Markets exist within politics as much as they do for physical goods. Single-party governments tend to function poorly, regardless of the party, because there's no competition to try and capture the most swing voters, so bad ideas prevail.

California's state government is basically the Comcast of governments. There's no consequences to any of their actions, so their spending goes up and the quality goes down, and will continue to do so, as long as the monopoly is in place.

That one-party is a party of idealists that hardly ever bring any realistic solutions to the table, so I'm not surprised by that outcome.

People in the same party are not always aligned. Representatives want to get pork for their district, so to get their vote you need to do something for them, e.g. route the high speed train through their district even if that is not the most optimal route.

Agreeing on low-cost housing or high speed rail in the abstract is not enough to form a coalition to implement them.

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It's unclear how to map "nominal prices" and "years of expenditure" onto "here's the money spent each year to get us to the point that trains run regularly", the latter being somewhat related (modulo interest) to the amount that must be paid by fares and subsidies going forward.

It's nick shirley, there is quite the agenda.