Sunday, December 19, 2010

Obama's new pork: Trains to nowhere

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Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood didn't get the message that Americans want government to spend less money. Two Republican governor-elects, Ohio's John Kasich and Wisconsin's Scott Walker, told LaHood they don't want it. What does he do? He takes the cash and directs it to states who are falling for this boondoggle, such as fiscally-reckless Illinois and California.

Writing for the San Fransisco Chronicle, Debra Saunders looks at LaHood's toy trains, which she calls "the new pork, trains to nowhere."

There is no guarantee that if you build high-speed rail, passengers will come. As Randal O'Toole of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute noted, "The Ohio and Wisconsin projects aren't even worthy of being called high-speed rail." The average speed for the Ohio's "3C" line is projected at 38.5 miles per hour; the speed for the Wisconsin line would average 59 mph. In short, these "high-speed" trains wouldn't even go faster than cars.

With round-trip Madison-Milwaukee fares projected to range from $44 to $66, it could be cheaper for one person to drive and certainly cheaper for two. And you can always take the bus.

Walker argued that Wisconsin, facing a $2.5 billion budget deficit next year, doesn't need to be saddled with the $7.5 million annual cost to operate the train.

Train enthusiasts argued that Walker had it all wrong. You don't say no to a free car just because you have to pay for gas and other operating costs.
High speed rail is a plum the Obama administration can toss to one of its favored groups--organized labor. They can't get card check for the unions, but they can create another infrastructure project, another stimulus, for sorta-high speed rail that will still be slower than automobiles.

As I noted last year, liberal know-it-alls, such as the Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich, is smitten with this project.
Americans want high-speed trains. A lot of people just don't know it yet because they've never experienced one.
I'll pass.

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2 comments:

  1. ahblid12:11 AM

    Mr Ruberry,

    With the utmost respect, it would appear that you are unaware of the fact that Mr. LaHood is bound by law to spend the monies that the Governor Elect's of Ohio & Wisconsin were going to reject. He cannot legally return that money to pay off the deficit, nor can he allow the states to use the money for other purposes.

    When Congress passed the Stimulus bill, they mandated that all monies within that bill must be spent for the amounts & purposes as written. If Mr. LaHood had decided to spend some of the $27.5 Billion set aside for roads on trains or planes, you can rest assured that the public outcry would have been great. And he would have been in violation of the law.

    The same is true here. It would require an act of Congress, along with the consent of President Obama, to redirect the Ohio & Wisconsin funds. Mr. LaHood cannot consider what the public within those two states wanted to happen in this case.

    Besides, it isn't at all clear that rejecting those monies is indeed what the majority of residents in those two states wanted. Heck, a majority of citizens didn't even show up to vote at all. And they didn't vote directly on the rail projects.

    They voted, hopefully, for the best man for the job in their opinion. Rail may have been a factor in their decision, but I've already seen Republicans in Wisconsin step forward to say that while they voted for Mr. Walker, they did not approve of his decision to kill the rail project. They voted for him for other reasons.

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  2. Marathon Pundit9:19 AM

    This is why Washington is a mess. My suggestion? Take all the usused stimulus cash and use it to pay off the national debt.

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