Ray LaHood Pushes Back Hard Against GOP HSR Critics
Tuesday’s New York Times had an article on the Republican gubernatorial candidates running against rail, including California’s own Meg Whitman. The article pointed out that these candidates are threatening rail projects across the country, even being willing to reject federal funding in order to stop the trains.
I took a look at this back in August and concluded this was another example of how right-wingers are casting themselves as the defenders of a failed 20th century status quo, determined to prevent the infrastructure and prosperity of the 21st century from emerging no matter the damage it causes. And a few days later I took a closer look at HSR and the California governor’s race and concluded that Meg Whitman had little to gain from attacking HSR, would never attack the concept itself, but did plan to pull the project’s funding if she got elected. In contrast, Jerry Brown has everything to gain by promoting the project, and that we should expect him to do so (and he did in the Saturday gubernatorial debate in Fresno).
So why write about the subject again? Well, this time US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood pushed back hard against the right-wing HSR critics:
We’re talking about nothing short of transforming transportation much the same way the interstate highway system did under President Eisenhower. Can you imagine if Ohio or Wisconsin or any other state had said, “No, thanks–we don’t think that highway thing is going anywhere?”
This is an excellent criticism and comparison. In the 1950s, it was widely accepted that infrastructure improvements were necessary to provide economic prosperity. Memories of the Depression were still fresh, and politicians did not take prosperity for granted.
Here in the 2010s, we face a prolonged economic slump – yet some right-wingers believe, along with other HSR critics, that there’s no need whatsoever to deal with the economic crisis, especially if it involves passenger rail projects. LaHood slammed this thinking too:
The fact is that–as with much of the Recovery Act–I keep hearing objections being expressed in the media while at the same time my office phone is ringing off the hook with calls from elected officials of both parties competing feverishly for a rail corridor in their state! I’ve never heard from anyone saying, “Don’t put my constituents to work.”
Look, the people vowing to send this train back to the station are missing the boat, so to speak. High speed rail will offer states’ incredible economic opportunities. It means jobs for workers, it means manufacturing opportunities and it means economic development corridors.
LaHood went on to provide some backing for his arguments:
If you think the United States can afford not to compete with the European and Asian nations who have embraced high-speed rail and other innovative infrastructure, I urge you to read “Investing in our Economic Future,” by Dr. T. Peter Ruane, or “Well Within Reach: America’s New Transportation Agenda,” by the David R. Goode National Transportation Policy Conference. Both of these reports tell the same story: We cannot delay mustering the courage to build a 21st century foundation for our 21st century economy.
Neither President Obama nor I will be content to sit around and watch other countries maintain a transportation advantage over us.
That’s good to hear from the Obama Administration. However, I don’t quite think LaHood realizes, or wants to admit publicly, that the people he’s arguing against – right-wingers and other HSR critics – simply don’t care about economic recovery. Their argument is that anyone who is unemployed or suffering is basically a lost cause, deserves their fate, and should be abandoned lest the rest of society get dragged down trying to help. For the right-wing gubernatorial candidates it stems from a belief that their corporate allies are all that matter to the economy. For HSR critics, generally driven by a flawed and obsolete perception of how property values work, it stems from their belief that as long as their property values remain stable, it doesn’t matter how many people are unemployed.
LaHood continues to try and reason with the right-wing HSR opponents:
We know there are dozens of companies that want to build plants and hire American workers. We have already received commitments from over 30 companies in the rail business to create or expand US rail manufacturing should they be awarded contracts for portions of this money. These companies know high-speed rail, and they are ready to become partners to the states or regions awarded rail grants.
Will we say, “No,” to the future–to jobs and growth?
Just like the interstate highway system, the wired telephone has been a fantastic springboard to American economic strength. But that didn’t stop the communications companies from embracing the innovation offered by wireless. And look at what that investment has made possible.
These too are solid, strong arguments, backed by logic and evidence. But I fear it’s a lost cause. The right-wing and the HSR critics don’t care about any of this. They’re determined to preserve the 20th century and preserve their own privilege, everyone else be damned.
Still, it is good that LaHood is showing his willingness to fight on this. We need a strong champion like him leading the push for high speed rail. We’ll never convince the right-wingers and the other HSR critics. But most Americans can be convinced by this, just as a majority of Californians still support high speed rail.
