I actually do consider myself a bit of an amateur (and yes, I do mean amateur and I am well aware of the connotations) economist. I'm bored tonight, so take this math and do with it what you will.
My assumptions are very limited, and as follows:
The absence of a high speed rail line from L.A. to Vegas would have absolutely no impact on the lives of 99.999% of Americans.
A decent job "created" might be something along the lines of $50,000 per year for ten years, or $500,000 in earned income to the individual.
If my assumptions are acceptable, then $8 billion in "emergency stimulus" spending (as opposed to duly debated budget priorities getting more than thirty seconds of consideration) should "create" 16,000 tax paying jobs in order to be considered a break-even for the American people. Otherwise we may as well pick 16,000 people in a lottery and hand them each half a million dollars.
If you take the definition of a decent job downward, say to $40,000 for eight years, then the necessary 'break even' point would be 25,000 "created jobs." I'm not inclined to think that any liberal apologist would move the definitions in the other direction. Can anybody within the reach of this thread suggest to me that this rail line will create 16,000-25,000 stable jobs?
The tax revenue from a rail line may or may not offset some of the cost. I have no idea how many people would ride such a line. I am aware that Amtrak is a colossal failure, subsidized with tax dollars, for whatever that's worth. If the legitimacy of the LA-Vegas line could be justified in terms of tax revenue, public value, and pollution prevention though, it could have been appropriated by the single ruling majority in the country through the budget process. This didn't happen. It went into this microwave-style bill because people needed jobs yesterday and this bill will do it. Baloney.
Liberals can blame President Bush for everything until they're blue in the face. Conservatives can blame liberal social policies for everything until they're blue in the face. This is boring. Utterly and completely boring. I, unlike most who share my views (and all who lost in '00 and '04, BTW), am perfectly resigned to the fact that my side lost a relatively close election. To the victor goes the initiative. When you're in charge, you make your case to the people and you have the upper hand in passing laws. When President Bush wanted to cut taxes for ALL Americans to fight the recession that he inherited, he made his case publicly. He did not have a filibuster-proof majority and he did not scare people into voting for a bill that they had not read. His case was made, his compromises were made, and the bill was passed. Ditto for the much-maligned Iraq war, which received widespread bipartisan support after a lengthy debate. He screwed up on a number of occasions over the course of eight years. I can point them out far more clearly that the average Democrat can, believe me. He did not, however, sneak secret pet projects into a bill late at night and tell people that they would starve unless the bill passed within five minutes.
So we come full circle. If the bill wasn't going to be signed until Tuesday afternoon, why did it have to pass before anybody could see what it contained? With three days for legislators to consider the bill, the vote could have been done in an hour. The left could have celebrated the coming utopia and conservatives could have lamented the coming apocalypse. The references to the Great Depression could have continued, as if the Carter years never happened. The president could have burned his fossil fuels all the way to Denver and had his photo op just the way he did anyway. Nothing would have changed, other than our representative government actually showing some sense of accountability to the people.
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Originally Posted by golfhobo
