After essentially dragging its feet for a year as it failed to push through financial or health care reform proposals, the Obama administration may have righted the ship in terms of picking up some of its progressive agendas.

During the presidential campaign then Senator Obama was all in favor of vast and comprehensive infrastructure projects that would revitalize the economy, create employment, and help America join the rest of the developed world. This was before the White House ran into the blatant obstructionist agenda of Republicans, and several bought and paid for Democrats, who took reasonable policies (financial reform, consumer protection, healthcare overhauls) and dragged them through the mud.

After having to combat the combined efforts of huge corporate policy agendas, and vast right-wing media propaganda, the Democrats and the president have absolutely nothing to show for any of their efforts. Now, with the 2010 election cycle underway, they are turning their attention to issues that are actually politically feasible.

Perhaps the most important infrastructure improvement on the docket for 2010 and beyond is the creation and integration of a high-speed rail system in the United States.

In Western Europe and Japan it is easy and efficient to travel great distances using publicly available transit. Many millions of Japanese, French, British, German, and Spanish citizens use trains every day to commute to and from work. They use them to travel around the country. They even use them to travel around much of the continent for a fraction of the cost of travel by air or by car.

In the United Stats the scenario described above is nearly impossible. Some major cities have subways or trains. In very densely populated portions of the Atlantic coast it is possible to travel between cities or regions on rail networks. But it isn’t quite the same. Our train systems are just that; they are trains. In Europe and Japan most transit is done on “high-speed rail” systems, which travel perhaps two or three times the speed of an automobile and have none of the delays presented by air travel.

President Obama announced, during his State of the Union address and then later at a ceremony in Tampa, that his administration would put $8 billion into the development of commuter rail lines in 13 “rail corridors” around the country. Many of these corridors span inter-state boundaries, and would provide ample competition to tedious, polluting, and sometimes dangerous automobile alternatives.

This money will go directly into funding projects, funding development, and employing perhaps thousands of workers to see the projects through. Unfortunately, the disparate impact of having such a small sum ($8 billion) cut up into 13 different projects among 31 states may do more harm than good.

According to a report published by ABC News, the funding offered by the White House is a drop in the bucket when compared to what we actually need. The 13 corridors themselves are believed to have $60-100 billion in combined budgets, and each of these budgets is currently underfunded. In normal circumstances the federal government could afford to cover this entire cost, but with the Obama “spending freeze” going into effect the only area likely to get all the funding it needs is defense.

There are other problems with the high-speed rail picture as well. Right now consumers aren’t demanding it like they should be, and the places where demand is the highest aren’t getting the funding they need.

Even with the public demand, there is almost zero private innovation in this area in the United States. Brian Ross, writing for The Huffington Post, discussed the need for America’s tech and manufacturing titans to pick up the banner of high-speed rail in his January 29 article.

As it stands now the bidding for any rail projects will be open, as in, open to foreign companies as well. With almost no momentum domestically to build trains it is likely that these contracts will go to companies based in Canada, France, Japan, China, or a host of other countries. These companies will certainly employ Americans to build the networks and staff the trains, but in the end all of the corporate profit will go overseas.

General Motors, General Electric, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and other huge U.S. companies must get on the bandwagon now before they are passed by.

High-speed rail is widely considered the wave of the future, but with our mediocre government unable to make any decisions whatsoever regarding our future this could likely be another opportunity that simply passes us by. As other nations build up their infrastructure to meet the needs of tomorrow our leaders seem happy to give lip service to the future, while settling for infrastructure that was outdated yesterday.

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