This caught my eye on one fine New England Monday morning (snark, for those of you not enjoying our rain/wind/grim a.m.). (h/t Midwest Energy News).
Money quote on the rash of GOP cancellations/dissings of transportation projects:
The $810 million from Wisconsin, $400 million from Ohio, and $3 billion from New Jersey will come back to Washington and be awarded to other states instead. California was one state where the anti-train candidate, Republican Meg Whitman, didn’t win. Some of the money could end up there, to help launch the Golden State’s Los Angeles-to-San Francisco high-speed rail dream.
John Mica, a Republican from Florida who will run the House transportation committee starting in January, thinks that the Northeast corridor is the best target for high-speed rail money. Newly elected (or re-elected) Democratic governors in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland would presumably be happy to take the money.
I guess I should say thanks, Wisconsin et al.
I was stuck on the “high speed” Acela yesterday between New Haven and Boston which as scheduled is already ludicrously slow — 2 hours to cover about 120 miles, to which track and traffic f/ups added more than half an hour. I would love to see our Northeast Corridor routes achieve intercity timings routinely achieved in Japan in the late sixties.
Cuomo’s already on the case, and I sure hope that my home state hero Deval Patrick joins him.
Except…well two things. First, this note from the Economist article at the link above:
It will be interesting to see whether the Obama administration can convince the lame-duck Democratic congress to reassign the money—or whether the GOP-run House will try to cancel the spending entirely next year.
Well, yeah. Stupid, ignorant, short-sighted bad governance has gone national, again, and there’s no telling just how much badness we’ll endure before we get our next chance to beat back the tide in two years. From here, we get to the other point that emerges from my attempt at a little schadenfreude above.
Which would be that while the proximate losers in this instance are the folks who in some sense deserve to pay a price for electing folks who do exactly what they say they will do, their losses are likely much larger than just the foregone federal cash. Worse, this kind of stupid costs the rest of us too, especially if the money is not swiftly reprogrammed.
The first half of that claim is already becoming clear to the Wisconsin electorate. A $28.5 contract to build bridges for the project has already been cancelled, and, as the Wisconsin Builder website pointed out, “high speed rail is no longer just talk at the capitol; it’s turning into real jobs paid for with real money.”
Just to make the folly worse: as of the most recent statistics I could dig up in haste, WI gets eighty six cents back on every dollar of federal taxes paid. That’s quite a loss, year over year. Why not hand back yet more Fed spending?
Hell, the good folks of Wisconsin must be so rolling in it that they don’t mind imposing on themselves what acts as a kind of tax hike. Shoot, the good folks of Massachusetts need it more, right?
Again, I say thanks, sort of. May the voters of WI voters enjoy that warm glow of giving.
Except for this, as reported in the WSJ:
if Wisconsin backs out, the decision will endanger a larger planned rail network that would connect Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago. The line between Madison and Milwaukee was intended to be an extension of the popular Chicago-to-Milwaukee “Hiawatha” route.
It’s OK, I guess, if one crowd wants to be poorer, with fewer tools — which, after all, is what infrastructure is — with which to generate wealth.
But these decisions don’t just make the good citizens of a state noted for its rotted bovine lactation products less likely to prosper. They screw millions more, and ultimately, to the extent that the US really does function as a national economy, perhaps all of us.
Morans.
*I’m urging a meme here. I think that we in the reality based community have to start making some serious communication/framing efforts right now. We’ve plenty of recent evidence that the GOP is a disaster as a party of governance — but that was one idea that had a lot of trouble breaking through over these last several months. So I think, as we begin the 2012 campaigns (right now) we should be hammering home the notion that these folks screw up all the time. We should frame every piece on every blog and at every media outlet we have access to as the GOP are the spoiled, clueless children of politics, great at raising a ruckus, but no one you would want near the actual levers of power. Again and again and again, with every failure, large and small.
As you all have figured out by now, I don’t do pithy well, and that’s what’s needed here. But the basic idea is pretty clear. Lots of labels that in one form or another mark stories in memor as “another GOP f**k up.”
