Full Speed Ahead

How ‘bout a high-speed rail service from Birmingham to Atlanta to Washington, DC, to New York to Boston? Hell yeah, I say.

How ‘bout financing it with $8 billion in tax-exempt government bonds? How about all the jobs that would create? Damn, I love having Democrats in control of government.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) just introduced a bill to make it happen, and 13 others have signed on as co-sponsors (including some of my personal favorites: Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, and Olympia Snowe). The high-speed trains wouldn’t be limited to the east coast. The plan also includes Chicago and California.

You know, it feels good to have a domestic agenda again. It’s great to see the federal government investing in our long-term strength as a nation.

President-elect Obama, get it done!

Good Idea

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) rocks. He suggests replacing our nation’s willy-nilly pork barrel spending on infrastructure with an intelligent, coherent infrastructure strategy — complete with people in charge and, you know, accountable.

As described in the New York Times:

Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut is sponsoring a bill that would create an infrastructure bank with a bipartisan board of directors and a chief executive to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The board would streamline the process of reviewing and signing off on major infrastructure proposals. It would determine the value to the public of each project — and its environmental impact. It would provide federal investment capital for approved projects and use that money to leverage private investment.

This is a great idea to help prevent the next New Orleans or Minnesota bridge collapse, and to help deal with the mess when such disasters do occur.

President-elect Obama, I hope you’re listening.