a half-constructed bridge over a river. High speed rail exists in every major developed nation state except the United States and it doesn't exist here because assbackwards Repupublican idiots adamantly refuse to accept the reality of the 21st Century and the future transportation needs which is one of the reasons that the United States is becoming a second world nation unable to compete in the modern world of the 21st Century.

[FredGarvin]

9. Exactly

There are hundreds of thousands of miles of established rail tracks across the US.

I think the OP is confused

[BumRushDaShow]

12. No, not "confused"

I live in a reality based world where I have used Amtrak when going back and forth to college in MA and over the more recent years, watched them attempt to fix the Amtrak infrastructure here along the NE corridor, which is supposed to allow "high speed" - notably for the Amtrak Acela train. But because the tracks and train bridges are in such poor condition due to lack of money and maintenance, the Acela can only go at those high advertised speeds for certain portions and the rest of the time, forget it.

See this - http://www.realtransit.org/nec7.php

During one of our last heatwave with triple digits, it impacted the switches and overhead wires for those trains and that killed them right off for hours and hours. And even during this past July 4th holiday weekend, one of my nieces was trying to get back home on Amtrak here to Philly from Boston and was delayed for hours due to the heat problem.

Then there are the "right of way" issues where Amtrak has to wait for the freight trains on shared tracks and the local commuter trains have to wait on Amtrak on those same shared tracks.

Don't forget that most of those existing tracks are "privately owned" by the freight companies like Norfolk-Southern and CSX, etc. and if feds attempt to take that over, well...

[BumRushDaShow]

11. "Eminent domain battles in court may be fierce but..."

These rural areas are owned by gun-toting 45-voters who will even battle a neighbor in an adjacent property if a fence is moved. And this is probably a phenomena that increases the further west you go where in the eastern urban areas, the poorer and POC had their homes confiscated (with often nominal reimbursement) and removed in order to make way for highways and byways and trains.

It's only recently when places like here in Philly, are trying to bring neighborhoods "back together" after being gutted and divided. E.g., what was dubbed the "Chinatown Stitch" project to put a cap over an expressway that cuts right through the neighborhood -

The funding was approved last year and now this and similar projects are expected to be cancelled and the money pulled thanks to 45 taking it to give to the billionaires.

[mdbl]

10. He'll reroute it to Fla near Maralardo.

[Paladin]

16. Even if it weren't just a chance for trump to fuck California over...

...that train is way too state-of-the-art, common-sense and cost-effective a solution to mass transit problems for this ignorant, corrupt regime to ever support. My God, the shitty country we now inhabit. Any suggestions about what to do about all this?