Preposterous Pork from the Stimulus Bill II
by Mr Juggles
The deal provides $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, for example, including money that could benefit a controversial proposal for a magnetic-levitation rail line between Disneyland, in California, and Las Vegas, a project favored by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). The 311-mph train could make the trip from Sin City to Tomorrowland in less than two hours, according to backers.
Line Item: $8bn for a maglev train to connect Disneyland to Las Vegas
Source: Washington Post —-> Despite Pledges, Package Has Some Pork [there’s a shocker]
Rationale: Undoubtedly some wealthy donor to Reid’s campaigns stands to obtain the construction contract and/or has purchased lots of land on the corridor that will need to be purchased for the right of way.
Preposterous?!: Los Angeles to Las Vegas is already a very easy 4hr drive. This is why LA residents are already the top visitors to LV. Furthermore, it is a cheap, easy flight served by numerous airlines; there are round trip flights available every day of this month for less than $150. Which means $8bn could pay for approximately 53mm Los Angeles residents to fly to Las Vegas and back instead of building a maglev train that will be inevitably be way late and over budget (see Big Dig) and likely won’t run at promised speeds (see Amtrak’s Acela).
Bonus item that didn’t actually make it in: “Republicans also killed or reduced a number of projects they considered objectionable, such as $200 million to re-sod the Mall in Washington.
Preposterous?!: What the hell type of sod costs $200mm?! That works out to $650k per acre or $15 per sq ft. You could cover the mall in gold leaf for that much money. Literally.
- Preposterous Pork from the Stimulus Bill I
- Science Will Consume Us All, Literally
- Improve the Real Estate Market, Make Mortgages Out of Corn
- If Only Water Wasn't So Fattening
- Piganol, the Pork Based Renewable Fuel Source
The 311-mph train could make the trip from Sin City to Tomorrowland in less than two hours, according to backers.
I actually laughed out loud reading this. It could but it won’t. Amtrak loses money on all but one or two Northeastern lines. The biggest losers are in the West.
With projects like this, we should beat Zimbabwe at its own game in NO time.
1) $8 billion is for HSR projects overall, not just the LA/LV maglev line.
2) “People can drive there, they don’t need any other way of getting there” would be a good logical argument to oppose building any airports anywhere in the US. Why does New York need an airport? People can already drive there! Except foreigners – and they can fly in to Canada and then drive over the border.
It’s also a good argument for not building any freeways. Or buying a car. (You can take the bus.)
3) And isn’t the point of the stimulus bill to involve lots of spending?
Is this a Drudge guest post? Read that sloppy-as-shit quote from the Post again.
“The deal provides $8 billion for high-speed rail projects.” [FULL STOP: TEXT OF ACTUAL BILL ENDS HERE. REST COULD CHARITABLY BE CALLED SPECULATION]
So 8 Billion for rail across the entire country somehow means a Disneyland train?
..for example, including money that COULD benefit a controversial PROPOSAL for a magnetic-levitation rail line between Disneyland, in California, and Las Vegas, a project favored by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). The 311-mph train could make the trip from Sin City to Tomorrowland in less than two hours, according to backers.”
Ajay & Steve –
Valid point on the quote. However, if the Senate Majority leader writes a bill that includes $8bn for high speed rail. And he just so happens to favor a particular high speed rail project in his district. You better believe the money is headed in that direction.
Ajay-
2) When two cities are connected by a 4hr straight shot drive on a major highway, that is a very good reason not to build other ways of getting there. This is not an argument against airports, which help people travel LONG distances and between places NOT connected directly by major highways.
3) Hasn’t the most commonly discussed goal of the stimulus bill been to rebuild and expand ailing infrastructure in order to make ourselves more productive in the future? Will getting Mickey Mouse to the Playboy club at the Palms in under two hours really help our economy all that much in the future?
On the airports argument, a plane flight saves an order of magnitude more time, in general, than driving. It’s not an apt comparison. This maglev train won’t run at 311mph, and won’t provide travel that faster than driving.
Steve, I’d agree with you, except that HSR as a whole in this country has been a failure and a money pit. If it’s not this fantasy maglev train connecting Tomorrow Land and Cheetah’s, then it will be some other ridiculous under-demanded HSR or mag lev monstrosity, which almost always are incredible boondoggles.
Here is an HSR cheerleader blog’s thoughts on mag lev trains:
http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2008/06/oooo-shiny-maglev-toy.html
Yes…Trains have excellent ROI
You’re missing the genius here. This is an effort to stimulate stimulus spending itself. The goal is to spend tax money for the purpose of spending money, right? Trains eat tax money not just during construction but for decades beyond in prop up payments. Some bureaucrat was sitting around flustered that he couldn’t come up with a spending project his friends could envy. He looks up and sees a poster for Amtrak. The rest is stimulus history.
