Politics and Transit Talk

[pesto]

Klam: fair enough; I enjoy it too. But I would be surprised if even you find your typical response calm and reasoned. Energetic, polemic, outraged? Yes. Calm, rational, balanced, not so much.

And as long as we're annoying each other: if you live in LA, your President is black, your governor (arguably) gay, your mayor Latino, your senators women. We gotta do some work on that white male hegemony. In fact, I'm not even sure what to do with Indians, Arabs, Iranians, Hispanics, Israelis, etc.: some people claim they're really white! Would you count them as part of the hegemony? Help me out.

What I'm saying is that the new dividing lines are not along color or sex or national origin or any of the 1960's divisions. It's between those with new ideas and openness to change, and those who are clinging to the past. Between those who value individual and local control of their lives and those who think the feds and a few hundred lobbyists know the answers. I am also seeing more and more a divide between the over 40's who are beating dead horses and the under 40's who can't even see those issues in their lives.

[klamedia]

I've never heard of a rumour insinuating that Jerry Brown is gay. Anyway we can't dismiss the inequities of the past if we haven't successfully deconstructed the inequities of the past. And I'm sure if you were able to have a candid talk with Pelosi or Boxer they would tell you of their ongoing fight for feminist ideals and to lessen the sting of sexism. The same would be true of Obama regarding race and class, let's not forget that he was a member of a Jeremiah Wright's Black Liberation Theology Church for 20 years modeled on the Marxist/Socialist Liberation Theology movements of Central America. And Mayor V. was a card carrying member of meCHa for many years.

But I digress.

[Wright Concept]

Originally Posted by klamedia

I've never heard of a rumour insenuating that Jerry Brown is gay. Anyway we can't dismiss the inequities of the past if we haven't successfully deconstructed the inequities of the past. And I'm sure if you were able to have a candid talk with Pelosi or Boxer they would tell you of their ongoing fight for feminist ideals and to lessen the sting of sexism. The same would be true of Obama regarding race and class, let's not forget that he was a member of a Jerard Wright's Black Liberation Theology Church for 20 years modeled on the Marxist/Socialist Liberation Theology movements of Central America. And Mayor V. was a card carrying member of meCHa for many years.

But I digress.

It's Jeffery Wright was the pastor of the chruch you're talking about...I'm Jerard Wright. LOL

[klamedia]

Sorry my mistake. It's neither Jerard nor Jefferey, it's Jeremiah.

[soup or man]

This is Jeffery Wright.

[hoosier]

Originally Posted by pesto

This is pretty sad. The FEDERAL government is involved in sidewalk maintenance? Wtf are cities (LA for example) doing with their money that they can't afford sidewalk maintenance? I can see a reasonably debate over HSR, roads, etc., but are friggin' sidewalks part of "interstate commerce" or "national defense" or other legitimate federal concern?

Yes, sidewalks are enhance mobility, encourage walking, reduce obesity, and thus health care costs. There is a clear and justified self-interest for the federal government to give communities money for pedestrian enhancements. The federal government is not restricted to spending funds on just interstate commerce or national defense.

And we are talking about $4 billion FOR THE WHOLE COUNTRY. It is insignificant when compared to highway spending.

[hoosier]

Originally Posted by slipperydog

Now if this is such a bad idea, it should have no problem being voted down in the Senate. But no, we have senators hiding in other states like f***ing cowards and essentially striking against the very people that elected them this fall.

Genius, Republicans have the majority in both houses of the Wisconsin legislature, so the bill would have passed despite it being TERRIBLE policy. The GOP think union busting is great, so of course they would support such legislation. There is no such thing as objectively good or bad in partisan politics.

Unlike Senate Republicans in Washington, who threatened to filibuster EVERY SINGLE OBAMA LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVE and held up hundreds of presidential appointments to the executive department, what Wisconsin Democrats did was constitutional. It's about time Democratics stand up to the insane, regressive, and anti-social GOP agenda.

