Bobby Jindal thinks volcano monitoring and railroad travel are for sissies. We know that because he chuckled at them while delivering the worst speech in the entire history of American politics. But the man does put his money where his mouth is — or rather, starves his state of needed investment because of where his mouth went. Specifically, he has allowed the deadline to pass for applying for $300 million in federal funds for a high speed rail link between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. You might say: “But it’s $300 million and Americans need jobs and that rail project would be really useful to a lot of people and…”
No, no. Don’t embarrass yourself by begging. Bobby Jindal doesn’t need your stinkin’ socialist charity. Even when a fellow state Republican publicly asked him to stop the madness and pointed out that it would be a huge win for the state, he answers with weird partisan boilerplate nonsense about how states can’t print dollars. Because Jindal is worried about operating costs. You might object that those are very very minor compared to the value of the project and then, even so, communities along the line have offered to bear some of them. But Bobby Jindal will not be swayed. Even if his position makes no sense. So maybe he’s really thinking about his own personal political fortunes and doesn’t want to be accused of flip-flopping on the silliness of choo-choo trains when he debates Sarah Palin in 2012.
Run, Bobby. Run. (Even if you are eerily reminiscent of Kenneth the Page.)
PS: We like the Gulliver blog over at the Economist, but they really mucked up today when writing about this. They say that the New Orleans-Baton Rouge high speed rail link must not be very worthwhile to build because it doesn’t even figure in the top 50 city pairs of America 2050’s recent study (we wrote about it here). But all the city pairs America 2050 looked at are least 100 miles apart. Baton Rouge and New Orleans are less than that.
Without getting lost in the weeds on this, we think it can stand on common sense that building a decent 80 mile rail link between a state’s economic center and largest city and its capital is not such a crazy idea.
October 5th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Wow, hate Indians much guys?
Maybe he realizes that you can’t build an 80-mile high speed rail line for $300 million and therefore the state would be left holding the bag for the rest. But then, what does he know, he’s only a Rhodes Scholar after all. With your degree from Apex Tech and white skin I’m sure you must have at least 150 i.q. points on this guy.
October 5th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
AWESOME! Thanks for picking up on this. The added wrinkle, of course, is that the Jindal administration actually filed a preliminary application for the rail line, but pulled it once it came to light (via John Stewart and others) that he was going against his Kenneth the Page Boy critique of the stimulus package. Jindal is once again putting his own (fading) political ambitions over the needs of the people of Louisiana.
October 5th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Yeah, Eric, David Vitter also was a Rhodes Scholar, and look what that got him. It has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with the fact that you can absolutely build high speed rail for $300M on an existing 80 mile corridor. As if Bobby Jindal is actually making these decisions himself, anyway–what does his IQ have to do with any of it? His objections were not over the capital investment, anyway, but over operating costs.
Also, if you really put that much stock in IQ tests, you should read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man
October 5th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
It is possible to have differing opinions about the usefulness or wisdom of a HSR project, but you guys act like being concerned with the cost of this project is crazy. Really? In a time of soaring deficits and debt up to our necks, it is totally wrong to ask if we can afford something?
October 5th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Also, any government project regularly overstates the benefits and understates the costs by a significant amount. I challenge you to find a government project that come in under budget and beat expectations in terms of benefit, and for every one you can find, I can show you ten that failed on both accounts.
This is not to say that we shouldnt undertake such projects, but dont get mad if someone questions the economics of the deal, its just being sober and realistic if you ask me.
October 5th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Eric F,
You win the award for oddest comment ever posted on this site. There have been some doozies. But you win.
JR
October 5th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
I don’t get it? The money is available right. So take it. The corridor exists, so use it. It creates jobs, people earn money, they use the money, the economy gets stimulated. Louisiana now has a working example of what an HSR project can accomplish. Bobby Jindal is now a hero and not a douche.
If he is worried about the economics here’s a couple of things I thought of….
