CCC, I have been looking at the rail system in South Florida, and even though it gets lots of use, it is still financially in the red.
Even if you could fund these projects, where are you going to find the money to subsidize them after they are completed? How will you ensure they make money or break even?
Nowhere did I say that tax rates are the “single cause” in economic performance, and it’s remarkable you can even imagine such a thing.
There are indeed many factors. But the idea that lower tax rates equate with prosperity is pretty much in the dustbin of history now – both Reagan and Bush2 tried it and both coincided economic messes/crisis by the end of the experiment.
Whereas in both the post WW2 period and the Clinton admin, we had higher taxes coinciding with prosperity and growth, which shows the idea that higher taxes on the rich now would hurt the economy is false. It’s also a strong indication that it would be another helpful factor in current economic recovery as well as a way to support renewing America’s infrastructure (including high speed rail).
How do you explain the fact that we were in a recession during the late Clinton years, even though the tax code hadn’t changed? How do you explain the fact that George W. Bush inherited a recession when he took office in 2001?
White: So, the rail system in Florida is very popular but financially in the red. The airline system needs to be bailed out every so often so it is in the red. Some major US car companies need bailouts, special tax breaks and other subsidies to survive or else they would be in the read. The highway system is paid for by taxes, otherwise it would not exist or it would be semi-public and semi-private and therefore “in the red”. The US military is completely “in the red” by this definition. Most farmers (agricultural companies) get subsidies or else they would be in the red. Do you think all these things should not exist, therefore? Or do you think they all should “make money or break even”? I think they are all basic necessities of industrialized nations, and other nations manage to pay for them, so the USA can too.
Again CCC you COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINTS…Yes the Florida system is in the red…but it’s POPULAR…so how does it get in the black…Are you suggesting that the rail system should be 100% funded by the government???
Those of us against putting 500 billion dollars into a railroad system are also against these bailouts…Just because it was done in the past doesn’t mean it SHOULD be done.
Most farmers (agricultural companies) get subsidies or else they would be in the red.
Who told you that???
The highway system is paid for by taxes, otherwise it would not exist or it would be semi-public and semi-private and therefore “in the red”.
You’re honestly trying to compare a public railroad system to a highway system…What have you been drinking??? The cost difference is almost 1000 fold. They are NOT apples to apples comparison.
You’ve got problems…seek professional help.
Left wing brainwashing can turn a person into a “don’t confuse me with facts; my mind is made up” personality. Everyone on the left endorses Solar and Wind energy, although these forms of energy are highly subsidized; ask any Spaniard or Dane or German.
If the US closed all coal-fired plants and relied on renewables, your electric bills would at least quadruple! Yet that is what Al Gore would have us do.
Just read about an international study group trying to find a cure for traffic congestion. The answer is not necesaarily more public trnasportation, but turning all major arteries into toll roads with time of day pricing ranging from 0 to a hefty fee during the peakhours. This drives people who can take public transit out of their cars. This has proved very succesful in Singapore, London, England, Melbourne, Australia and other cities.
On my last visit to London I found downtown remarkable free of congestion. Public transportion (bus, train, street car) should be installed if the DEMAND is there. Singapore, London and Melbours, as well as Toronto, Canada have all forms train, bus, expressways, etc).
There are a large number of citizens who can’t drive, (kids, elderly handicapped and poor) and we owe them a decent form of public transportation.
CCC, you must think the tax coffers are bottomless pits. They aren’t. You sure are loose with other people’s money.
"The airline system needs to be bailed out every so often so it is in the red."
Incorrect, the US has not bailed out airlines to any significant degree. NO COMPARISON
"Some major US car companies need bailouts, special tax breaks and other subsidies to survive or else they would be in the red."
You equate a once in a generation bailout of two companies, since repaid, saving tens of thousands of jobs, to the year-in, year-out major subsidy of an underused mass transit system? The California system will likely require 100% subsidies: It’s forecast (likely optimistically) to take in $33 billion, with a total cost estimate (again optimistic) of over $55 billion. Make that $30 B income and $60 expense (I bet it’s worse) and there’s your 100% subsidy. NO COMPARISON
“The highway system is paid for by taxes, otherwise it would not exist or it would be semi-public and semi-private and therefore “in the red”.” Uh, the highway system is paid for by direct use (fuel) taxes, and is therefore self-supporting. The only problem is the under-taxation of gas and diesel, resulting in the inadequate maintenance of this critical infrastructure. NO COMPARISON
"The US military is completely “in the red” by this definition."
