I mean, does the population density in the US support bullet trains? I know that both Japan & China for example have large population density within each city (whether you live in Osaka heading for Kobe or from Shanghai to Beijing, you get the picture) plus the governments of both countries invest heavily on the infrastructure including maintenance.
Distance is another factor between destinations, like from Nagoya to Kyoto it’s only 130km (80mi) and the commute by bullet train is 33 minutes while from New York to DC it’s 226mi taking you 4 hours by car but via bullet train, the commute time is less than it would be from driving alone. The cities in Japan are closer to each other by comparison.
China is a large country (not big as let's say like Russia in terms of land size) alongside varying topography and climates (they can still install tracks in uneven terrain but adjusting how they are installed), although their population is larger than the US (they have about more than 1.4 billion people as a country while the US is about 348 million).
The taxes work differently across countries, like in both Japan & China: they have the funds gathered from taxation allowing them to maintain constant upkeep or make further improvements. Well, what does the US government spend their taxes on? That in itself also lies the question whether the taxes citizens are already paying are worth it.
Taxes exist in all countries regardless, as governments need funding to maintain and improve infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals, etc. The real question is: how is the government using that money? For example, in Japan the reason why public transport is considered reliable is due to their government using people's taxes for upkeep & bullet trains.
Around the time that the Shinkansen was being built, President Johnson included a provision for a high speed rail line to be built in the Northeast Corridor, a location that makes sense with density and distance. It went ok, in part because the line was relatively straight already and we got what later became the Acela. In the interim, the railroad that owned the tracks went bankrupt.
Part of the issue was that, while other countries were developing high speed rail, passenger rail was owned by private companies and in freefall given the subsidies going to highways. The rail companies didn't want to build high speed rail and most governments didn't really have any experience building rail at all.
Another part of the issue is that early highway construction trampled on the rights of a lot of people and the process of design and construction became heavily regulated. These same regulations apply to high speed rail even though high speed rail is far more environmentally friendly. Part of what was slowing down California's high speed rail project was the permitting process.
In essence, the organizations who could build it mostly went away and the process to build it became incredibly harder. Also, there likely wouldn't be a single system of high speed rail. Instead, there would be multiple seeds in which high speed rail grew from, with some seeds likely not connecting to create an overall network. For instance, Cascadia and CA+NV+AZ would likely be their own networks while Texas+ would likely take a while before it connected to the rest of the Eastern network.