Update: Sorry for all the missing line breaks between grafs. I’ve been trying a bunch of stuff — drafting in word processors, using the html view on the blog tool and so on, but can’t get the final post to reflect the formatting of any of these approaches. FYWP — and if any of you know what I’m doing wrong, please inform.
Images: Stephenson’s Rocket, in Mechanics magazine, 1829.
Ynknown artist , Nemunas crossing in Kaunas, c. 1864
sven
JC, is there any chance Tom and ABL will be made permanent?
(obviously they get a vote and may not be interested, but…)
4tehlulz
I, as a Masshole, would appreciate getting a dollar back in spending for each dollar I pay in federal taxes. Please keep this up teabaggers, and I will see that come true in my lifetime.
Violet
Agreed. I wish the people in charge in the Democratic party were listening.
Additional framing idea: “Republicans kill jobs.”
BR
The sad thing is it’s not only teatards. It’s also rich NIMBYs like those in Palo Alto, CA stopping the line that goes up to San Francisco. Because of them, the first segment of the California HSR is going to be built in the middle of nowhere in the desert. And given the country’s finances and political insanity, it may be the only segment ever built.
frostys
Heck, I’d be happy if we could get back to the speeds that the PRR ran under steam. 127 MPH in 1905.
Punchy
Probably a good idea. Anything that cheap must be made from popsicle sticks and Elmers.
Ash Can
I can’t imagine that a lot of the state politicians in Madison are all that thrilled to see a Madison-Milwaukee train route get ditched. I would think such a route would make life easier for them.
Tom Levenson
@BR: Arrrgh. The SD-LA SF (+Vegas) line is one of the really obvious ones.
As far as I’m concerned every pair of major cities less than 400 miles apart should have a high speed rail connection; air travel over those distances is just foolish…in any country that actually thinks 21st century infrastructure is a good idea.
Nate
Of course the GOP is a disaster for governance. They work very hard at destroying the nation. Because when you set out to intentionally wreck the government, it makes it easier to convince people that dismantling the social safety net is an imperative because the government would just screw it up.
What I want to know is what happens if everything goes to plan and the budget is magically balanced by the magic of austerity and the invisible hand. Do we start investing in infrastructure then, or is that just evidence that we need more tax cuts?
I guess that’s rhetorical…
eric
The GOP formula: (1) make things worse for the masses; (2) when things get noticeably worse, blame government (and Dems, if necessary); (3) use media to sell this meme; (4) plutocarcy makes money. This is the long con started by Norquist’s famous bathtub line.
El Cid
What if they made the trains look just like a bunch of big SUV’s and heavy pickup trucks and put “W: The President” stickers on the ‘rear bumpers’? Maybe with gun racks hanging visibly?
artem1s
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20101108/SUB1/311089977
the wingnuts in the state are already lining up to help Kasich reject the stimulus money.
also.too.his pals here in Cuyahoga County think the best way to save the city is move the damn river cause they can’t find architects who can fit a casino on the POS property that they are designated by state amendment to use. but the GOP and private business is definitely better at fiscal responsibility and making government smaller. it will take an act of Congress for them to get permission to move forward. John Boehner surely doesn’t have anything better to do than this.
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20101108/SUB1/311089979
cleek
@El Cid:
and truck nuts! lots of truck nuts.
Xecky Gilchrist
Is there a site where you can see who’s turned down or accepted these funds or where the returned funds might go? Some kinds of rail projects like light and commuter rail have been oddly popular here in Utah, even – and I had to pick up my jaw off the floor when I found this out – to the point that residents of Utah County, the wingnuttiest county in a very wingnutty state, voted themselves a tax increase to support it. So here’s one red state where people might actually be sane about this stuff.
Dennis SGMM
We wish. CA’s High Speed Rail Authority has decided to devote the first round of Federal money to building the line between Bakersfield and Merced. There are currently no plans to purchase the high speed trains needed to run on this 164 mile stretch of track. No disrespect to the people of either city but, the first leg is pretty much running from nowhere to nowhere and, even if they put trains on it will do nothing to alleviate freeway congestion is the larger metros. Because this thing is reliant on future federal money for its completion I’m guessing that it will never be completed.
It isn’t just the current tight-money situation, it’s also the fact that although federal spending on airports, roads and highways is seen as a given, as soon as you start talking about funding rail the pols start screaming “Subsidy!” (See: AMTRAK).
