Clarion Content

Taking the train? Unless one is heading to Kabul or Baghdad, President Obama is hardly more concerned about how one gets there than King George the II was. High speed trains were one of the Clarion Content's great hopes for things we might see come from the Obama administration. The country was and is mired in a deep recession. Train infrastructure is a works project that could be used in the fight against massive unemployment. Train infrastructure is a virtuous circle insofar as investing in more efficient transportation has knock-on benefits for all manner of American industries.

But alas. The candidate of change has spent $66 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first half of 2009 alone. This does not account for the troop surge in Afghanistan. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan for next eight years (again pre-surge) at $416 billion at the low end and $817 billion on the high end.

Over the next five years the Obama administration hopes to spend $8-13 billion on rail infrastructure, including high speed trains.

20 to 40 times as much spending per year on Afghanistan and Iraq than for rail infrastructure?

This is the change we could believe in?

Ralph Nader was right along. Pete Townsend was wrong.

Worse yet, America's rail infrastructure is in abysmal condition and is plagued by delays. The highways are no better, as you can ask anyone who traveled the I-95 corridor this Thanksgiving or Xmas.

The Associated Press reported many of the massive holiday week train delays were caused by problems at power stations and substations built in the 1920s near Philadelphia. 1920's!?! And Obama is pissing America's revenues into the soil of Afghanistan!?!

Labels: 2008 presidential election, economics, infrastructure, Politics