Fiscal policy: Flying blind | The Economist

This is why politics is scary:

"...as new data have revealed the true dimensions of the 2008 collapse, the public's perception of events hasn't much changed. Critics still jeer the stimulus for its failure to deliver promised results, despite the now-obvious inadequacy of the package."

“Life is like a box of chocolates.”

In a blog post on October 6th, I said that the Republican candidates for Governor in Ohio and Wisconsin were only using the issue of high-speed rail for political posturing and really had no intent to turn away free federal money that would create construction jobs in their states.

I guess I was wrong because The New York Times now reports that California, Florida, and a handful of other states will be receiving the funding that Ohio and Wisconsin are turning away. (Update: The Wall Street Journal also reported this story on December 10th.) For those states, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

As far as the newly-elected Governors of Ohio and Wisconsin are concerned, another Forrest Gump quote comes to mind:
“Stupid is as stupid does.”

Plains, Trains & Automobiles? Ditch the cars and planes for the TRAINS!!

People that know me well have known that I am very much a railfan. As a kid growing up in Queens, I memorized the entire New York City Subway Map when I was only five years old. I would make each stop on a subway line with my toy train without ever looking at the subway map. In fact, my parents would often just send my sister and me to take out-of-town guests sightseeing, often to the astonishment of our guests that two schoolchildren would be showing them around New York City.

On one occasion when I was six years old, I even navigated five of us that went sightseeing back home when our usual train line was suspended due to a derailment. This interest even continued in high school, when some of my friends would make me sit on the train with my back to the map and quiz me on stops, transfer points, and the service hours of specific subway lines, betting that I would get one wrong (I never did; a friend once tried making up station stops with fake street names just to stump me.)

That's why trains mean a lot to me and I am happy to see rail service in this country get the political recognition that it deserves. In January, Vice President Joe Biden penned a nice column in Huffington Post about why America Needs Trains. As a daily train commuter, he spelled out quite nicely how trains are not only greener but can be more reliable and secure than airline travel.

Today's New York Times has another opinion piece about a strategy that the writer believes should have been implemented when high speed rail funding was included in the stimulus. I don't entirely agree with his disapproval of the two projects that were part of the stimulus. After all, very few people outside of the northeastern United States have commuter rail service in their locality or have even ridden on a train for that matter and the exposure of new rail construction and the initial fanfare would be a good introduction for them. However, the writer does make some good points about why the Acela service in Amtrak's Northeast Corridor would be a logical choice for an upgrade to true high speed service.

Read it and feel free to tell me what you think. ENJOY!!!

Stimulus done; next stop: Housing

Now that the stimulus is done, the President will be announcing his housing plan at 12:15pm today. In a well choreographed moment, 29 minutes after the bill was signed, the first infrastructure project paid for with stimulus money began: the construction of a bridge in Missouri. A lot of folks are saying this is a classic Rahm Emanuel move.

House Passes Stimulus

The House passed the Stimulus bill by a vote of 246-183 with one member voting present. The bill will be voted on in the Senate sometime today. The vote will most likely occur around 5:00pm, which the monotonous C-SPAN voice said is "to accommodate religious beliefs of some members." In other words, so Joe Lieberman can vote for the bill.

I'm curious to know who voted "Present". House.gov does not have any information yet.

On to the Senate...

House and Senate to Vote today; Stimulus bill now $787 Billion

Looks like the House will hold a vote around 1:00pm today and the Senate sometime later in the day on the stimulus bill. Looks like President Obama could get his wish of having the bill on his desk prior to President's Day. Stay tuned...