One of the projects funded under the federal stimulus package is a high-speed rail system. Considering how piss-poor public transportation in the USA is despite the huge size of our country, personally I think it's a really good project. But regardless, at the very least the project would create thousands of jobs needed during the current economic recession.
However, a couple of newly-elected conservative governors (John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin) have rejected the federal funds to build the high speed rail in their respective states. This is projected to cost each state over 10,000 jobs. One rail company is already abandoning its plans to build a manufacturing plant in Milwaukee (Wisconsin).
http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/14/te鈥?/a>
It's not like these stimulus rejections will save the country any money - the funds are simply being offered to other states for their high speed rail projects instead. The only consequence of these decisions is that Wisconsin and Ohio will lose out on both the thousands of jobs and rail infrastructure which would have come along with accepting the stimulus funds.
I have a hard time understanding how refusing jobs and infrastructure for their states is good for the local economy. I'm forced to conclude that these governors refused the stimulus funds for purely ideological reasons. This makes me skeptical of conservative claims that they really oppose addressing global warming for economic reasons.
What do you think of these governors' decisions to refuse these stimulus funds? And do conservatives really oppose addressing global warming for economic reasons, or perhaps it's more for ideological reasons?Do conservatives really oppose addressing global warming for economic reasons?
I'm a bit conflicted.
On one hand I understand the attempt to present a fiscally frugal image and protest the borrowing of large sums of money, under the guise of stimulus, by not accepting any disbursement of money from the federal government. Sometimes I worry that the sum of money used in the stimulus plan is going to cause an enormous amount of discomfort down the road in an attempt to keep an artificially inflated bubble afloat.
On the other hand the two states that you mentioned, and especially Ohio, are suffering more so than some of the other states from the recession. I spent a good portion of last summer at a research site just a couple of miles west of Cleveland, every time I drove between the city and the site I was always amazed at the number of abandoned warehouses and manufacturing plants. On the way into the airport in Cleveland there is a plant that makes the engines for several models of Ford. Only twice did we drive past it an see smoke coming from the stack - each time the guys driving us was very excited to see the plant operating because it meant people were earning a paycheck.
It's a decision I wouldn't feel comfortable making because I just don't think I have enough information on the potential affects of both.
With that said I am in no way doubtful that the majority of the motivation driving the decisions of such governors is 100% ideological. With the impact the tea-party had in the mid-terms, Republicans have a new call to order in being fiscally conservative with no exceptions at risk of becoming the bane of the Tea Party.
Fiscally conservative that is, except for when dishing out tax breaks that add to the debt.
That's like getting in shape by "laziness and bacon."
You've presented several reports in the past that clearly outline the fiscal impact of climate change mitigation, of which some indicate potential benefits down the road. Opposition to these efforts are also 100% ideological. Republican just see it as government intervention, nothing more, despite evidence pointing towards "wise investments."
Funny,
Tell you what, You go to Europe and have all the access you want to the docs when you have the sniffles and get your antibiotics. Then you can have a survival rate for cancer at more than 10% lower than the US. I'll tough out my sniffles and survive the cancer.
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Do conservatives really oppose addressing global warming for economic reasons?Also while you are paying 60% in taxes, I'll pay 50%. Further, while you are concerned about public transpo, I'll actually be concerned about solving the overly exagerrated problem of CO2 emission, and not just looking at some window dressing initiative.
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Then when you insult me, it will be while you are dying from cancer, with no money to go to a US hospital, because it is all taken by the govt and you will have achieved nothing, because you focus your energies on things that do not matter.
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Do conservatives really oppose addressing global warming for economic reasons?" Liberals make decisions based not in fact, but pure emotion. That is why they are liberals."
Science is based on fact, not emotion. By this definition, believing in AGW because one believes non-emotional scientists makes one conservative.
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Didn't you see that politician who openly publicly said that if it's not in the bible it can't be true?
I lived in Germany for two years and was very much impressed by their efficient and easy to use rail. I like the idea of high speed rail and would be willing to spend a bit more to get it. Still you have to weigh the costs with the benefits.
I oppose a knee jerk tax and control scheme to "addressing" so called climate change. First there is no objective cost benefit analyses. It is more symbolism than substance. Anything we do will have almost zero positive result. Some people want to do something about it and they want to do it now regardless of the consequences to our economy or freedom. Kasich is a good man and will do what he thinks is right IMO. Governor Strickland was just your garden variety leftist who wants to tax and spend other peoples money. Kasich believes that it would be better if the government reigned in its spending. Is their no end or limit to government expansion that you wouldn't support?