Read the article. If, and it’s a big “IF,” these GOP idiots in other parts of the country reject federal funds for HSR, wouldn’t that possibly mean more funds for California?
Paul Krugman had a blog post about this: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/railing-against-rail/, and Jonathan Cohn as well: http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/78154/republicans-oppose-hi-speed-rail-funding-stimulus.
The conservatives are really living up to their name. They believe that everything was just fine in the last quarter of the 20th century and we can just keep things that way without doing anything.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Yes, and said blog post makes me think less of him. If his statements on something I understand are so ideological and inane, how can I trust that his statements on all other subjects are informed?
Spokker Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Krugman doesn’t do economics anymore. He put his brilliance into storage in order to become popular.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
I think your knee-jerk went off a little prematurely: Krugman is the one who supportively writes:
(though God knows why anybody with any experience of the world would try to make any excuses for Amtrak.)
As we all know, wannabe cool kids will do anything (including “putting their brilliance into storage”) in order to make themselves popular with the “it girls” of the Nobel committees.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
He writes is supportively, but what he means is that the government should just invest gobs of money into rail, without ever trying to make sure the investment is prudent.
PeakVT Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
““… what he means is that …
You’re a mind reader? Hmmm, I’m calling BS on that. But you know that already, right?
Alon Levy Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Well, think of it this way: he’s talking about generic rail programs. He’s defending rail completely generically, as a government program. Furthermore, in the past he’s made nostalgic comments about trains, both on his blog and in interviews, as well as separate comments pooh-poohing the notion that government spending should be efficient. He’s actually lampooned the efficiency view, defending spending as a stimulus program and saying that the important thing is to spend money, not spend it well.
Dan S. Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 2:41 am
I think you’re reading way too much into that blog post. It’s really short and he barely says anything in it at all. But he does say “Amtrak even as it is is crucial to intercity traffic” — I would say his “even as it is” is a nod to its under-performance, and his way of admitting that it could be better.
And he doesn’t present a totally generic support of rail — he says specifically “New York could not function at all without commuter rail.” Not only region-specific but calling out commuter rail lines in particular.
My summary of his blog post is that he is proposing that Republicans oppose rail investment because rail lines are typically run by governments and Republicans hate all government programs. And then he gives a few sentences to explain why rail makes sense in dense populations. But there, I’ve basically exceeded the length of his blog post in this summary!
rafael Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 12:28 am
Republicans say they want smaller government, but their track record says otherwise. They’re perfectly happy to spend your childrens’ (and your grandchildrens’) yet-to-be-hard-earned cash on national defense incl. unwinnable land wars in Asia plus equally unwinnable wars on drugs and teenage hormones plus tax cuts for anyone who will make a large contribution to their (re-)election campaigns. Did I mention that everything has to be a “war” on something or other? You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones both the GOP and Fox News want.
Paul Krugman’s assertion that New York could not function without taxpayer-subsidized passenger rail service is absolutely correct. Much the same could be said for San Francisco. If you think Amtrak, the MTA, BART etc. are expensive, just consider the far greater cost of constructing and maintaining roads, bridges, tunnels etc. plus parking for equivalent automobile capacity. Add to that the opportunity costs not being able to use the extra land for more productive uses (e.g. skyscraper office buildings) plus those of having truly everyone stuck in rush hour traffic, every weekday. Government isn’t evil, it provides useful civilian services. Like getting people to work on time.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Republicans say lots of other things they never follow up on. How many decades have they been bemoaning Roe vs. Wade and promising to do something about it? What did they do when they had the opportunity during the Bush Administration? It’s not about actually governing, it’s about getting elected so they can cut taxes on rich people. Actually doing many of the things they promise would mean people no longer have a reason to vote for them
plus parking for equivalent automobile capacity.
I didn’t save the blog post. I’m sure it was a guesstimate. If the average car entering Manhattan had 1.5 people in it so much of Manhattan would be parking garage that it would cease to be Manhattan. I seem to remember half of everything south of 59th street more or less. Not to mention the highways that would have to be driven through Brooklyn Queens the Bronx, Hudson County and Bergen County in NJ. Probably big chunks of Westchester, Nassau and Essex, Passaic and Union counties too.
