Editors at Issues and Insights explain why taxpayers across the country should pay attention to California’s current woes.
When the Justice Department announced a criminal investigation into rampant waste and fraud in California’s multi-billion-dollar homelessness boondoggle, our first question was, why stop there? The state has poured hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into a bullet train, water reservoirs, COVID relief, free health care, public schools, and has nothing to show for any of it.
Why should anyone outside California care? Because the state wasn’t just wasting its own taxpayers’ money – a lot of it came from Uncle Sam. And because the state’s current governor desperately wants to succeed Donald Trump in the White House.
A year ago, an audit found that the state had no idea why the $24 billion it had spent on more than 30 programs had no impact on the homeless population.
Now, the feds have launched a criminal investigation into this fraud. “Taxpayers deserve answers for where and how their hard-earned money has been spent. If state and local officials cannot provide proper oversight and accountability, we will do it for them. If we discover any federal laws were violated, we will make arrests,” said U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.
The Trump administration has also launched an investigation to see where $4 billion in federal money went for California’s never-ending bullet train project, which was supposed to cost $33 billion and would – when completed in 2020 – zip riders more than 400 miles from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco in just over two hours.
The price tag is now more than triple the initial estimate, and the state has no idea when – or if – it will ever be completed. Just building a 119-mile stretch through California’s central desert is now projected to cost more than $35 billion and won’t be completed for at least five more years.