Tom Levenson
@Xecky Gilchrist: Don’t know of such a site. Will poke around.
BR
@Xecky Gilchrist:
My only hunch with Utah is that the large Mormon population understands the idea of collective solutions to things, even when it goes against their political allegiance.
Dave
Here’s a question: does this money need to be reassigned by Congress? My understanding (and it could be heavily flawed) is that it goes back to the Transportation Department who can then reassign it as they see fit. I don’t think it needs Congressional approval for the reassign. In which case I wholeheartedly endorse all of it going to the Northeast. We should do all we can here to showcase our vision for what America can and should be. High-speed rail should be a part of that.
mikefromArlington
Obama said back in ’08 Republicans know how to win elections but they don[‘t know how to govern.
I think that statement is bearing fruit right now.
Walker
@Tom Levenson:
I have a “6 hour rule”: if I can drive there in 6 hours or less, that is what I do. This works out to just under 400 miles, interestingly enough.
I do this because, other than NYC, anywhere I go is at least one plane transfer, possible two. That makes the trip > 6 hours overall.
In addition, during the winter, my flights are likely to be delayed or even cancelled. Out of the last 6 times at O’Hare, my flight was cancelled 4 times, and I could not get another flight for days. I always ended up flying to Albany or Rochester and renting a car.
BR
@Dennis SGMM:
Yeah. I’m tired of NIMBY shit getting in the way of the HSR project. We only have a few years to built infrastructure like HSR before peak oil nails us to the ground.
The Grand Panjandrum
@El Cid: Don’t forget the Truck Nutz. Quite important to prove how mannish train riding really is.
EDIT: Oy. I should probably hit refresh to check posting first. cleek beat me to it … by seven minutes.
dmsilev
@cleek:
A set of train nuts hanging in between each car, perhaps? That way, Republicans could get tea-bagged on their way to and from the bar car.
I fail to see a downside.
dms
Dave
This is what I love about rail: I live in Maine. A train station is about one mile from my residence. I am parking in the lot, taking the train to Boston, hopping the T to Logan and flying to Toronto. The only downside is that the current train time b/t Maine and Boston is two hours. Cut that down and it becomes even more of a no-brainer.
arguingwithsignposts
@Walker:
Don’t forget the extra hour/1 1/2 hours you need to get to the airport to stand in line for security theatre.
GregB
NH is in the early stages of a study and may look at bringing rail from Boston into NH and then possibly through NH into Canada(Quebec/Montreal).
I’d like to thank that nitwit Chris Christy and the rest of the shitheel Randian pudslappers for the additional tax dollars.
drunken hausfrau
ex-pat WI voter here — not only were contracts canceled and jobs lost DAY 1 of Scott Wanker’s governorship… but also the train assembly plant on the west side of Milwaukee (an old, abandoned manufacturing plant was going to be refurbished and turned into the train assembly plant for the Spanish company making the high speed trains) — so, manufacturing jobs lost, too! The Spanish company, of course, has pulled out!
Here’s some meme ideas for ya:
Republicans — losing jobs for the US on DAY 1.
Infrastructure money not spent = NO JOBS and STAGNANT ECONOMY.
You know who is spending money on transportation? China.
You know who else? the EU
Why can’t Americans build high speed trains? Because Republicans won’t let them.
I could go on…. but I haven’t had enough to drink yet.
Martin
@Dennis SGMM: The limitation to the valley run was due to the feds. They wanted to see a segment complete, and dealing with the cities and mountains was going to cost a lot more.
Not sure where they would focus things if another pool of money opened up, but my guess it they’d extend that segment either north or south.
PeakVT
@BR: The Central Valley isn’t exactly the middle of nowhere, since there are about 2 million people between and including Fresno and Bakersfield. I don’t agree with the decision but it’s not like the segment won’t have both independent utility or be incorporated into the SF-LA route.
BR
@PeakVT:
The central valley has very low population density and is not a place where taking public transit is common (or valued). Yes, there are a lot of folks there, but it’s not the sort of place where you’re going to get much ridership.