One thing I have noticed about Obama's projected jobs. It is about as reliable as alarmists projected catastrophic warming. When you confiscate money from people, you take away jobs. Is that a difficult concept of a tax and spend leftist? How many jobs is this so called stimulus going to take. The last thing we need is more stimulus. That last stimulus nearly bankrupted us. It is closer to a slush fund to pay for constituent goodies to help Obama et al get elected in 2 years.
The typical liberal is not capable of running a profitable hot dog stand, steady employment, or balancing a checkbook. Liberals make decisions based not in fact, but pure emotion. That is why they are liberals. With that in mind, it is easy to see how HSR is attractive to them.
The proposed California High Speed Rail line would be more expensive than every other active HSR proposal in the country put together. While subsidized by everyone who pays the regressive sales tax, its users would have a higher than average income, so it is a subsidy from the poor to the rich. It would cost about $600-$1000 per person or $2000-$3000 per California household before a single trip is made. This money could support about 20,000 teachers or police perpetually. For every $1 spent by the passenger, it would entail $4 in public subsidy, twice the annual expenditure of the State Transportation Improvement Program.
While it is too soon to know the final cost for this system, estimates have already doubled. Forecasts of demand for transit are typically 25-50% too high. Estimates of costs for major infrastructure are significantly off, for instance the cost of the Denver Airport tripled from beginning to end.
HSR is slower than air travel in the main Bay Area to Los Angeles market. While proponents claim fewer delays at train stations than airports, that assumes lessened security precautions. Rail systems are at least as vulnerable to terrorism as air systems . This is very important because most CA liberals are big proponents of Islamic Jihad. (i.e. Johnny Jihad of Fairfax, CA)
The HSR system will take less than one lane of traffic off the major North-South highways. Airports will soon have extra capacity as they increase operations in bad weather with instrumented flight controls.
A study of BART (Lave 1976) estimated that more energy was used to build the system than will ever be saved by it.
Other modes are steadily getting cleaner, for instance fuel cell powered vehicles will emit only water and carbon dioxide. Any benefits from HSR depend on unproven forecasts. The energy for HSR must come from somewhere, if electric then probably coal or nuclear, both of which have some problems.
BART has not been particularly successful at attracting development outside of downtown San Francisco, why would HSR? It is likely that HSR will promote sprawl into the Central Valley.Advocates of rail (traditionally urban subways and light rail) claim that new rail will result in the redevelopment of "good neighborhoods" around the stations. This is true to a limited extent (e.g. in San Francisco and selected other stations, such as Rockridge), but not universally. Rail tends to promote dispersion ... park and ride lots promote what those advocates would consider "bad neighborhoods", i.e. auto oriented suburban neighborhoods, enabling people to live very far from the central city (Dublin, Pittsburg etc) and still work downtown. We can hypothesize that HSR will promote even more "bad neighborhoods", particularly in the central valley, as people choose to live 100 miles from the city and use HSR to commute into San Francisco and Silicon Valley.Downtowns as a share of regional jobs have been declining steadily for 50 years. Hence any system focused on downtown is serving yesterday's travel demand pattern rather than tomorrow's (unless it can reverse the trend, which is rather like tilting at windmills). There is little evidence that new rail starts do much to reverse the trend.
What is the best use of $20,000,000,000 to $30,000,000,000 ? For that amount of money it would be very easy to provide improvements to air travel into the central valley, along with many other things. HSR is the least cost effective way to provide transportation services between the Valley and the coastal cities.
The newly-elected conservative governors (John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin) have rejected the federal funds to build the high speed rail in their respective states because the understand that it is not financially viable. HSR will never be profitable, does nothing to reduce emissions, does not provide better transportation, and will always be subsidized by the government.
Liberals oppose the two governors because they are still all butt hurt from the failure of Obummer and the massive losses sustained in the last election.
There seems to be an unexpected convergence between those concerned about climate change, and Expel's brand of conservatism. A carbon tax is, as he says, a consumption tax, and if offset by reductions in income tax at the lower levels, could win support left, right, and centre.
But I fear that what Kadsich and Walker are doing is in a different category. They are pretending that whatever is done by government (with the exception of military action) is intrinsically wicked. This also feeds in to the ideological conservative attack on action about climate change, which as you point out has a life of its own, independent of economic consequences.
