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Chris Matthews on High-Speed Rail: “President Obama… Just do it!”

by Ben Hoffman

If you’re looking for good news, I have one suggestion. Stop listening to Europe, stop listening to the conservatives, do what has worked in the past.

What got us out of the Great Depression was production: massive industrial production to support the allies in World War Two.

We need production for this country now. We need to build rapid rail to catch up to those allies from World War Two. France has the TGV. China is building its rapid rail system. It’s time we joined the movement. We need to go back to the future and become a country that builds things. It’ll create jobs. It’ll catch us up to the rest of the world. It’ll cut our reliance on oil. It’ll give us hope you can believe in.

Look, Lincoln built the continental railroads even in the midst of the Civil War. Ike built the inter-state highway system in the supposedly do-nothing Fifties.

President Obama… Just do it!

Read more…

Chris Matthews has it right. There has never been a better time for the U.S. to develop a high-speed rail line. F*ck conservatives and their no-can-do attitude. This country was built on the notion of American exceptionalism. It’s time to get back to that reality as apposed to it being just a slogan.

Posted on June 29, 2010 at 10:58 PM in Economy, Education, On This Day, Opinion, Politics   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL

15 Responses to “Chris Matthews on High-Speed Rail: “President Obama… Just do it!””

    
  1. steve
    June 30, 2010 at 2:04 PM

    A high-speed rail line is going to save America?
    Yes, America was built on the notion of exceptionalism. It’s too bad the liberals hate the success of America, and won’t rest until she’s put in her place, with the other 3rd world countries. The liberal slogan of “yes we can … destroy America” is alive and well.

    Reply
  2. Alan Scott
    June 30, 2010 at 3:50 PM

    Chris Mathews is a former Carter speech writer. Economics is not his strong suit. I would love to have passenger rail service available to me. Problem is, I was born 70 years too late. In the 1940s and 50s the Federal Government deliberately killed it in favor of the automobile. Obama can spend trillions if he wants to, you can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together.

    Rail service will never be cost effective again. It sure won’t fix the economy. Chris Mathews is always looking for some big government magic bullet to save liberal policies when they fail as Obama’s are failing. We told you so !!!

    Reply
  3. Alan Scott
    June 30, 2010 at 5:36 PM

    Ben Hoffman,

    ” [Rail service will never be cost effective again.]”

    “Are you saying air service IS cost effective?”

    When I don’t know something, I freely admit it. I don’t know the cost effectiveness of air travel, other than that my boy Jim Cramer advises to never ever buy airline stock as an investment. Sometimes as a short term trade, though.

    Along with subsidizing highways, building airports was another way the Feds killed the rails. So lets say Obama does what Mathews says, and by a miracle it works. People like me take the train, I personally want an auto train for vacations. Any economic gains by the rails will be offset by losses at the airlines, and by all of the industries tied to road travel.

    Again, high speed rail is not the cure all for a bad economy, anymore than Green Energy is. But you and Obama will just have to find out the hard way. And when it doesn’t work, like everything else Obama has done, blame it on Bush, blame it all on Congressional Republicans.

    Tick tock, tick tock, time is running out on Obama’s clock. Reagan, Clinton, and Bush the second had economies turn in time to get reelected. Carter and Bush the first were not as fortunate.

    Reply
    • Ben Hoffman
      June 30, 2010 at 7:18 PM

      [Again, high speed rail is not the cure all for a bad economy, anymore than Green Energy is.]

      Nobody said it is. Why can’t you try to be honest in your arguments?

      Reply
    • Vermonter 17032
      July 2, 2010 at 5:54 AM

      You might appreciate high speed rail when the price of gasoline climbs to $4 or more a gallon. We can’t live on cheap (yes, it is still relatively cheap) oil for a whole lot longer, ten years at most. Then we’ll be glad to have high speed rail, and if we don’t start now, it won’t be available when we need it. Your arguments are the same short-term, small thinking that typify conservative points of view. Which is funny, since one of the other conservative commenters on this page says that it is liberals who “hate the success” of America, when it is conservatives who seem to continually say “we can’t do that.”

      Reply
  4. Doreen Van Assen
    July 1, 2010 at 12:04 AM

    This is a little off subject but has anyone noticed all the new highways with no traffic on them in the middle of nowhere. Also lots of them are tolls every 6 miles cost a passenger car 1.50. Who gets that money?

    Reply
  5. Alan Scott
    July 1, 2010 at 3:49 PM

    Mr. Hoffman,

    ” [Again, high speed rail is not the cure all for a bad economy, anymore than Green Energy is.]”

    “Nobody said it is. Why can’t you try to be honest in your arguments?”

    When I read this, I kinda thought,,,,never mind.

