Ken’s Take: Here’s a nice summary by Michael Barone debunking one President “No Sacred Cows” Obama’s sacred cows … high-speed rail between and through solid blue territory (think Nevada & California) and swing stated (think (Iowa).
In negotiations on the debt limit, Obama has fenced off several programs from any cuts at all.
One is, astonishingly, the $53 billion he wants to spend on high-speed rail projects. To call high-speed rail a "boondoggle" is to engage in considerable understatement.
These projects include
- $715 million for construction of 100 miles of track between the small towns of Borden and Corcoran in California’s Central Valley.
A train from Iowa City, Iowa, that will take longer to get to Chicago than already existing bus service
- A train from Minneapolis to Duluth, Minn., that will average 69 miles per hour — about what you could average on the parallel Interstate 35.
Obama has rhapsodized about the pleasure of walking to a train station and taking a high-speed rail trip to another city.
But the great majority of Americans don’t live within an easy drive of a train station.
A high-speed rail line might make sense in the densely populated Northeast corridor between Washington and Boston, but these projects make no sense in most of the rest of America.
No wonder the governors of Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida have turned down federal money for rail projects that parallel interstate highways.
They realize that their taxpayers would get stuck for inevitable cost overruns and operating deficits.
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