[hoosier]

Originally Posted by pesto

klam: my main point was that the govt. is VERY bad at picking winners and losers and in addition, for political reasons, insists on US manufacturing.


I think that will come eventually, but the process will be painful. We are seeing it start in the states, which are trying to rescue themselves from bankruptcy by cutting effective wages (salaries plus benefits).

I'd say the government gave up on domestic manufacturing when it passed NAFTA and several dozen other "free" trade agreements in the past fifteen years. Which is sad since wages have been stagnant and none of the jobs promised by the supporters of these trade agreements have materialized.

Regarding your second point, the reason states are experiencing budget deficits is due to a loss of tax revenue generated by the national recession, not excessive wages and salaries of state workers. The best solution is a second federal stimulus to prevent massive state spending cutbacks that threaten to cripple the economy while it is still vulnerable. And to fund this second stimulus, we should eliminate both Bush tax cuts for the rich and get the fuck out of Iraq and Afganistan.

[slipperydog]

Governor Daniels did the exact same thing, but somehow maintained a 70% approval rating.

[pesto]

hoosier: welcome back; long time no hear. You drift a little from transit, but then again this thread tends to do that.

sidewalks: if sidewalk repairs is a key health issue, then what ISN'T a health issue? Certainly running the animal pound and replacing light bulbs at the library would qualify since the health benefits are obvious.

NAFTA (or free trade generally): I believe that the well-known reactionary Bill Clinton signed this bill. In any event, just check your basic econ texts for explanations of the benefits of free-trade as opposed to high tariffs and quotas. Hint: among many other problems, protective tariffs allow very large domestic manufacturers to make shoddy products, inadequately control costs, lose touch with technology and the demands of the market, rip-off the consumer and then get blown away by foreign competition. Any of that ever happen in Indiana?

higher taxes, stimuluses and more govt. as the solution: too much to discuss. But as a Hoosier, you might look over to Bloomington for some guidance here. Elinor Ostrom, a prof at IU, recently won the Nobel Prize for explaining why locally derived solutions to economic issues almost always are superior to governmental solutions. It's basically because locals are interested in solutions that fit local conditions, expectations and standards of fairness. Government tends toward one size fits all and damn the implications. (Her work is mostly regarding allocating the commons, but the lesson generalizes to economic policy generally.)

[hoosier]

Originally Posted by pesto

hoosier: welcome back; long time no hear. You drift a little from transit, but then again this thread tends to do that.

sidewalks: if sidewalk repairs is a key health issue, then what ISN'T a health issue? Certainly running the animal pound and replacing light bulbs at the library would qualify since the health benefits are obvious.

NAFTA (or free trade generally): I believe that the well-known reactionary Bill Clinton signed this bill. In any event, just check your basic econ texts for explanations of the benefits of free-trade as opposed to high tariffs and quotas. Hint: among many other problems, protective tariffs allow very large domestic manufacturers to make shoddy products, inadequately control costs, lose touch with technology and the demands of the market, rip-off the consumer and then get blown away by foreign competition. Any of that ever happen in Indiana?

higher taxes, stimuluses and more govt. as the solution: too much to discuss. But as a Hoosier, you might look over to Bloomington for some guidance here. Elinor Ostrom, a prof at IU, recently won the Nobel Prize for explaining why locally derived solutions to economic issues almost always are superior to governmental solutions. It's basically because locals are interested in solutions that fit local conditions, expectations and standards of fairness. Government tends toward one size fits all and damn the implications. (Her work is mostly regarding allocating the commons, but the lesson generalizes to economic policy generally.)

I am not advocating that the federal government fund animal shelters or lightbulb replacement although there is nothing preventing it from doing that. The federal government funds many crucial local agencies through block grants that stand to be eliminated by the Teabaggers and spineless Demopussies in Congress.