Edit: Expel, thanks for explaining your position. It is very logical, but just doesn't fit the facts; for instance, the US pays almost twice as much for private health care, and gets poorer results, than the UK or Europe where health care is supplied by government and funded by taxes. Where you are dealing with private goods, and if market forces are efficient and externalities unimportant, leave it to the private sector. Otherwise government has a role, anywhere between regulation and provision.
Try Economics 201.
One governor rejected the funds because he felt that the cost over runs would be astronomical and his state could ill afford to throw the taxpayers' money away on such a project.
Would they be totally against this sort of project if cost over runs weren't an issue? Who knows at this time. I am all for moving aggressively forward on building high speed rail system from coast to coast and border to border. But it must be done efficiently with as little waste as possible. We also need to get moving on infrastructure restoration and expansion NOW. Our roads are falling apart, bridges falling down, railroads in need of repairs, electric grid in need of overhaul. These all would create jobs now and into the future for 10-30 years. The Democrats don't get it, the Republicans don't get it, so who's left to get it?
Well since I am a fiscal conservative, I can say that addressing the environment can be done without large impacts to the economy. In fact, it should be very clear to you that much of the income taxes provide absolutely no direction for the country. Taxes which work on consumption, could replace income taxes and reward for less consumption. So a Carbon tax, could be considered to replace some of the income taxes. Direction, but no net increase in taxes. Not to mention the plan I have already laid out, that will would cost the US nothing and lead to nearly 0 CO2 emissions.
As far as the rails, I can tell you that public transportation works much better in the cities than in the country. Some busses do not have enough people using them to even make up for the amount of CO2 they produce on their daily routes. (they just dropped some bus routes due to this very problem here in TX). An increase in public transportation is usually not helpful in location with a less dense population. These locations end up spending too much money just to keep a non-working program going. The more densely populated the more effective public transportation is at reducing costs and reducing CO2 output.
I do not know if Ohio and Wisconsin have considered all of the costs, but this may explain the decision that you do not understand. Otherwise, the best way for the govt to spend money in a struggling economy is in infrastructure, so I would have been hard-pressed to go against this bill.
Paul B,
I beleive govt should limit its interference in matters to the most possible extent while still keeping the public good in mind. The govt is very inefficient, and I know because I worked for the govt. Further, they always promise more than they can actually deliver, nature of a politician. Now I choose to support this ideology by taxes. If the govt foolishly makes too many promises and has to dramatically cut back on spending (as seen in much of Europe right now) and the taxes are very high, then the people are overly-reliant on the govt to make up for the money taken from them and those cuts are so severely felt that you see riots in the streets (as seen in Europe right now). If the taxes are low, then our reliance on the govt is lower and the cuts are not so severely felt. Further, Economics 101 will tell you that the more money that is out on the market and not in govt hands, the better the economy does. Simply put, a dollar in the hands of the people yeilds more than 1 dollars worth of services, while that same dollar in govt's hand yeilds about 80 cents worth of services. Thus govt should be limited to only what is necessary and proper, not necessary or proper. Look at the money currently spent by the govt and what they have their hands in. Can you really call it all necessary and proper?
Patrick Henry said this "necessary and proper" clause would lead to " limitless federal power that would inevitably menace individual liberty". While you may laugh and mock this sentiment, realize that being taxed at 50% of our pay would have perfectly fit with what the founding fathers saw as a "menace individual liberty." They would have thought that taxes of 50% were absurd.
Dana,
Affordability and accessibility? Are you kidding? Accessibility is always possible in the US, whereas not in Canada, UK, etc. I have talked to people from both the UK and Canada and they are none to happy with their system. Seriously you are reading material that is biased due to the fact that they are comparing apples to oranges.
Furhter, Why are you even support this public transpo thing? Do you not realize that spending money on initiatives like this wears at the public's willingness to support other "green" initiatives? This is a lot of money involved in this public transpo idea, that could be used for the building of power plants that do not use coal, recycling centers, Wind farms, research fo rmaking e-cars affordable, etc,etc,etc. The other initiatives the money could be used for would more significantly reduce CO2 output than public transpo. In fact, if done in the wrong locations, public transpo can place more CO2 in the atmosphere. Given the tightness of the budget and the fact that they are calling to tighten it further, you should be more opposed to this measure than I, because it will very simply let people point to "Look we are doing something", when according to you, this measure is not nearly enough. See the difference between you and I? I don't just look at the surface, I dig.
Further, when you talk about cost to the public of C%26amp;T etc, you certainly do not include all these other initiatives that nickel and dime the US taxpayer to death.
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