PeakVT Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
You are deeply confused about his positions. Take some time to read his blog and try again.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I’ve been reading his blog continuously since 2008. Shall I dig for you his various quotes on how great the Acela is and how trains are the natural way to travel, or will you do it yourself?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Acela sucks if you are a train-geek. Most people don’t care about axle loads and signal systems etc. They don’t even care much if it under performs compared to previous trains on the same corridor. They do care that it’s the fastest way to get between NY, DC and points in between.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
They probably care that it underperforms compared to the TGV and Shinkansen, which I’m sure Krugman has ridden, and that it’s frequently late. When I first took Amtrak, I was shocked to see a 3-hour travel time from New Haven to Philly, with barely any difference bewteen the Regional and the Acela. I only became a train geek after having to deal with low speeds and poor OTP traveling to Philly.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Normal people have no clue. Most people have no clue how far Philadelphia is from New York or how far it is between NY and DC. It’s a two hour drive from NY to Philadelphia, 1:07 on Acela last tiem I looked. That’s what normal people look at. They then look at the price and decide to drive. Or take a regional. Or wonder if there’s a Chinatown bus to Philadelphia…
Alon Levy Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
1:07 when it’s on time. I think I took the Acela exactly once between Philly and NY, but I took the Regional a lot, and very often an advertised 1:18 schedule became 1:30. And because I wasn’t actually traveling to and from Philly itself, I needed to budget 20 minutes between the connecting SEPTA train and the Regional.
It took me a while to check distances on Wikipedia and find just how awful the average speed is, but I knew from the start that the Acela barely saved any time over the non-high-speed Regional.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
According to the March 1957 Official Guide… 30th Street to NY is a deep dark secret. What became the Clockers used Suburban which is 91.4 miles from NY. Hasn’t changed much since Suburban opened. Nice round numbers is 30 to New Brunswick, 60 to Trenton and 90 to Philadelphia. 225 to DC.
Joey Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Most people don’t care about axle loads and signal systems etc. They don’t even care much if it under performs compared to previous trains on the same corridor. They do care that it’s the fastest way to get between NY, DC and points in between.
They may not care much for the technical reasons behind things, but they will care about (a) Faster trip times, as lighter trains will accelerate faster (b) More reliable service because of signaling upgrades and to a lesser extent (c) The operational cost savings associated mainly with lighter, more reliable equipment can be fed back into the system to either reduce subsides on other services or implement capital improvements to reduce travel times further or improve passenger comfort/convenience.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
You can get the distances direct from Wikipedia’s article on the NEC, or from Rich E. Green’s maps. I know what they are; I just didn’t check or didn’t remember back in 2005, when I first rode Amtrak.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Interview everybody in the Acela lounges in NY, DC and Philadelphia and I doubt 5 percent of them would even know what you are talking about.
…accelerate faster…. Acela has 16 stations including South Station in Boston and Union Station in DC. How much time will a train that accelerates faster save? Keep in mind that trains running on the NEC are mostly electric trains except for some commuter trains with decent acceleration already.
… signal upgrades… Amtrak trains already use ACSES. It’s not ERTMS but it’s functionally the same. In other words there are no signal upgrades on the horizon.
…. reliability reducing subsidies…. the newer stuff in the Northeast is reliable. Only thing you would be saving is electricity. Important on the margins but not a huge savings. The stuff is light compared to diesels and Amtrak heritage equipment. Heavier than it needs to be but it’s not going to save huge amounts if they use lighter stuff.
Dan S. Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 2:53 am
Krugman makes a longer and stronger argument in his latest column for government spending during recessions, and specifically a defense of the recovery act (ARRA).
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/opinion/07kristof.html
But what really caught my eye in there was his reference to the CBO’s evaluation of the recovery act. You know, the one that all Republicans are currently saying has busted our budget and provided no jobs for Americans. Well, the bi-partisan CBO estimates that the recovery act created between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs. That’s no drop in the bucket, in my book. Here’s more from the CBO report, with a link to the original (a short read):
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/117xx/doc11706/08-24-ARRA.pdf
CBO estimates that ARRA’s policies had the following effects in the second quarter of calendar year 2010:
* They raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and
4.5 percent,
* Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points,
* Increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million, and
* Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 2.0 million to 4.8 million compared with what would have occurred otherwise (see Table 1). (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers).”
I’d like to see more Dems making this point more publicly. Don’t cave into this faux-populist revulsion of government spending. Show that more recovery spending will result in lower unemployment, and the risks from short-term government debt are small.
Next time you hear a Republican explaining why the recovery act is so bad, ask yourself how the economy would be with 1.4 to 3.3 million fewer jobs today? Better yet, ask the speaker.
