SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear went on national television Friday to say Democratic governors have receipts, and California would like everyone to know it kept every single one, including the escape room.

It happened on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher." Beshear was making the case for his party's governors heading into 2028. "What Democratic governors have are receipts," he said, and asked the room, "Have you built the housing?"

Steve Hilton, the Republican running for governor of California, had one question back. "Have you built the high-speed rail?"

Maher's verdict: "You're going to have a field day with that. No, you're right."

Folks, when Bill Maher hands you the field and the day, you take both and say thank you.

Now, I don't want to be unfair to the train. Let's look at the receipts together, the way you'd go over the check at the diner when somebody swears they only had coffee.

Voters approved about $10 billion in bonds for this thing back in 2008. The whole project was supposed to cost $33 billion. As of an April estimate, the full line is around $126 billion. That's not a cost overrun. That's the coffee turning into the whole restaurant.

Through February, the state had spent about $15.7 billion. As of that same reporting, not one mile of high-speed track had been laid. Not one. You can drive the route, you can fly the route, you can walk it if you've got a good pair of boots and eighteen years. You just can't ride it fast.

The rail authority says it has finished 66 major structures and about 90 miles of guideway in the Central Valley. Guideway, for those of you at the counter, is where the train would go if there were one. It is the plate. We are still waiting on the pie.

The current business plan aims for service between Merced and Bakersfield, with a price tag of $35.7 billion, and a target date of 2033. That is not Los Angeles to San Francisco. That is the part of the menu where they put the side dishes.

Then there's the other receipt. In September, the authority's own inspector general found about $81,000 in consultant travel expenses that appeared to break state travel rules. That included first-class flights, rideshare upgrades, and trips to gyms, a nightclub, an escape room, a tiki bar and a cigar lounge. Separately, the watchdog flagged $543,000 in travel payments that the contracts didn't allow.

So in fairness to the governor from Kentucky, California does have receipts. It has receipts for Planet Fitness. It has a receipt for a room people pay to get locked inside until they solve a puzzle, which I'd say is the most honest money this project ever spent, because that's the taxpayer's whole situation.

Hilton's campaign manager, Matt Ciepielowski, said Hilton "will end state funding on day one."

Meanwhile, down at the diner, a fella named Earl, who is made up but feels real, has been paying on the train bonds since 2008, when he was 41. Earl is now 59. Earl has never seen the train. Earl has seen 90 miles of the plate.

The governors have receipts. California has a shoebox full of them. Somewhere in there, under the nightclub tab, is the ticket for the train. It just doesn't have a departure time.

This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.

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