(I guess I should add that my concern is that the funding will dry up before the whole route is built, so the central valley segment will be the lone operating segment.)
thomas Levenson
@drunken hausfrau:
FTW.
This is exactly the kind of messaging we need, as a constant. 2 years of this stuff.
BR
@thomas Levenson:
Yup. Combine that with some revisiting of George Lakoff and we might actually come up with a Dem message.
I really hope Plouffe sits Obama down and gets him back to campaign mode.
john b
@Xecky Gilchrist:
here is a pretty decent map.
Xecky Gilchrist
@BR: I think you’re right, but they probably really don’t like it if you refer to collective solutions with those words. I was just surprised that that principle overrode their reflexive hatred of taxation by any organization other than the Church.
ETA – john b – thanks!
thomas Levenson
@john b: Good one. Thanks.
Josie
@El Cid: You must have been through Texas.
thomas Levenson
@sven: Without further comment, thanks very much for this. ;)
Jack
On topic:
I agree 100% that the framing for progressives has been essentially nonexistent, because for some reason, progressives thing everyone is rational, when that is not the case as has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
On the update:
Tom, try Windows Live Writer (gahhh, I cannot believe I just recommended a Microsoft product). It is free, and I use it on two different weblogs with two different versions of WordPress, and once it is set up properly, it gives a reasonably good WYSIWYG output. Feel free to email me to help you set it up if you like.
If you’re a Mac user, I have a completely different solution, but that one isn’t free, unfortunately.
Bill H.
Ever hear of “matching funds” folks? The government says, “We will give you $8 billion for high-speed rail.” The only problem is that said high-speed rail will cost $23 billion, so local government has to come up with the other $15 billion. Local government currently has a $70 billion deficit, so it turns down the “gift” from the feds. Liberals everywhere scream bloody murder about how stupid the local government is. Really? Where, exactly, is the local government supposed to get that $15 billion from?
john b
@Bill H.:
why aren’t similar arguments being made about road projects?
thomas Levenson
@Jack: Mac user here. Of course there would not be a free solution. What’s the high dollar one?
Thx.
Susan Of Texas
The Party Of Fail
Just Say No To The GOP
The Do-Nothings
The Party Of No–No Jobs, No Services, No Progress
Some People Sip Tea; Others Create Jobs
thomas Levenson
@Bill H.: Dear Bill,
Facts are not your friend. The federal appropriation was for the construction cost of the line. Wisconsin was on the hook for annual operating costs — 7.5 million dollars (which, recall, at least in part directly supported good jobs in the state).
But that figure isn’t the real number. The feds support operating costs for a lot of Amtrak rail — 90% of them for the existing Amtrak Milwaukee to Chicago line. If that rate held, annual cost to WI taxpayers would, of course, drop to $750,000 or so.
Meanwhile, the Wisconsin GOP has been suggesting that with a GOP led house and John Boehner as “a friend” the money will get reprogrammed. Well, maybe, but as the law currently stands, it can’t be; under the terms of the stimulus act, these funds have to be spent on high speed rail. So Gov. – elect Walker has been spinning like mad that this is a net win for Wisconsin’s bridges and roads. Don’t buy a bridge from that man.
Remember, the default position is, if the GOP can screw the taxpayer, they will.
Mnemosyne
@Bill H.:
To use Bill H’s example, if your car breaks down and needs repair, you should quit your job rather than put the repairs on a credit card because borrowing money is always, always bad, even if not borrowing it means you won’t have any more income.
El Cid
I’d be happy enough if the government to get AMTRAK to be more than the shitty night train going through most of the South.
Traveling from, say, Atlanta to Raleigh or Charlotte is an all-night affair including night changes of trains, because there are basically 3 routes. And the typical ride I’ve been in involves a shitty, broken car with non-closing windows, doors which don’t stay shut, and other pleasant rattles.
Of course, Bush Jr. in his first or second budget proposed zero federal dollars for AMTRAK, so, it’s not exactly a priority in any fashion.
RalfW
As a Minnesotan, I’ve commented a few times lately right here at fabtastic BJ that I’m pissed that my state (which is far more of a donor state than WI, we’re in the .68-.72 per dollar range) will get royally screwed out of HSR to Chicago.
So I’m glad you’re on the case.