As for "free trade" I cited the actual consequences these agreements have had on domestic manufacturing and the economy but please continue to believe in your pie in the sky textbook theories. Bill Clinton was no liberal, he came from the corporate DLC. Do you think I am partisan enough to support a politician just because they have a "D" next to their name? I am so glad that I can buy poisoned animal food, toothpaste, and baby formula made in China by slave labor thanks to free trade!

More federal government spending is absolutely needed at this time. The private sector added over 220000 jobs in February but net job creation was only 192000 because of layoffs at the state and local level. Government jobs count as much as private sector jobs. How many more Republican presidents does this country have to endure to realize that tax cuts for the rich and elimination of environmental, financial market, and labor regulations are not good economic policy?

[hoosier]

Originally Posted by slipperydog

Governor Daniels did the exact same thing, but somehow maintained a 70% approval rating.

Because Hoosiers are fucking idiots, and I am ashamed to call myself one, but we don't have a choice of where we are born or raised.

Indiana is one of the most obese, least educated, poor, and polluted states in the country. It should be an example to NO ONE on ANYTHING.

[milquetoast]

Relax, y'alls

[klamedia]

Deciphering Conservative Objections to the Obama Administration’s High-Speed Rail Program

Countering opposition to the intercity rail development project. Members of the House and Senate expect to consider — and hopefully pass — a transportation reauthorization bill this year that will dedicate federal funding to the United States’ transport networks for the next several years. While spending on both highways and transit is virtually assured, one wildcard is high-speed rail, which has significant support from members of the Democratic Party and very little from the Republicans. While President Obama has made it one of his signature initiatives, promoting a plan to spend $53 billion on intercity rail lines over the next six years, GOP leadership has rejected funding offered to states like Florida and argued that the country should not be investing in such infrastructure. The baseline explanation for the limited Republican support for such investments is relatively easy to pinpoint: Their electors live in areas that would benefit only indirectly from such projects. Their constituents, primarily living in sprawling suburbs, do not see the value of government spending on anything other than roads. Yet as commentator Reihan Salam rightfully pointed out earlier this week, the viewpoint many conservatives hold on the matter is more nuanced than that. Specifically, “I think that many… can see the logic behind public investment in passenger rail in the Northeast, provided that there are strong accountability mechanisms in place,” Salam wrote. I will return to Mr. Salam’s point, but it is worth first delving into the specific rationales many conservatives give for opposing the Obama Administration’s rail project, both to understand those positions but also to highlight reasons why those arguments are problematic. In order to be successful in the U.S., intercity railway programs must be able to attract bipartisan support, so finding ways to counter the growing anti-rail sentiment should be a priority. From my view, there are two views, not necessarily in accord, held by conservatives to explain their opposition to rail: 1. Intercity rail, at least as a government program, constitutes inappropriate involvement of the public sector in something that should be determined by the market. Moreover, rail requires subsidies for construction and, in some cases, operations, and subsidies are bad because they represent government’s intrusion into decisions that should be made by individuals. 2. Intercity rail investments as proposed by the Administration, including billions of dollars distributed to states to complete incremental improvements, did not go far enough. In the act of spreading the money around too thinly, the government was in essence preventing the development of one true high-speed system. High-speed rail could work, just not in the places where funds have been allocated so far. The first argument — which suggests that the government should simply get its hands out of the rail game — is founded on an understanding of the way transportation funding works that ignores private costs and completely sidelines externalities. It is true that investments in rail often look less promising than a highway on the taxpayer’s expense list: While the latter can often pay for its own construction through the collection of tolls or fuel taxes*, high-speed rail needs significant up-front public investments to pay for construction that are usually not paid off. Moreover, slower-speed railways, as we all know from Amtrak’s record, require operations subsidies, though high-speed lines do not. Yet when total costs are put into play, rail does not look so poor especially compared to car drivers since the train riders are not paying for fuel, maintenance, and insurance if they are substituting their car travel with train use. Perhaps just as important, if rail replaces journeys that would have otherwise been taken on another mode, it is