J. Wong Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 8:25 am
You cite Kristof _not_ Krugman. Both columnists for the same newspaper whose last names begin with “K”.
Dan S. Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Aw krap. Mea Kulpa!
Dan S. Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 2:08 am
Okay, *now* Krugman has a new column and it just happens to hit this same topic square-on. Perhaps I was channeling the future in my previous post.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/opinion/08krugman.html
In this one, he bemoans the cancellation of the new NYC rail tunnel project by that Republican governor of New Jersey, whatsisname.
Too many NYT columnists with a “K” name. Thank God Bill Kristol doesn’t work there anymore. Seriously. Thank God. ;-)
Missiondweller Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 9:31 am
The Keynesians have been resoundingly proved wrong. The stimulus was a bust.
Remember “Recovery Summer”???
J. Wong Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 10:29 am
I don’t get it. The CBO numbers clearly showed the stimulus prevented things from getting much, much worse. How does this disprove Keynes?
Missiondweller Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 11:46 am
The same CBO that scored Obama’s healthcare reform as “deficit neutral” before recently revising it from a cost of $1 trillion to $2.5 trillion per year?
The CBO is frequently off by many orders of magnitude.
Other published studies showed the stimulus had a negative multiplier rather than a positive one, meaning that $1 spent had about 80 cents worth of benefit. This partly explains why the number of jobs “created or saved” cost about $300,000 per job. Of course, there is no such economic metric as jobs “created or saved”.
J. Wong Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
If there off by orders of magnitude, it could be in either direction. Still no “proof”.
michael in sf Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Any reference for this?
I tried a popular search engine, but cannot find anything saying CBO estimated $1T or $2.5T per year. Maybe for a 10 year cycle, typical of CBO estimates. However, even those are not adjusted for health care spending that would take place without the health care legislation (not insignificant).
I have not seen anything that refers to the stimulus as having a negative multiplier effect, so please do provide some background there as well.
Thanks
adirondacker12800 Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
The Gross Domestic Product for the US is under 15 Trillion a year. The whole Federal budget for fiscal year 2009 was 3.5 trillion. His numbers are way way off if they are for one year.
BruceMcF Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Since it scored the cost at $1t over 10 years, I wonder which year it was that you imagined the entirety of that $1t fell in. And why you imagine that budget neutral means “cost free” … the budget neutral came from the combination of revenues and saving scored at over $1t over 10 years.
BruceMcF Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Oh, and you are also terribly confused about multipliers. $0.80 impact from $1 in spending is not a negative multiplier, its a fractional multiplier. Its true that many of the tax cuts had a fractional multiplier. The spending had a multiplier greater than one. The greatest multiplier impacts are from things like food stamps, which hit 160% because of the high domestic content of the items purchased.
jimsf Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
The stimulus was not a bust. I see the results of it all around.
BruceMcF Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
The Post Keynesians were proven right. When total government spending went up, the impact showed up, when for six months total government spending dropped, because state and local government spending dropped faster than Federal stimulus spending kicked in, impact faded.
Of course, idiots go by labels instead of looking at the numbers.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Didn’t something like this happen before, in 1937?
Working from memory here (and I’m a train geek, not an economics man), I seem to recall that was the year some Republicans of that time made a lot of noise about cutting spending, and the result was the economy went into a relapse. Can you confirm or refute my sometimes faulty memory?
Speaking of 1937, I recommend a book entitled “I Travel by Train,” by Rollo Walter Brown. I can’t find out much about him, but apparently he was in some sort of demand as a writer and speaker in the 1930s, and this book is his recollections of things he saw and his comments about them between about 1935 and 1937. The book has some wonderful descriptions of travel from that time (and I had fun figuring out his railroads and routings from the descriptions)–and it also has some recollections of conversations between and with businessmen on these trains, some of which can only be described as chilling for the apparent coldness of heart some of these people seem to exhibit toward their fellow American citizens.
Looks like some things never change
Alon Levy Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Yes, it did, but it wasn’t the Republicans who did it. The 1936 election reduced the Republicans to 88 House seats and 16 Senate seats; they didn’t have too much power. The economic tightening came from internal administration concerns about growing deficits and about monetary policy being too easy, as well as from conservative Democrats. It was not just a spending cut: it also included a tax surcharge and, independently, monetary tightening.
Graphs available here, from Krugman’s blog.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Thanks for the link and the memory tickler, and of course the comments following are as interesting as the main dish!