The other thing you didn’t mention, but is possibly too namby-pamby liberal (ie: longer-term economic theory) for framing/smashing glibertarians over the head with, but when the free-market response to dwindling oil supplies is 4, 5, 6+ dollar gas, these mid-western governors are going to look really, really stupid.
We’ve gotta hold the public’s memory on these decisions when the s#*t comes down.
mds
@Ash Can:
Oh, I’m sure Governor-elect Walker is absolutely heartbroken over how Madison-area politicians feel. We’re talking about a guy who campaigned on repealing a smoking ban** just to be seen to spit in liberals’ faces. It really would be nice if someday, the party that thinks it’s all a whist match would realize that their opponents want to exterminate them.
**Depending on the day of the week and the phase of the moon. Remember, it’s not “flip-flopping” if you’re a Republican; it’s “clarifying your position.”
catclub
@RalfW:
“We’ve gotta hold the public’s memory on these decisions when the s#*t comes down. ”
Another comedian. The public remembers Jimmy Carter in a sweater because they are reminded every three hours by
the liberal media.
They do not remember that Reagan raised taxes, because that is not mentioned in said three hour intervals by said media.
Mnemosyne
@thomas Levenson:
I believe you are correct, so I will amend my analogy: Bill H is saying that if your car breaks down and your parents offer to buy you a brand-new car on the condition that you pay for the gas and insurance, you should turn it down, quit your job, and move into their basement. Because surely the Magical Employment Fairy will show up one day with a high-paying finance job and a Maserati for you, and then they’ll see!
Funny how so many Republican policies seem to depend on magical fairies showing up to do things for you if you just neglect them long enough, like fixing the potholes in your street or keeping the bridges you drive on from falling into the Mississippi.
San
I ride Hiawatha (Chicago to Milwaukee) pretty regularly and I love it.
Really sad about the Milwaukee to Madison line being dead. I would have been a rider.
Bill H.
@Mnemosyne:
That’s not my example. I was not talking about repairing a broken down train, I was talking about building a whole new train.
To personalize my example: you are tired of your beat up car, and are unable to pay your current bills and are running up your credit card. Your uncle says he will give you $10,000 toward a new car, if you come up with the other $40,000. You cannot take him up on that, because you cannot come up with the required matching funds.
@ johnb
On new road projects, they are. On projects where they are not it is because the project was existing and the federal funds prevented it from being cancelled.
@Thomas Levenson
I was talking about the California high speed rail project, with an original projected cost of $45 billion, but current projection of closer to $90 billion. Operating cost is a whole nother kettle of fish.
Your claim that Amtrak would keep Wisconsin’s operating cost to $750,000 is a little iffy on two fronts. First, who said that Amtrak would absorb the operation of high speed rail? That is not in Amtrak’s mandate, Amtrak runs none of the NE commuter service, and there is no guarantee that it would be added. Second, does that cover maintenance and repair of the infrastructure?
john b
@Bill H.:
in ohio, this argument doesn’t really work. the funds are allocated at the state and federal level. the incoming governor has said that he will cancel it all and deny the federal money. new highway projects are going forward though.
this really seemed like something just to spit in the eye of conservatives pure and simple.
Bill H.
@Mnemosyne:
That is absolutely ridiculous. If you live, for instance, in New York City you don’t need a car.
In my example:
A. You do not currently have a car. (Your state has no high speed rail.)
B. You have no money and cannot pay your bills. (Your state.)
C. Your uncle says they’ll give you part of the cost of a car.
D. You can’t pay the rest of the cost of the car.
E. You can borrow the rest of the cost of the car, but…
F. You can’t make the payments on that debt, and…
G. You can’t afford to operate the car, and…
H. Having the car would be really nice, but…
I. You can’t really prove that you need the car since you don’t have one now and are surviving.
Do you see anything there about quitting your fucking job? Or moving in with your parents?
thomas Levenson
@Bill H.:
Dear Bill,
Consistency isn’t your friend.
Now:
Then:
No state mentioned, and your numbers do not line up.
I suppose it was unreasonable of me in a post talking about a Wisconsin project to think you might be discussing that project. Instead we find it is another project, which, on the evidence of your shifting figures, isn’t really that one either.
