Posted on 02/28/2011 12:56:01 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
...Remarkably widespread derision has greeted the Obama administration’s damn-the-arithmetic-full-speed-ahead proposal to spend $53 billion more (after the $8 billion in stimulus money and $2.4 billion in enticements to 23 states) in the next six years pursuant to the president’s loopy goal of giving “80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail.” “Access” and “high-speed” to be defined later.
...[Florida's] Rick Scott, has joined Ohio’s (...Kasich) and Wisconsin’s (...Walker) in rejecting federal incentives—more than $2 billion in Florida’s case—to begin a high-speed rail project....
The three governors want to spare their states from paying the much larger sums likely to be required for construction-cost overruns and operating subsidies when ridership projections prove to be delusional...Washington, disdaining the decisions of Ohio and Wisconsin voters, replied that it will find states that will waste the money.
California will. Although prostrate from its own profligacy, it will sink tens of billions of its own taxpayers’ money in the 616-mile San Francisco–to–San Diego line. Supposedly 39 million people will eagerly pay much more than an airfare in order to travel slower...
Randal O’Toole of the Cato Institute notes that high-speed rail connects big-city downtowns, where only 7 percent of Americans work and 1 percent live.
[snip]
To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.
Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to the people!” Now it is less resonant: “All aboard!”
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
The thing about high speed rail is that it would, indeed, be very nice to have a bullet train going from city to city. The problem is that the cost is just too damn high.
But the sums involved are so huge, that it is difficult to comprehend them. So people are dazzled by the shiny trains, with asking if it will cost $50 Million, $50 Billion or $50 Trillion, because those three numbers are pretty much the same, anyway.
I try to explain it that at a certain point, it is not worth the money. It is difficult for a Liberal to grasp that concept.
They don't have enough intelligence or imagination to want anything more than sex and simple entertainment, and don't want to expend much effort getting it..
They are militant in their ignorance, it is the only thing they have to be proud of.
In 1982, I took AMTRAK from Gainesville GA (north of Atlanta) to New Orleans. It cost right at half of an airline ticket, and it took some 16 hours to make the trip.
It was like riding a Greyhound bus with a slightly cleaner clientele.
Forget rail travel (and air travel too!). If I can’t drive it, I’m not going, barring emergencies.
Unions.....and the next election campaign. That’s all this is about....
Without even looking, I’m betting this is on the order of global warming. The scams are going to be popping up like fleas in medieval times. Control of trillions has slowly gained ground until it now controls everyone and everything uncontrolled by principle, truth, honor, integrity and every other descriptive word on the side of nobleness and good.
In simple terms, the laws of economics are somehow out the window with the baby and the bathwater. All in the name of spend spend spend like there is no tomorrow, and for sure there will not be a tomorrow that we can envision if this comes to pass.
Now I can view the link.
Ask people to put the numbers One Million, One Billion and One Trillion in ascending order, and half of them will get it wrong.
Why is this being debated? Can’t the Republicans in the House call it DOA and have a nice little savings for the budget without “the pain” of real budget cuts (in politic-speak), roughly equal to 1/3 of NASA’s budget each year?
The Congressional Republicans need to declare this scam DOA, be done with it, and look to the next area to cut, and the one after that, and after that, etc...and hopefully make it to entitlements sooner than later.
Interestingly, if one wants to read up on low speed trains, one need look no further than the latest letter from Warren Buffet to stockholders.
He and his investors own a low speed rail, and he speaks more than once on the capital expenditures necessary to keep the rail viable and operating in a low speed environment. The railroad moves over 40 percent of all freight carried by truck or train in the US.
Companies pay a premium for the “stuff” that earns them a living, transported by the BNSF railroad. I hardly think your average human is going to be paying a premium for a ticket to nowhere that has little or nothing to do with making a living. Unless you happen to work for the railroad.
Long read.
High speed rail is not a bad idea. It would replace much of the air travel which is becoming a very inefficient system. The problem is that rail should be built with private money and the fact that this is not the right time yet.
Well said!
It’s so simple, the one that reaches the moon with nothing left over but cost overruns, is last, while the one that gets to nirvana, Utopia, and Cucamonga, is second. Whatever is left is first.
See, piece of cake, and you get to eat it too. The cake I mean.
Uh-huh. One voice. HIS voice. In front of the ubiquitous teleprompter, rattling in his head.
Will was around long before Beck. And will likely be writing long after we've forgotten the latter.
A few years back I used to regularly ride the Amtrak between Tampa and Jacksonville, FL.
Much more comfortable than airplanes. You can actually plug in devices, spread out and get some work done. By the time you figured in dealing with security and baggage, not that big a time differential from flying.
IF train was on time, which was a VERY BIG IF.
Most of the time it would get to destination anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours late, once 10 hours. Being on time was a cause for amazement and celebration.
When you get to Jax, the station is 10 miles west of downtown, out in the middle of nowhere and not the best of neighborhoods, if you get my drift.
Can’t run a railroad that way, as they used to say. Not unless you’ve got big subsidies from the taxpayers.
bttt
Liberals love trains because it’s how you heard and transport people to the work camps and the ovens.
Will $5 to $6 gas change your driving decisions? Liberals are banking on it.
Nope... because ticket prices will rise in equal proportion. Also, factor in a rental car when you get where you are going....
That will last until two hours after a terrorist attack on a train.
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