    ” We need to go back to the future and become a country that builds things. It’ll create jobs. It’ll catch us up to the rest of the world. It’ll cut our reliance on oil. It’ll give us hope you can believe in. ”

    So it is a partial solution? It will help ? Is that your argument ? My point is that we are already so far in debt with out much to show for it. My worry is that we will borrow billions more, build something that may or may not work. Once the money has been spent to build it, what if it does not generate a return on it’s massive investment?

    I doubt that Politicians of either Party are smart enough economists to make economic decisions. Private markets do a better job. Return the money to the private sector. The losers will fail, the winners will build businesses that generate ” PROFITS “. Profits are the best measure of success. Profits can then be taxed at a low rate. Profitable businesses hire people. Profitable businesses generate returns to investors like,,,ME!!

    My 401K has really sucked since you guys took over Congress. Since your hero has done nothing to save Social Security, in fact he has added more Entitlements that “we” will never be able to pay for, I am going to need a much better return on my paltry investments than I get now.

    Either that or eat cat food when I retire.

    Reply
    • Ben Hoffman
      July 1, 2010 at 4:31 PM

      [My point is that we are already so far in debt with out much to show for it.]

      Yep, when you invest in war, there’s nothing to show for it except for death and destruction.

      It’s time we invested in OUR country. While high-speed rail might not be profitable, our country will be better off for it, just like we’re better off having national parks, the space program, libraries, schools, and a host of other entities that aren’t “profitable.”

      Reply
  6. Alan Scott
    July 1, 2010 at 5:25 PM

    Mr. Hoffman,

    ” Yep, when you invest in war, there’s nothing to show for it except for death and destruction. ”

    Wrong again. We got more safety. One of the reasons Obama can get away with being an appeaser is that Bush pushed back “Hard” against Islamic terrorism. We did not “create” more terrorists in Iraq. We killed them. Just like Reagan and Bush the first, made the World safe for Clinton to blow up, I forget, aspirin factories.

    The world respects strength, that’s it. It also respects the will to use that strength. Which was why bad guys of all types were afraid of Reagan and both Bushs. Which was why nobody was afraid of Jimmy Carter.

    When you generate that kind of respect, you have less need to use it. Lessons of “history”. You really ought to study it.

    Reply
    • Ben Hoffman
      July 1, 2010 at 10:24 PM

      [The world respects strength, that’s it.]

      That’s true, but Bush made us look weak and incompetent. We were the laughing stock of the world with dumb-f*cks running our country. And we spent over a trillion dollars on the two wars so far. For that much money, we could have built high-speed rail systems crisscrossing our country. We could have sent millions of people to college. We could have built schools, libraries, and museums. We could have improved our roads and bridges, we could have invested that money in renewable energy development. We could have made our country better.

      Instead, all we got was massive debt and two wars with no possible good outcome. But people like you get to say we got respect. And after all… that’s what really matters.

      Reply
  7. Alan Scott
    July 2, 2010 at 5:39 AM

    Mr. Hoffman,

    ” For that much money, we could have built high-speed rail systems crisscrossing our country. ”

    That does you no good when you do not have a country. You forget how things were right after 911. How we didn’t know when the next terrorist attack would come. If we had not not pushed back really hard, if instead we would have built your toy railroads, we would have appeared weak.

    The attacks would have kept coming. Evil understands force. If your freaking hero would have been President on 911, he would have handled it like he’s handling the BP spill.

    Reply
    • Ben Hoffman
      July 2, 2010 at 7:10 AM

      [The attacks would have kept coming.]

      The 9/11 attack wouldn’t have occurred in the first place if the Bush administration had been on the ball. There were plenty of warnings, but Bush chose instead to take a month long vacation.

      Reply
  8. Indyfromaz
    July 2, 2010 at 5:58 AM

    WASHINGTON, July 1 (UPI) — The U.S. national debt will be nearly two-thirds of the country’s gross domestic product by the end of the current fiscal year.

    The Congressional Budget Office issued a report Wednesday that the debt will reach 62 percent of the GDP. The CBO said the debt should stabilize at about 67 percent of the GDP over the next 10 years but also said the debt would reach 90 percent of the GDP by 2020 if appropriations grow in line with expected inflation and current tax policies are kept in place.

    The CBO said that over the last 40 years the average figure of debt to GDP was about 36 percent.

    The CBO report comes two days before the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issues its report for June unemployment. The consensus of economists is that the unemployment rate with tick up to 9.8 percent and the economy will indicate an overall job loss.

    CBO Director Doug Elmendorf, in his blog, wrote, that the U.S. government’s budget deficits are the largest, as a percentage of the overall economy, since the end of World War II, and that has caused the federal debt to surge.

    Elmendorf warned that “CBO’s projections understate the severity of the long-term budget problem” because they don’t consider “significant negative effects” the debt has on the economy.

    Reply

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