Guess what. Today, USA Today reports that $8 billion of your hard-earned taxpayer dollars will inevitably be wasted by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) because the agency can’t properly oversee how the high-speed rail grants will be spent.

The FRA, “whose main job until now had been keeping freight and passenger railroads safe, awarded the high-speed-rail grants in January — months later than planned.” Rep. John Mica, the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, “called the award process ‘amateur hour,’ saying the agency didn’t consult closely enough with elected officials and devoted too much money to projects helping increase speeds on existing Amtrak routes.”

That’s because these guys got the money and then made plans — or not — for how to spend it instead of making plans and competing for the money.

In 2008, Congress passed legislation directing the FRA to develop a national high-speed-rail plan. Before that plan was complete, however, the February 2009 stimulus law gave the agency the job of distributing high-speed-rail money. “Usually you design the program and then you get the money,” said Stephen Van Beek of the non-partisan Eno Transportation Foundation. “Similar to other programs in the Recovery Act, this was a case where you got the money and you had to design the program around it.”

The whole thing here.