With the economy stuck in recession and Democrats about to pay a political price for inadequate stimulus at the November election, the White House has been considering a range of economic measures to spur job creation. Today we learned they’ve settled on more infrastructure spending, including the long-awaited National Infrastructure Bank – and high speed rail is a major element of the plan.

As Politico explains:

According to the president’s plan, high speed rail funding would be integrated into the surface transportation bill for the first time. The bill also calls for the creation of an infrastructure “bank” that would leverage private and government funding for infrastructure projects. And it includes a “Race to the Top” style program that would inject competition into the process of allocating money for nearly 100 different “boutique” projects across the country. The Education Department’s Race to the Top program involves having states compete for funding by producing specific plans about how they would spend the money.

California’s HSR project has already proved its success at these kind of competitive grant processes and would be well positioned to earn a significant amount of money from that bank. In addition, the White House is now committed to funding HSR in a surface transportation bill, although that bill’s prospects remain as uncertain as ever. From the White House’s fact sheet:

The long-term framework includes meaningful reforms:

• The establishment of an Infrastructure Bank to leverage federal dollars and focus on investments of national and regional significance that often fall through the cracks in the current siloed transportation programs;

• The integration of high-speed rail on an equal footing into the surface transportation program to ensure a sustained and effective commitment to a national high speed rail system over the next generation

It is good to see that the Infrastructure Bank is finally going to get the full support of the White House, as is permanent HSR funding through the Transportation Bill. How that gets funded is still unclear, although the New York Times reports that the White House is looking at “cutting oil and gas subsidies,” which sounds like the proposal Congressman John Garamendi told me about at Netroots Nation in July.

The bigger question, of course, is whether the White House can round up enough votes for this proposal. Not only do they need to get one Republican in the Senate (presumably retiring Ohio Senator George Voinovich would be that Republican vote for the Transportation Bill) but they’ll also need to win over Blue Dog Democrats who have already shown they’re willing to risk their own seats and their party’s chances of holding Congress by refusing to support strong economic recovery measures.

Still, given the fact that Republicans are now within striking distance of taking both houses of Congress from the Democrats, it would seem that Dems would want to unite behind these proposals and ensure their passage.

Now would also be a good time for those HSR critics, especially on the Palo Alto City Council, who have been frustrated by the California High Speed Rail Authority’s desire to hold down costs and build HSR tracks in a way these city officials may not want. If people like Palo Alto’s Larry Klein want a trench through their city, they need to stop trying to attack and undermine the project and instead spend their time lobbying Congress to approve the president’s plans so that there can be reliable federal funding that in turn might make it possible for Palo Alto get more of what it wants.