Use the following:
http://www.railone.com/en/track-to-the-future/products/railways-and-commuter-traffic/ballastless-track-systems/rheda-2000/rheda-2000-high-speed-to-pe.html
What that does, as the system shows, is give you a system life cycle of 25 years, maintenance costs are reduced, You have 25 years to run the system and prove it’s viability
What the state can do then is make like Korea/China and tech share with the various companies, in so doing the companies involved then build their factories/manufacturing facilities in the state (by the looks of that, more jobs are created)
Not only that, around the stations you have T.O.D….More jobs created….More money being made and spent more stimulation.
Once again you can use some common sense to create opportunities for the people that elected you. STOP SAYING NO TO EVERYTHING. I don’t understand the NO WE CANT attitude…
October 5th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
colin, the private sector makes misguided assessments of the costs and benefits of projects all the time as well. This is not unique to the government.
Considering that the government (just the federal level) runs THOUSANDS of programs and projects, I am sure plenty have come under budget.
As for the debt question? Why even have a government if their is massive debt? Clearly we shouldn’t pay the military then and should shut down the FAA, TSA, and many other important government agencies.
The federal government has never had to break even to continue operating so your concerns are mute.
October 5th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I don’t understand why Jindal hates trains so much- India is one of the most rail dependent nations on Earth.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:21 am
As a resident of Louisiana, I can ensure Jindal has his eyes on one thing: the presidency. Not that he is remotely qualified or would even come close. But there are enough fools out there to fund his fantasy. He vetoed this project because Keith Obermann slammed Jindal on Countdown for Jindal’s incredible hyprocrisy. So as usual, the state of Louisiana is suffering because of Jindal’s misguided ambitions. From health care to education, Jindal is slowly destroying what little Louisiana had. That will be his legacy. Well, that and his Bobby the Page speech.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Sean, my concerns are not moot. Just because governments have not lived within their budgets in the past does not mean it is unnecessary. Just look at California’s impending economic implosion if you want further proof. Noting you said negates the need for fiscal sanity, the fact that the private sector sometimes also has cost overruns in no way excuses the government when it does it.
As for the debt question, we should have government, just one that lives within its fiscal means, like many states already do. You dont need massive debt to run an effective govt., in fact, massive debt is a sign that your govt is dysfunctional. This debt isnt just going to go away, someone eventually will have to pay for all of this.
Further, even if you accept that the *federal* government doesnt have to break even (and I most certainly do not) the *states* cant just print money to pay cost overruns, which is exactly Jindal’s point, that the fed can just inflate our currency to “pay” for all of this where the states do not have that option.
October 6th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Colin:
California’s “impending economic implosion” - though I’d really call it a ‘budget crisis,’ which, while very, very serious, does not imply that the entire state’s economy is going to collapse, because it’s not - is due as much to lack of funding as it is to spending. More so, maybe. California’s voters, quite stupidly, made it very, very easy to raise spending, and very, very, very difficult to raise taxes. This should come as no surprise to anyone, seeing as Americans consistently say they want more government services and lower taxes. Of course, this is why railing against government ‘waste’ is so popular, but while cutting waste can be effective, at some point you have to choose. California opted not to choose, indeed, in many cases it could not choose, leading to the current mess.
As for rail projects, and many other current initiatives, I would argue that a) we are still in an economic crisis that government spending can help abate and, perhaps more importantly, b) our government has been neglecting its responsibility to provide certain things to the public - good infrastructure chief among them - for some time now. We have to make these investments now, in rail, in health care, etc., or the problems will just fester. The government will need to pay off the debt over time. This means, in all likelihood, that most Americans will see a tax increase at some point. You know what? I’m OK with that, if it means that our transportation and health care systems start working properly.
We do need to be mindful of the money we are spending, and in the long run fiscal discipline is important. I would be happier, frankly, if the government came up with concrete ways to pay off all this debt in the long-term. But that’s not the world we live in right now, and there are some thing we just need to do.
October 6th, 2009 at 11:06 am
There is nothing stupid about Californians desire not to be taxed into non-existence. The only stupid part was expecting that the government of California would exercise restrain in the face of limited resources. Unfortunately, the government of California believes exactly what Sean believes, that spending money you dont have is good and consequence free. It is not.
