This post originally appeared at Speak Out California
The following letter appears in today's San Jose Mercury News:
State not geared up for high-speed railIs high-speed rail really the answer in California? I think not. I originally thought, great, let's match Europe's and Japan's advanced transportation with our own high-speed trains.
However, California is not Europe or Japan. We do not have convenient trains and buses running everywhere you could possibly want to go in every city.
Consider that if you traveled from San Francisco to Los Angeles by high-speed train in 2½ hours, what do you do when you arrive? Catch a bus or light rail to your destination? Sorry, too inconvenient and time-consuming. Rent a car? Sorry, now you have lost the economy of train travel as well as the time savings.
Either alternative adds at least two hours to your trip making the time equivalent to driving.
I say, "no on high-speed rail." Let's save the money and reduce our debt in California!
Let it sink in what the writer is saying here: We should not even try to catch up to the rest of the world, because we have already fallen so far behind that it will cost too much. Instead let's just try to pay off some of the accumulated debt.
The writer is bearing witness to the results of many years of tax cutting and cutbacks in our government. After the tax cutting started in the 70s and 80s we stopped maintaining the infrastructure, so now we do not have convenient trains or buses or mass transit to use after the high-speed rail reaches your destination. We instead accumulated debt.
So here we are. The consequences of decades of cutbacks are arriving. The rest of the world leaps ahead of us. China has nearly completed a network of 42 high-speed rail lines connecting the major cities, and we can't even get one project off the ground.
It's certainly not going to get any better until we start asking corporations and the wealthy to pitch in and pay back some of what they gained from the infrastructure that we built in California, back in the decades before they got tax cuts.
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The truth is that high speed rail is fantastic when you have enough money to use it, but it is underutilized where it exists, would not be sufficient to cover the USA's travel needs, and would cost more than it would ever give us back.
So to say that "oh it costs too much money" is a cop out. Also, if you use it smartly then high speed rail is a good use. For instance-Tucson and Phoenix are within a hundred miles of one another now. No reason whatsoever to not have a rail between the two to let people get to where they need to go without driving. Same with DC and NY. I can think of other examples where connecting the cities is good economic sense long term.
Also there is too much focus on legislation through taxation. Progressive taxation is a reasonable policy, but overall what matters more is how money is spent. Now this is where the right-wingers claim we are spending too much and give a false argument of cutting waste being enough... Nope. We actually need more revenue to reach a level of spending that allows the public sector to accurately address issues. And to keep agencies accountable... Accountability actually costs money. And requires attention.
I can agree that the rich should pay more... but truthfully we should all be making more sacrifice. We should not have our trade-off overly obscured by putting taxation on corporations (leading to the corporation putting the losses on its "lowly" employees).
We should seriously consider incorporating value-added taxes as part of our tax system, perhaps cutting income taxes for all or cutting them for the well-off and exempting more people toward the bottom.
That is the problem right there. And the lack of UHC.
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/06/a_lost_decade_f.html
There's more than enough dollars in federal and state tax collections.
WAY more than enough.
The problem is the constant spending and waste.
Absolutely no prioritizing.
Absolutely no concern for the long term costs (such as these sweeet public union pensions with no method of payment).
Illinois is a great example of this.
Chicago is an even better example.
Huge taxes and broke.
The discussion of taxation has two sides, mostly we hear only of income. Why are we not talking about the other side of the equation? Why are we not holding our governments (local, state, and federal) accountable for their complete lack of restraint when they blow through the money they confiscate from us, under the guise of taking care of us?
If you want everyone to be "happy" then everyone needs to have a little skin in the game.
But, even if everyone participates it will do no good if our politicians continue to treat us as a never ending well of funds. This is a wealthy country. And ALL politicians are spending us into oblivion.
Look at the policies at local and state level. No military or wars and yet they still find a way to go bankrupt.
Politicians have 2 jobs.
1. Get re-elected.
2. Spend our money.
Please, here is your opportunity. Tell us WHAT spending would you get rid of, and how much money are you talking about?
Don't forget to disrupt the agricultural economy to protect that little fish.
Politicians in CA were big spenders and wasters.
There is MORE than enough money in CA being taxed.
Its a goldmine of a state.