Silly. NO COMPARISON
“Most farmers (agricultural companies) get subsidies or else they would be in the red.” Any facts to support this??
"Do you think all these things should not exist, therefore? Or do you think they all should “make money or break even”? I think they are all basic necessities of industrialized nations"
The creation of a new, underutilized, underfunded rail network is not a national priority, not a “basic necessity”, nothing like the necessary actions of government. NO COMPARISON
"…and other nations manage to pay for them, so the USA can too."
FALSE: these countries are nearing, or past bankruptcy: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. Great Britain has riots over the spending reductions they’re being forced to make. Your ideal contries of the EU CAN’T manage to pay for them after all!
I would like to add to texases’ wonderful post that the auto company bailouts were loans, not gifts. The loans have since been repaid, some of them early, with private money, not taxpayer funds. This shows that although these companies might have been in the red, it wasn’t a permanent condition. Being in the red is a short term problem that must be quickly resolved or the companies will go out of business.
Here is a thought: I wonder how much the information super highway (growth of the internet) well lessen the need for many people to commute to work as they can work from home. Many classes are taught online. Students don’t have to commute to campus and faculty teach the online courses from home. It seems to me that an extension might be to job where one works with files and databases of information which could be done from home as easily as a company office. Rather than getting cancer from our automobiles, we can get cancer from the electromagnetic radiation from our computers.
Being the old geezer that I am, I really enjoy working with students in a classroom setting and have refused to teach online courses. However, I’ve been told that this is the wave of the future. Maybe cars and trains will both be obsolete.
This thread is attracting angry trolls again so I will just answer Texases’ mistakes and move on.
The point is that many things are tax-supported – the highway system, the airlines and airports, farmers, etc. Scrolling up on this thread will provide plenty of examples and proof. Think of all the tax money that goes to police the freeways, for example. Think about the $20 Billion in “farm income stabilization” paid out to farmers every year. So either you are against tax money going to these things, either you think that they should “make money or break even”, or you realize that government money often makes up the difference in important sectors of the US.
You make a list of European countries with economic troubles. Of your list, two have always been relatively poor (Ireland and Portugal), two have always been economically inept basket cases (Greece and Italy) and that leaves Spain, traditionally has demonstrations all the time. You didn’t mention France or Germany which are doing quite well supporting their excellent public transit systems.
I will say it one more time – the USA is an extremely rich country, but the distribution of wealth has gone haywire in the last 30 years creating the worst imbalance in the industrialized world, and all it would take to solve the revenue problems to balance the budget and fund the necessary programs would be a small increase in the tax rate for those who are so rich they wouldn’t even notice it, a top rate tax increase which would be within the traditions of this country, and that historically has coincided with economic prosperity. This is a basic truth but modern taboo that doesn’t get mentioned often in the media (that happens to be owned by the very rich) besides via the articles by Nobel Prize economists Paul Krugman. Solutions to the USA’s economic woes (and bringing the USA into the modern world of high speed rail) is within reach.
First, regarding farm subsidies - I’m not a fan, but they’re really not significant. Last data I could find was from 2008: $10.3B in subsidies, total farm output $335B, or a 3% subsidy. Nothing like the 100% the California rail system REQUIRES.
Second, you are simply incorrect regarding “all it would take to solve the revenue problems to balance the budget and fund the necessary programs would be a small increase in the tax rate for those who are so rich they wouldn’t even notice it”. The deficit for 2010 was about $1,300B. From the IRS web site, those making $200k or more (although I don’t consider $200k somebody who is “so rich they wouldn’t even notice it”) earn a TOTAL taxable income of $2,053B, and pay taxes of $537B, which is over 50% of all taxes paid, by 5% of the total number of taxpayers. To do what you say would require them to turn over $1,300B + $537B/$2,053B = 89 PERCENT OF ALL THEY EARN! And this is before ONE PENNY gets spent on your high speed rail system. Somehow, I think they WILL notice nearly 90% of their income being confiscated, don’t you?