This is all beside the point. There is plenty of room to argue the utility and benefit of a HSR project like this and your a and b points are also quite arguable. However, considering the economic consequences of this project and concluding that we cant afford it is also quite arguable, and that is where infrastucturist misses the point, rather then argue why it is an economically beneficial project, like they normally do, they choose to paint Jindal as a fool. If he is a fool, prove it, dont just declare it and smugly say, “his position makes no sense”, you guys are better than that.
October 6th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
He’s more a selective hypocrite as are MOST GOP members and the followers they misinform.
Louisiana was due $ 3.8 Billion in Stimulus money over all, he accepted $ 2.4 billion. Included in that was of course $ 430 million Highway stimulus money of which $ 320 million had already been allocated way back in March, so why not take the $ 300 million for rail?
October 6th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Because the rail would also require upkeep, which, in Jindal’s opinion would end up costing more than it would bring in.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Colin:
Perhaps I was unclear - to not want to be taxed into non-existence is certainly not stupid (damn, lots of negatives there). What IS stupid is to expect the government to provide the kinds of services that California’s government provides without paying for them. I know this is all quite tangential, but it’s just kind of a pet peeve of mine. It is reasonable, at least on a logical level, to expect government to provide many services AND to expect to pay higher taxes. It also reasonable, logically, to expect lower taxes AND to expect government to do less. It is NOT reasonable, as California’s voters have done though numerous propositions (and its legislature has sanctioned), to pass all kinds of laws mandating that the government do X, Y, and Z while at the same time making it well-nigh impossible to enact meaningful tax increases. You can mandate that the government do lots of things. You can make it impossible to raise taxes. You cannot do both. As I said, at some point you have to choose. Personally, I’m comfortable paying slightly higher taxes for better services than what we have now. I do, however, realize that this is probably a minority position - but it’s at least logically consistent.
Of course, your position - which I’d assume is lower taxes and fewer services - is logically consistent as well. I do believe in fiscal discipline. I just have a different conception of it, and of what our government ought to do.
Anyway, I know this is pretty far off-topic, so…..yeah, a better discussion of Jindal’s reasoning was probably warranted. I do agree with the post that the whole thing smacks of political posturing, but still, a quick run through the numbers would have strengthened the argument.
October 6th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
It’s hard to believe Republicans actually looked to this guy as some sort of electoral savior. Not so much anymore after that dreadful speech. It was truly horrible and should be seen by future politicians as to how not to do a speech.
October 6th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
[...] as we all know, some applicants are more equal than others. And on that subject we went back and forth yesterday with the Economist’s Gulliver blog. The matter at hand was the merit [...]
October 7th, 2009 at 12:52 am
The U.S. spends 2% of the federal budget on transportation. That’s why we have bridges falling into the Mississippi.
Contrary to GOP propaganda, long term interest rates are plunging, suggesting that there is considerable borrowing power out there. Not surprising, as the personal savings rate is skyrocketing right now.
What would Huey Long do? He not only would build it, but he would install something like the Javelin train. 140 mph true high speed rail.
We could fund HSR simply by NOT passing the estate tax cut as proposed by the GOP leadership. That’s $20 billion per year. Easily enough to fund an aggressive building program.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Jim, why did you choose the estate tax cut as something that should be jettisoned - are you in favor of taxes that pick the pockets of the dead with no other rationale than because they can? There shouldn’t be an estate tax at all.
Close down a few Murtha airports and pull the plug on ’stimulus’ spending that isn’t working. Most of it hasn’t been spent yet and shouldn’t be, so there’s $500B or so just for a start. The Cash for Clunkers was $3B down the tubes along with increased costs for spare parts and vehicles for low income earners.
I don’t know anybody right or left that supports estate taxes. Government collected tax all along the way to that wealth creation so there’s no justification for one more kick at the can. A friend of mine is an uber-liberal who was on the verge of a political awakening after his father died and the gov’t swooped in to scoop up a big chunk of the estate. For what?
Way off topic, but still. I don’t even have an estate to protect from tax, but it’s an egregious overreach by gov’t.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
I dunno Joe, I guess I’m pretty callous when it comes to the issue of tax justice for Paris Hilton.