reducing carbon emissions, congestion, and deaths-by-accident; in the long term, rail can spur revitalization in center cities, attracting jobs and residents to downtown cores, rather than to sprawling locales served by cars alone. Meanwhile, while it may sound appealing to reject public sector decision-making about travel, the fact is that the U.S. government has spent 60 years funding highway projects across the country; to suggest that now is the time to cut off government support for transport, after the culture is entirely automobile-dependent, would be short-sighted. The second, more compelling argument, the one that suggests that good rail investments are possible — just that the wrong decisions have been made by this White House — is generally held by Mr. Salam. I have questioned some of the Administration’s choices in rail funding selection myself. Atlantic columnist Megan McArdle wrote a screed on the issue this week, arguing against the Administration’s decision to concentrate spending on the Florida project and the first stage of the California project (to run through the Central Valley). Ms. McArdle claimed that “To make it work, we need to get away from demonstration projects, and start with the projects that make good economic sense.” The problem with this logic, of course, is that the government did not have enough money to build those projects that “make good economic sense,” because they would have cost more than the $10.5 billion that has been allocated for this purpose by the Congress so far. Mr. Salam signaled a similar approach to this issue, arguing that if only the right route had been picked, Tea Party members might not have referred to such projects as “trains to nowhere.” At a hearing last week, House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica (R-FL) played the same rhetorical game, suggesting that the Administration had done the wrong thing with its funds. Do Ms. McArdle, Mr. Salam, or Mr. Mica in fact want more money for rail? Would any of them be willing to set aside the $117 billion Amtrak needs to upgrade the Northeast Corridor? I would be the first to admit that the Northeast Corridor is the best place for high-speed rail in the country and that it deserves funding — I, for one, would love to be able to get from my perch in Boston down to Washington in just three hours. But conservatives were fighting against the rail program before the Department of Transportation made its selections! Is it honest to suggest that conservatives would have been supportive of more — far more – funding for intercity rail if they knew that funding was going to the “right” lines? But what are those “right” lines? Singled out by the aforementioned commentators was the California project, which as framed by Ms. McArdle is particularly “ridiculous” because “there aren’t any, like, passengers.” “Could it be that Tea Party members have been referring to trains to nowhere because the first leg of the unviable California HSR effort link two cities with a combined population of 25,000?,” Mr. Salam advanced. The story is more complex. The first section of the California project will connect Fresno and Bakersfield, stopping near Hanford on the way. Together, the three metropolitan areas this line would serve constitute the primary residence for more than two million people. More importantly, while the funding is not yet fully committed, California is well on the way to being able to connect this core segment with extensions to San Francisco and Los Angeles — the Central Valley, after all, lies between them. Northeast Corridor or not, no one should deny the national importance of connecting those two metropolitan areas. The state rail authority’s announcement today that it has received 1,100 expressions of interest in being involved financially in the project from private groups like Alstom and Virgin should provide evidence that this is not in any way a hopeless cause. Yet even if we were to take the stand that the California project were not good enough — if only the Northeast is appropriate for federal rail investment — there would be no way to articulate a national transportation strategy that ignored the rest of the states given the political realities of representation in the U.S. Congress. In that case, not only would you have a problem achieving bipartisan consensus, but you would isolate rail supporters to just one section of the country. Yet this is in effect the course suggested in the arguments made by those conservatives who claim to support rail. The fact of the matter is that we must have a nationwide investment in intercity rail; it would be very difficult to produce support for federal government spending for just one region. The alternative is no investment at all. * For the sake of this argument, let’s ignore the fact that user fees do not actually cover the full costs of roads.

[milquetoast]

There is absolutely no way the Northeast Corridor is going to receive 117 Billion

to upgrade its route to accomodate a higher speed vehicle at the rest of the Country's expense-

and I have the torch and pitchfork in my closet ready to go!

.

Second, this is a sham that belies truthful discription.

You have these different modes that take two different types of propelling technology,

Magnetic Levitation and Conventional powertrain, and only one propellent-

electrons!

