[ardecila]

Thanks for your detailed response.

I guess I can't fathom the depth of the self-interest that grips many conservatives. I'm a fiscal conservative who believes that there are numerous things we need to do communally (healthcare, education, policing, transportation, etc) but only within the overall framework of thrift and responsibility.

I don't really click with the Paul Krugman, Keynesian liberals who wave their hands at any cost - artificially pumping money into the economy shouldn't be an end to itself. Government programs exist to create tangible outcomes, and you can get more and better tangible outcomes by holding costs down whenever possible. Money (to me) is something real and precious, not to be squandered - it's not an abstract concept and certainly not a policy tool. This kind of thinking runs into practical problems, too - states and cities don't set monetary policy, so they have to raise funds for "stimulus" through taxes, and they're lucky if the net economic effect is a wash.

To bring it back to rail, it's galling that the Robert Cruickshanks of the world display such indifference to the staggering $40bn cost of CAHSR and have little interest in cost reduction. What they're missing is that politically, the pricetag could be the difference between life and death for the overall project.