D. P. Lubic Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
More thoughts going around in my head. . .
What are the odds that LaHood, Amtrak, Caltrain, and CAHSR officers are reading this weblog? Might they be getting ideas from here and other places?
Alon Levy Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Some of the CHSRA staffers read this blog and Clem’s blog. So far they don’t seem to have implemented any of Clem’s suggestions, which makes me skeptical they’re getting ideas from mere railfans like us.
Sone readers might be interested in reading that Schwarzenegger vetoed 3 bills affecting the HSR project.
AB 289:
http://dl5.activatedirect.com/fs/distribution:letterFile/yvcee9xanplikz_files/z65e22rgli5rvk/0/0?&_c=d%7Cyvcee9xanplikz%7Cz65p1zm6c0d0km&_ce=1285969032.5c797e366f60b52ea1f98e823a50dfc4
SB 965:
http://dl5.activatedirect.com/fs/distribution:letterFile/yvcee9xanplikz_files/z65do8hh1mxp86/0/0?&_c=d%7Cyvcee9xanplikz%7Cz65p1zm6c0d0km&_ce=1285969062.f6771bd1e839cd8334f05b1354dd17ec
SB 455:
http://dl5.activatedirect.com/fs/distribution:letterFile/yvcee9xanplikz_files/z65dh0fhy45nz8/0/0?&_c=d%7Cyvcee9xanplikz%7Cz65p1zm6c0d0km&_ce=1285969009.d8f0c359c3521aef7490d4f66f05bd04
Robert: This should make for a new thread. I really like his rebuke on SB-455.
TomW Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 8:09 am
Translation for SB-455: “I don’t get to approve your choices, so why should you get to approve mine?”
Tony D. Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Talk about a pathetic “reach” by Morris. You’re really grasping at straws now. Oh well.
Peter Reply:
October 7th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
“really grasping at straws now”
Now? Are you kidding, he and his compatriots have been grasping at straws for months by this point.
http://standupfortrains.org/
Spokker Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 2:13 am
The counter group is being formed as we speak, stand up to trains.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Stand Up On Trains.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Stand up for real HSR: support all the Midwestern states returning their grants so that they can be redistributed to California.
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 11:11 am
That’s not how federal spending works. Obama, Peoria’s LaHood, and Duluth’s Oberstar would never allow sending Midwestern claims to $$$ to California.
SF-SJ will never be “real” HSR.
LA-Anaheim will never be “real” HSR.
It’s far from clear that the CV will ever have “real” HSR.
Alon Levy Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Incoming House Transportation Committee chair John Mica seems to like real HSR more than fake HSR. He’ll give pork to Florida, and then balance it out with California.
Bear in mind that, for most of the US, “High speed rail” means faster Amtrak. The government-owned trains rent space on private railroads that have trains of their own. Of course punctuality is lousy. No other country does this except Canada, and their punctuality is awful too. The only exceptions in the US are CHSRA, Acela, and, I think, the proposed Tampa-Orlando line.
I’ m not sure that Paul Krugman, or even Ray LaHood, for that matter, understand this. The solution is either to keep trying to force our unwanted trains on the private railroads, or build our own railroad. CHSRA is building its own railroad; elsewhere in California we should be doing likewise. How to pay for it? Five-cents a gallon gasoline tax. Oops … Lost my opportunity to run for public office.
jimsf Reply:
October 9th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
On-Time Performance: 96%, YTD OTP of 93% keeping the service #1 in the nation.
System Operating Ratio: 47% YTD vs. 47% in FY09; expenses stabilizing with revenue growing in concert with ridership increases.
The Capitol Corridor route still continues to be third busiest route in the country, with ridership at 1.58 million for the last 12 months
____
Ridership: 82,992 passengers -1.7% vs. Aug. 2009, and +5.4% vs. prior YTD; solidifying the San Joaquin as the fifth busiest corridor in Amtrak system.
Ticket Revenue only: +10.7% vs. Aug. 2009, and +12.3% vs. prior YTD
On-time performance for July 2010: 91% (YTD FY 2010 on-time performance: 91%); right behind Capitol Corridor as 2nd most reliable service in Amtrak system.
jimsf Reply:
October 9th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
entirely on heavily used union pacific and bnsf freight track. It can work when congress stays on the ball
dejv Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 6:43 am
the perils of succeeding “on average”