You have a good intention, just no factual knowledge of the current state of the world.
“If the federal government can’t balance a budget without taxing anyone more than 15%, it has a spending problem. Similarly, if any American can’t afford to pay the above tax rates to the feds, that American has a spending problem.”
Another way to look at it is that US citizens have an expectation problem. The government does not operate in a vacuum. They are funded to do specific things by Congress and the President. Congress insists on demanding more and more services, but they will not fund them. Why? Because the citizenry will not cough up the money to pay for the services they demand. It’s not waste. It’s a lack of understanding by the general population that they have to pay for what they want. The government departments try to cut spending, and Congress puts it right back in. If you have been paying attention to DoD and NASA for the last couple of years, you have seen clear examples of this.
"Recent News Headline: EPA issues warning on Dihydrogen Oxide "
First The Onion, and now this. You have a wealth of fun, faux news! Keep up the great “investigative reporting”.
“Sorry…but that wasn’t the government…that was private business… I.E. BANKS…”
Half right, half wrong. Members of Congress,(both parties) worked hard to see that lower income people were able to share in the bonanza. They allowed things like no-principal loans to become commonplace. They made the rules that allowed mortgage bankers to offer, package, and the sell high risk loans that damaged the market.
Yep, there is plenty of blame to spread around. In order for the housing crisis to happen, the Congress and the President had to deregulate the banks and lower the reserve rate (the amount of cash banks have to possess in order to loan out money - it’s a percentage). While the USA and many European countries were deregulating and lowering the reserve rate, Canada kept their regulations in place, and that is why the Canadian economy was not as severely affected by the global recession as the rest of the world.
Once the banks were deregulated, they could have chosen to act responsibly, but we all know how that turned out.
People are getting angry at you because you’re NOT answering any questions…just keep spouting the same song over and over again.
Address the following questions, that were asked in this forum by me and several other members…
#1) Do you believe that the rail-system should be 100% funded by US tax payers no matter what the cost?? Even if it’s ONE TRILLION DOLLARS??
#2) Do you believe that a rail system SHOULD be implemented even if it is shown that people DON’T WANT IT??
#3) This one I loved…Should we first try a much lower cost system with buses that run on LP or NG to see if people actually want it??
#4) If there’s a way to produce hydrogen cheaply from water to run fuel-cell cars then would that be an alternative instead of the BILLIONS you want to build a RR system.
When you can answer the above questions with explanations then maybe people won’t be so angry. But I doubt you will. You haven’t yet…so why start now.
Obama spoke about our “sputnik moment” last night in the SOTU address:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-26/roads-bridges-high-speed-rail-top-obama-transportation-agenda.html
?Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail. This could allow you go places in half the time it takes to travel by car,? Obama said in the speech. ?For some trips, it will be faster than flying - without the pat-down. As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already under way.?
What an massive gift to future generations this will be.
Perhaps much of the corporate military infrastructure could be converted to peacetime uses like high speed rail, cutting off that wasteful part of military spending. Not referring to soldiers’ benefits but to the production of weapons and large craft that can’t be used in any productive way – these could be converted into the production of useful things that help our day to day lives. This conversion could be done without eliminating jobs, since the design and creation of weapons and craft are essentially engineering and industrial tasks; the same engineers and facilities could be used to design and manufacture high speed rail (and other things). Go from exporting fighter jets to exporting trains (France does this) and the many other things besides trains we could focus on. Solar technology. Clean energy. Mobile wifi sources. More efficient machines of all sorts. (Insert your dream engineering task here).
This is easy PR, but no mention of costs or benefits, or alteratives.
And this is outright nonsense: “faster than flying - without the pat-downs”. Rail services world-wide have been prime targets for terrorists. Why would ours be any different?
I believe the president was referring to the fact that a train cannot be knocked out of the sky like a plane can, and that’s why we pat down plane passengers but not train passengers, even in Europe where the incidents at train stations happened. Incidents at train stations are the same as any other place where large numbers congregate like shopping malls and parades, where modern societies enforce security in other ways than trying to pat down every single individual.