Letters: What private investor would put money into high-speed rail?

"It's delusional in the extreme to think that investors, even in magical-thinking Silicon Valley, would be willing to put money into a project with absolutely no possibility of being profitable. Public projects are for public benefit, not profits. The central question respecting the high-speed rail now is whether, short of making all the money in the world available to build it, it can be built at all in the current century."

"State Republicans are railing against Gov. Newsom and Proposition 50, including asking the California Supreme Court to remove the redistricting initiative from the November ballot, arguing Democrats violated the law when they rushed the measure through to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm election. Yet can anybody name me two Republican lawmakers who have condemned Donald Trump for initiating this fiasco in Texas? How about one lawmaker? I will wait."

Investors will not fund a high-speed rail project that cannot possibly be profitable, and public infrastructure should serve public benefit rather than private profit. Republican leaders loudly criticize California measures like Proposition 50 while remaining silent about Republican-instigated redistricting in Texas. Wealthy donors warning against undermining democracy can appear selective when they ignore comparable actions by their own party elsewhere. Gerrymandering poses a serious threat to electoral fairness, and urgent measures like Proposition 50 are presented as necessary, even if they require extraordinary steps, to preserve the integrity of democratic representation.

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