Freight trains are vitally important to our national economy. And passenger trains are useful and economical in some heavily populated areas. But with our country $14 trillion in debt and running $1.5 trillion in annual red ink, does President Barack Obama's proposal to spend $53 billion more of tax or borrowed money for high-speed rail service make sense?
Would you like to ride a passenger train from Chattanooga to Atlanta or Nashville in about an hour? Or to New York or Chicago in just a few hours? Fine. But that should not be paid for with more taxes or more debt for passenger lines that can't pay their own way.
With the federal government taxing and spending too much already, would it be rational to spend billions more for passenger trains that are likely to lose money?