Obama Rail: Another Historic Boondoggle Rolls Down the Tracks

Even thinking liberals are jumping off Obama Rail. Writes Richard White in The New York Times:

"It is hard for liberals like me to find good news in the latest agreement to cut the federal budget, but there is at least one silver lining: subsidies for high-speed rail have been sharply reduced. Why is this good news? In his State of the Union address, President Obama compared high-speed rail to the 19th-century transcontinental railroads as parallel examples of American innovation. I fear he may be right.

"For the country as a whole, the Pacific Railway Act of 1864 and subsequent legislation subsidizing the transcontinental railroads -- the lines that crossed the continent from the 98th meridian to the Pacific Coast -- were the worst laws?money could buy. By encouraging dumb growth, those laws sacrificed public good for private gain, and Americans came to regret it."

Fast-forwarding to the age of Obama, White -- a history professor at Stanford University and author of the forthcoming book, "Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern?America" -- sees the same public-private boondoggle coming down the tracks on high-speed passenger trains.

"Without bond guarantees, private investors, which so far seem more prone to due diligence than the California High-Speed Rail Authority, have yet to put upmoney. The most astonishing thing is that even as financial problems force California to dismantle its social safety net, eviscerate its educational system, and watch its roads crumble, it has agreed on a plan for high-speed rail that demands substantial local subsidies and certainly will involve further concessions by the state to attract private investment."

For states foolish enough to accept Washington D.C.'s "free" rail money as a bootstrap for taxpayer bonds, White recalls one savvy congressman's quip from a century ago: "If there be profit, the corporations may take it; if there be loss, the government must bear it."