This is subpar trolling. Work harder.
thomas Levenson
@Bill H.: Dear Bill,
Your example (sic! — which one?) is based on a false claim that the Feds are paying only fairly small part of the cost of proposed high speed rail line. There are several other dodgy assumptions in your flail above, but that’s dispositive of bad intent.
Mnemosyne’s example is correct: if the Feds are paying for the Milwaukee to Madison line then, (a) you don’t live in New York (seriously, dude, that’s some weak-ass sauce) and (b) the analogy to the idea of Uncle gifting you a car is spot on.
As noted above. Poor trolling. Work harder.
thomas Levenson
I should learn not to double-tap. That is all.
Kilkee
Oh man, all this money for the grabbing and we here in Maine (who could use a little more mass transit, BTW) have just elected a Teabagger governor and (for the first time in 30+ years) a GOP legislature. Wonderful.
Kilkee
GregB: We in Maine would love a rail line from NH to Quebec. As you are no doubt aware, it’s a tough place to get to from much of southern and coastal Maine. We’d even be willing to come to NH and pay your rapacious coastal toll in order to use it!
Sly
The Teabaggers might actually get me some supertrains?
Maybe they are good for something.
alwhite
A big part of the disparity between North & South in the lead up to the ACW was that Northern states saw industry as the road to a brighter future & spend wildly on infrastructure while the South was ruled by its slave masters who saw the future as exactly the same as the past & cared only for their own. No money for infrastructure, none for public education. That worked well for the masters until they decided to attack the more advanced part of the country in defense of the indefensible. A huge part of the American victory over the forces of darkness was the education, industry and infrastructure the North had.
Save your confederate money the South has risen again!
Pangloss
The town I live in (Normal, Illinois) has the 4th busiest Amtrak station between California and Pennsylvania. I was on the train this morning going to Chicago. We’ll take that money….
Kyle
Shorter teabaggers –
Tranes are comunest. Real murkans travel in pickup trukcs. Algor is fat.
Hogan
Maybe we could start using “to GOP” as a synonym for “to screw up.” E.g., “Microsoft totally GOPed the new version of Word.” “God, did you see Hamels GOP that ground ball? Unbelievable.”
Amanda
This whole thing about “we can’t spend money we don’t have” is so ridiculous and needs to be confronted bluntly because it is the root of this BS thinking, imo.
So these folks don’t believe in loans? For anything? Should people be able to go to college or buy a car or a house only if they can pay cash in full at the start? That’s flat out insane and would mean that about 2% of Americans could do any of those things.
Have they not heard of long term financing? Do they think it should be abolished? Do they realize that the modern economy would fold if we really embraced this insane libertarian philosophy?
Same for government. Roads and bridges and airports and mass transit systems cannot be financed any other way other than with long term financing by government. If we fully embrace only building whatever infrastructure we can afford in any given fiscal year, we are embracing becoming a third world country. We are capitulating. We are folding our tent. And we are ceding our independence to other industrialized countries. This is how it needs to be explained to people, I think. That and it needs to be wrapped in patriotism the way Rachel Maddow often frames it — ie investing in US infrastructure makes us stronger/safer, protects our national security, etc. We need to argue this issue on OUR terms, not on the right’s terms — because if it’s on their terms, they win.
vhh
As it stands, the 2008 red states are pretty much all net RECIPIENTS of Federal money, while the blue states are predominant net DONORS of federal money. (Texas on the red side has been an exception in recent years, and DC and Hawaii have always been net recipients on the blue side, for kinda obvious reasons). And if red (and some newly purple, like WI) states want not to accept railway funding (or other stimulus), that is fine with me. Let them lose the chance at new industries and jobs and become even more backward relative to the rest of the US and the world. We can use the money for high speed rail in the coastal blue states who do all the economic innovation in this country and subsidize the heartland.
Of course, residents of these states might at some point say “hey, we are cutting off our nose to spite our face,” to which I say, you should have thought about that at election time.
American voters who are lazy and ignorant deserve what they voted for. Right in the neck.
someguy
Acela is slow because it runs on existing rails.