The existing deduction is $7 million before even a dollar in tax is paid, so it seemed to me leaving it as is to collect the $20 billion per year for a robust HSR building program. would be pretty easy. There are any number of ways of collecting that kind of money if the imposing the estate tax on Paris and her friends offends our conscience as a moral society. We could impose a severance tax on oil and gas pumped offshore and on federal land, for example.
My point is, its just not very much money. The cost of our wars til Veteran’s day.
It just seems like horse sense to me that as much as possible we should try and front load the spending for HSR (and other worthy large infrastructure projects) for recessionary times, and try and throttle back during more economically robust times, although of course, getting the timing exactly right for such large projects is not practical. We should make the effort, that’s all.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
P.S. That’s an absolutely great editorial by Mr. Reed. It should be an op-ed in the NYT.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Ha, it appears that Jindal has taken a page out of Banana Republic’s playbook on infrastructure development: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone (BANANA). Disgraceful. New Orleans will look like Mumbai in no time.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I don’t agree with the ’soak the rich’ thinking. Paris Hilton isn’t even worth that much money, less than $10M anyway. People who establish and expand small-medium businesses are worth that much and even more, should they be pickpocketed as well?
Moronic celebrities aside, people that create jobs and expand the economy deserve the money they make, most of which is put back into the business, used to hire more people etc. How many here are employed by poor people?
Punishing success is not the way to go, especially when there is so much waste in government spending now. Over $200M for an airport with 3 flights a day and a handful of passengers, in John Murtha’s riding, for instance. The Big Dig, $15B and counting. Regardless of who’s in power, government wastes taxpayer money by the billions. Most of that came from the same taxpayers you want to hit up again when they die, it’s just wrong.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Well Joe, I don’t have a particular dog in the fight of tax policy. Well, actually I do, but I’ll keep that to myself as this is an infrastructure web site. But here are our choices:
1. “soak the rich” to pay for infrastructure.
2. “soak everyone else” to pay for infrastructure.
3. Do nothing.
Since this is an infrastructure web site, I’ll assume that you are not in the “do nothing” camp. That means you are in the “soak everyone else” camp. Fair enough. Abolish the earned income tax credit and the estate tax if that is your idea of social justice and build the railroad.
October 9th, 2009 at 2:52 am
Jim - if we’re gonna talk Huey Long, you should probably know that both Jindal and Long are alike in having made decisions that are stupid for the state but great to talk about in speeches. Both men were far more concerned about preparing for a higher level of power than about doing the right thing for Louisiana.
Anyway - several parishes along the proposed line agreed to help fund the operating costs and allay Jindal’s stated concern. Of course, that had no effect on his misguided resolve to kill this rail line.
At any rate, it’s been completely mis-represented. In New Orleans, articles either refer to it as high-speed rail or light rail. It is neither - “passenger rail” is really all you can describe it as. It’s being designed for a top speed of 80mph, with a station at the New Orleans airport, one in LaPlace, and maybe 2 or 3 others before Baton Rouge. Basically, the same as most current Amtrak services - depending on who’s operating it, you might even call it commuter rail, although it wouldn’t be frequent enough for most commuters.
October 9th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Fair point about the line not being high speed. No way you build sixty miles of that for $300 mil. I suggest true HS commuter rail like the 140 mph Javelin system in Great Britain. We can afford that too, and its the least we can do after leaving you guys in the lurch after Katrina.
Your comments about governor Long are inapt, however. Whatever else you may think about Huey Long, he delivered. He made LSU a major research university. He modernized Louisiana’s infrastructure and its health care delivery system. His policies became the New Deal.
While he is now mindlessly reviled as a demagogue, he has nothing over Bobby on that department. Huey never hid his education. He never talked down to people. He never stooped to race-baiting at a time when that was a sure fire path to political success in the South. (Neither does Bobby). He told a bunch of down-trodden people who were literally living in the mud that they were as good as anyone else and then he proved it true.
Bobby is as demagogic as Huey ever dreamed of being. Bobby is just unbelievably inept at it.
What really bothers me more than anything, is the resurgence of the self-loathing that held the South back for 100 years. Get over it. Get rid of Bobby. Build the train.