And yet they can't stop spending. The well is dry.
the cost to us for the lied into and unnecessary war in iraq has been $1 billion a month plus the billions of dollars now given to those like blackwater and halliburton and kbr. the cost to us to bail out the very villains who nearly caused our entire economy to collapse from years of deregulation began under the republican president ronald reagan.
i am always and continually amazed at how the republicans can convince those who never profited from their agenda for the wealthy, to still decry "big government spending."
Politicians should do that, no doubt. But instead what they ask for is campaign donations, and in return promise favors, which by the way, is usually lower taxes or subsidies.
Tax Cuts Across the board For everyone = Great Idea
Our government Spending Less Money on Right Wing wars and Leftist
Social Engineering = Even Better Idea
A Minimal Government that Knows its Roll and Scope and Does not
over step its bounds at every turn = Priceless
Although the Last thing will never happen because we have Provided our
Bloated Monster of a Government all the Fuel it needs to Keep expanding
and taxing us into the ground.... Pretty soon we will all be broke and EQUAL
Equally Ruined...
Every socialist or communist government in the past began as what we know as a liberal based policy organization. Giving to the poor to take from the rich was their basic principle. And they extended those programs as much as they could. Eventually the govt was providing all aspects of livelihood; jobs, health care, education, transportation, housing, etc.
And the rich were no longer driving the economic cart.
The government was driving it.
And eventually the poor were still poor. In most cases MORE poor.
And the rich was smaller in number.
And the government became completely empowered.
Democratic Policies Lead to socialist Communism..
The US was designed to Be a balance of all of these Ideas....
that Keeps us in the middle...
and that is why there is always Such Drama when 1 party owns the entire process
I don't have a solution. Blame General Motors for ripping out rail in favor of highways and cars in the first part of the other century.
An infrastructure (and by that I mean the Interstate Highway System and associated arteries - suburban or otherwise) I should add that has probably done more to alienate/separate the individual from the larger community - and has caused societal degradation - than any social program that conservatives despise ever could.
Consider what we could do with that $1.4 trillion in unused profits being sat on just by corporations?
Not to mention the under/un-utilized sources of income being held by all those newly minted millionaires and "Ultra High Net Worth Individuals".
Give it to unions.
Triple the actual cost of any proposed project cost.
Kickbacks to supporters.
Divert it to some social program to those who have absoultely no skin in the game.
Pay for more illegal alien education.
Yeah, more taxes. So politicians can have even more to spend and waste.
How about some political accountability. You spend what you have available.
And putting those at the bottom of the run into the tax mix so they have some skin in the game versus just taking, generation after generation.
1) Go learn about how the government operates -- elected officials don't KEEP the money that is raised
2) Give the Limbaugh and Beck listening a rest for a few days
From 1932-1981, when top marginal tax rates were much higher than they are today, we became an economic and military powerhouse. We got out of the Great Depression, won the largest war in the history of mankind, and the middle class blossomed (I'm not saying that there were no bad times of course).
On the flip side, top marginal tax rates were MUCH lower before the Great Depression and before the current recession. From 1982 to the present we haven't paid for things, we've borrowed. Why? Because we starved ourselves of revenue, by taxing the rich less in hopes that they're (supposedly) increased investments would make America better. Hasn't quite worked, has it?
Can Americans put two and two together? Nope. And that's why we're falling apart. We cannot have a healthy or economically sound culture while so few own so much. The fact of the matter is that money has to come back down, it has to recycle. If it gets stuck at the top, the consumer class will consume no more.
However, I love America as well. I think that America is very special in the world. We are the world's optimists and we are the world's doers. We do things other peoples' are trained not to even think about.
I am very afraid for my country. When I was a grad student in Physics, I was the only American. It was actually pretty embarrassing. All my undergrad friends went into accounting, law and journalism. Today I am the only person I know from that era that has a product (or a service) worthy of export.
Look at the commercials on TV; IRS representation, credit reports, credit card consolidation, and lawsuits for car accidents. Look at the movie stars: “Oh everything is so bad, the right sucks, global warming, blah, blah, blah.
We will not solve our problems by using democrats, republicans, health care reform, nor rail. It certainly will start within the individual. I am very glad that we have the current administration, because this fact of life is now obvious.
Union thug bosses are raping the tax payer.
And their members.
Chicago is a great example of what unions have done to destroy an economy.
They, along with politicians are a primary reason for the downfall of the economy.
I'll give big business some credit in that area too.
But, unions and politicians are the primary drivers of debt.
And if we let the idea of unintended consequences rule our every action, we would never get anything done because it could have possible negatives.