Which, to my understanding, aren't produced in any "green" fashion yet that I'm aware of,

so there will be plenty of carbon coming from the coal plants that these trains would use for their operation.

.

Third, this ain't France or Japan.

This is a huge Country full of cities that occupy States that will all want this mode of transport,

but there is NO MONEY FOR IT! Unless you print it

.

Lastly, we just had some sort of development today

concerning the HSR project and the indomitable horses' ass

that the stupid people of my adoptive State sent back to Washington, Harry Reid-

and his furthur commentary on his pet project- Conventional California/Nevada HSR!

.

I don't know anyone .......

let me repeat this .....

... I DON'T KNOW ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND

...... who would spend money

...... to get on a train

........ to arrive at a car rental agency

....... IN VICTORVILLE!

.

Such is the stupidity of this way of thinking, Harry

.

Would you honestly want me to go all the way to Victorville and then rent a car?

Or take a bus? Or hitch hike? Or rent a bicycle?

And besides, the cool In - N - Out is in Lenwood (Barstow), not Hesperia (Victorville!)

[slipperydog]

Originally Posted by klamedia

The fact of the matter is that we must have a nationwide investment in intercity rail; it would be very difficult to produce support for federal government spending for just one region.

And this is where one fallacy can cause this author's entire argument to fall apart. It's anything BUT a "fact of the matter" that the federal government should be investing in intercity rail. Intercity rail will not provide any more national benefit than any local light rail project or interstate highway would, and will still be primarily supported by electors in specific stake-holding districts. Try convincing someone in Chicago that a high speed link between Fresno and LA is in their "national interest." This does not mean that certain corridors (namely the NEC) do not make sense for HSR being subsidized by the feds in a limited capacity. But anyone who claims that our NATION needs HSR anymore than interstate highways or local light rail is either being cleverly disingenuous or is utterly clueless.

[PragmaticIdealist]

The world economy has organized itself into about 40 mega-regions. Countries don't matter anymore other than the fact that they contain these regions. So, since these places are producing almost all the tax revenue, strengthening the megalopolises with high-speed rail is certainly in the national interest.

[PragmaticIdealist]

If California was to ever secede from the Union and become an independent republic again, the United States of America would be devastated. As the fifth largest economy on the planet, California provides, by far, more revenue to the federal government and to red states therein than the Golden State ever sees in return. That's the true wealth redistribution.

The blue states produce all the revenue, and the red states are the freeloaders with undue influence over our politics and unwarranted power over our government.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by PragmaticIdealist

The world economy has organized itself into about 40 mega-regions. Countries don't matter anymore other than the fact that they contain these regions. So, since these places are producing almost all the tax revenue, strengthening the megalopolises with high-speed rail is certainly in the national interest.

Just to clarify: economies don't "organize themselves". Individual people make decisions about where to live and where to work.

When you say "countries don't matter anymore" you seem to be arguing the extreme libertarian position (that the world is one economic unity and should be allowed to operate as such, with govt. gotten rid of). This may or may not be a good idea, but rail service is relatively minor among the largest changes you would note if this happened.

btw, without countries, would each of these mega-regions tax themselves? The Texas mega-regions would see, likely to drain off much of what is left in the US.

[PragmaticIdealist]

Originally Posted by pesto

Just to clarify: economies don't "organize themselves". Individual people make decisions about where to live and where to work.

When you say "countries don't matter anymore" you seem to be arguing the extreme libertarian position (that the world is one economic unity and should be allowed to operate as such, with govt. gotten rid of). This may or may not be a good idea, but rail service is relatively minor among the largest changes you would note if this happened.

btw, without countries, woulyd each of these mega-regions tax themselves? The Texas mega-regions would see, likely to drain off much of what is left in the US.

The supposed fiscal health of Texas is a myth. The state is in exactly the same troubled situation as the other major economic centers.

Texas just doesn't have the unions to draw attention to the problems.

http://theweek.com/article/index/210...ericas-ireland