by ELISSA SALAMY, The National Desk

Originally posted at RealClearPolicy.com

WASHINGTON (SBG) - The San Francisco Bay Area subway expansion is nearly $2 billion over budget, according to government watchdog group Open The Books.

“This subway expansion is a train wreck for taxpayers,” said Open The Book’s Adam Andrzejewski to Scott Thuman on The National Desk. “The subway system is actually asking Congress to cover nearly the entire cost overrun, they're asking for $1.7 billion from you and I from taxpayers from around the country.”

The subway expansion is being modeled off of a project in Barcelona, Spain, which was completed as part of an effort to minimize street disruptions and lower costs.

“Barcelona was able to do this at $250 million per mile. It's four times more expensive in California, up to a billion dollars a mile,” said Andrzejewski. “Only 1% of local residents actually are riding this train line, and 92% of every single fare is already subsidized by taxpayers.”

Open The Books has also kept an eye on the observational study of animals by the U.S. Department of Defense at Edwards Air Force Base in California, to the tune of $1.9 million over the course of five years, according to Andrzejewski.

“They want to do a census of frogs, fish, snakes, and birds at Edwards Air Force Base, which is an area large Air Force base just outside of Los Angeles, California,” said Andrzejewski. “I can guarantee that China and Russia, they're not spending their military dollars counting fish and frogs and snakes our defense dollars should be spent on defending America.”