I’m looking forward to getting new high speed rails built through R-voting rural and suburban areas on the coasts, so we can Kelo-ram railroad easements right up their right wing asses.
Jack
@thomas Levenson: The solution I used on my Mac for years was Ecto, which I paid for at the time (it was shareware). It didn’t give a preview using the blog formatting, but it did show line breaks properly. I don’t think the author is supporting it any more, so I don’t know if recent WordPress upgrades have broken it (I still use my Mac, but not nearly as often as 5 years ago).
I can look around for other solutions.
mclaren
None of this matters. Touting high-speed rail as a job creation engine is disingenuous, not to say ignorant and dishonest.
Even if congress suddenly became sane and decided to invest a trillion dollars tomorrow in a giant high-speed rail network more sophisticated than the trains in Japan or France, the total number of jobs created would be small and would only last a few years.
Then, once the rail network was built, the jobs would evaporate. High-speed trains today are run mostly by computer. Maintenance of the rail lines is the main type of lasting job that would be created, and those are shitty jobs — near-minimum-wage grunt work that involves trudging around measuring tracks with a magnetometer to see if the rails are cracked.
Like the nationwide call to return manufacturing to America, calls for high-speed rails as a jobs creation engine are foolish and pointless. Even if America returned all its lost factories to the states very few jobs would be created because automation has gone so far that factories are all robots today with only 2 or 3 people on the factory floor. So returning manufacturing to America wouldn’t create an explosion of new jobs. Likewise, trains in the 21st century are so automated that building a Japanese-style national high-speed rail network wouldn’t create an explosion of new jobs.
The bitter truth remains that Americans have been automated and offshored out of jobs and there’s no way to get those jobs back. They’re gone forever. High-speed rail, “green” transportation, electric cars, you name it…all bullshit as far as job creation is concerned. Those industries will create very very very few American jobs.
We need high-speed rail, but not to create jobs: we need high-speed rail because when oil hits $200 a barrel, much of America will shut down if we’re still relying on trucks and cars for transporting people and merchandise. And, judging by the shortsightedness and stupidity in America, we will be.
Bill H.
From ABC News:
Are you seriously going to tell me that high speed rail projects of any significance whatever can be built for $194 million each? Seriously?
athEIst
That excess money WI(a blue state) sends to D.C. won’t go to Mass(another blue state) but to some RED state. All but one of the blue states pay more to the federal government than they get back, all the red states but one get more back than they pay in. The red states hate the government but would be even more poverty-struck but for this blue-to-red money transfer.
Mnemosyne
@Bill H.:
Actually, no — to stick with your own metaphor, you will have to start with you not having a car at all, because there currently is no high speed train.
So, again, your bills are piling up, you can’t keep up on your credit card statements, and you have the offer of matching funds to get a car so you can keep your job. In your world, you should refuse the matching funds and lose your job rather than borrow the money needed to keep your job.
To you, having no income at all is better than having any debt at all. We’re saying that sometimes you need to get into a little debt to be able to keep going and be able to pull yourself out of the hole.
I’m assuming you would also advise a young person with top scores on the MCAT who doesn’t have $100,000 in the bank to not take out student loans to go to medical school. They should take a minimum wage job instead in the hope of being able to someday save up enough to pay cash for medical school tuition since, after all, all debt is bad and if you can’t pay tuition for med school out of your pocket, you have no business going, even if it means you will end up making enough money after you graduate to pay that debt off and have a higher income for the rest of your life.
Hogan
@Bill H.: Also from ABC News:
Also, it doesn’t say that this is the last money the federal government will ever provide for high-speed rail development, just that this is what they’re providing in the first year. And no one expects any of these projects to be completed in one year.
Tom Levenson
@Bill H.: Can you really be this obtuse, angle?
Note that your quote did not say that the cash paid for the full cost of the projects. The way things work in reality is that you pay as the work proceeds; you do not pay out all x billion for a multi-year project on day one.
Next up: College education! You don’t have to pay the whole bill on parent’s weekend!
[or — what Hogan said]
mitWONF
Cross platform user here…. on the Mac side, use iWeb. Comes free with any Mac sold in the last quite a while and has drop dead simple yet elegant blog templates baked into the application. You can upload the posts to any hosted site.
Cheers!