In no particular order:
1. Brilliant idea covering the National Mall in Gold leaf, do you have any idea the kind of tourism dollars that’d bring in? Hell, we should just cover all of Washington D.C. in gold leaf, then it could literally be the City of Gold.
2. Really, this is a subsidy and vote of confidence (i.e. buying votes) to (from) the rail-workers, construction, and likely some other Unions. How no one sees this is beyond me.
3. Gov’t minds are simple, so the thought process (if you can even call it such) probably goes something like: “well, if consumer spending goes down we have to make up the difference with government spending…”
And since that’s pretty much the extent of Economic knowledge (if that) possessed by most Politicians, the conversation ends there. It doesn’t quite matter to these schlubs WHAT the $ is spent on, as long as it props up GDP. If they can make themselves richer and/or more powerful in the process, all the better.
This is the kind of idiotic claptrap lying that makes people hate the Republican party.
Grow up.
“This is the kind of idiotic claptrap lying that makes people hate the Republican party.
Grow up.”
I voted for, and gave money to, Obama and my voting record would not indicate support for the Republican party. I won’t speak for my colleagues, but I will say that your argument is without substance because it…lacks any substance. It’s just ill-formed attacks at nothing specific.
Try again, Donna.
And I would point out that people may “hate” the Republican party (I have no doubt you do), but they also “hate” (59% of the country dissaprove per the latest AP poll) the Democrat controlled congress. Our politicians are spending money for their gain at our expense, and our children’s expense. They are making a bad situation (that created by the confluence of greedy bankers, irresponsible ignorant home owners, distortive Governmental incentives and mandates to Fannie Mae et alia, and a loose Fed driven by Greenspan) and making it far worse than it had to be. When they aren’t spending our money, they are adding uncertainty and scaring the shit out of people.
It’s a disappointment that so far, the new boss is the same as the old boss. I expect better from the leaders I voted for. I expect better from the leaders I DIDN’t vote for. I expect when spending historic amounts of money for a dubious purpose, that they would at least take their time, a measured rational approach to such an important bill, rather than trot out the same hysteric fear mongering and short-termism that was trouted out by Bush to sell the War in Iraq. Obama and congress didn’t do this and the result is this giant tarp of bullshit, fat with waste, with non-stimulative spending and with money that won’t even be spent soon enough to matter.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
–Abraham Lincoln
That’s how I would want this done, if it has to be done.
PS. I stepped into the real world for a brief second, but if you want to play here, on these grounds, in these comments, you better bring the appropriate funny to back it up. This doesn’t inspire any confidence in your quality:
http://www.sdsc.edu/~woodka/qualityhumor.html
Your name is so close to vodka, and this polish beer I drink, you should be funnier or at least drunker.
“Interestingly, the House stimulus did not mention high-speed rail at all. The Senate bill had $2 billion. So our elected representatives “compromised” at $8 billion. We kid you not.”
From IBD editorial. http://www.investors.com/editorial/EditorialContent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=320285596120230&secure=1&show=1&rss=1
“Interestingly, the House stimulus did not mention high-speed rail at all. The Senate bill had $2 billion. So our elected representatives “compromised” at $8 billion. We kid you not.”
From IBD editorial. http://www.investors.com/editorial/EditorialContent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=320285596120230&secure=1&show=1&rss=1
Glad our overlords are working together to get it done.
you’re a fu*king moron, sorry for the vulgarity, anyone who thinks that the 8 billion dollars is going towards building a mag lev train from vegas to L.A. is grossly mistaken. It’s just as steve pointed out, “this money could fund a proposal” that’s all speculation, plus the post is a rag newspaper, anyone who thinks that they’re even a tiny bit better than your local tabloids, needs to think about what they read, and not just take it as fact.
and finally, why not build a mag lev train from LA to Vegas? vegas is entirely dependant on it’s tourism industry, building the rail would not only bring a lot of short term jobs to that area but also bring long term economic growth to Las Vegas and Los Angeles
Damn those stimulus bills… spending money on labor and resources? the nerve
There is no difference in what Blago did and what the liberals on the hill are doing. It’s all about greed and power. People are losing their jobs, homes, going hungry and without many essentials to save a wetlands marsh mouse (Pelosi’s district), funding to find out what makes pigs stink…I mean, come on. I believe it will take Palin, who is tried and tested on cleaning up govt. to clean the mess the dictator-wannabe and the democraps have made.
Nick, Nick, Nick, the bridge between Las Vegas and LA is in the BILL. The bill is supposed to help ALL OF AMERICA not just a city or two. It’s supposed to create LONG TERM ECONOMIC GROWTH and LONG-TERM JOBS. The conservatives (Repubs and some Dems) wrote a plan that actually would do just that and with 1/3 of the $. But that would just defeat the liberals’ purposes, which is to pay back those who elected them. This is corruption and should be, if not already, investigated.