Important Daily News You Need to Know, Today's Issue: High Speed Rail

It is no secret that many in the United States don't look to high-speed rail as a sort of economic salvation. The idea that we can completely remake our economy by dedicating our productive output toward next generation passenger trains is a bit overzealous.

Nonetheless, high-speed rail could be a huge part of any comprehensive stimulus, job and recovery program enacted by the government. Aerospace giant Bombardier has proven that the skills learned in aircraft assembly can be easily applied to highly efficient trains. If an American company like Boeing were given adequate incentive to invest in rail technology, it could just as easily begin producing world-class trains. If its efforts were combined with companies like GE, General Motors, Ford and others, American trains would dwarf anything the rest of the world had to offer.

The entire nation of Spain has built its national economy, and bet it future, around the ability to move people, goods, and services quickly around the country on high-speed rails. Spain’s GDP is on par with the economic size of Texas and California, so there isn’t reason to think that they could afford something the U.S. cannot.

Obviously, the United States has the capacity to take on massive projects like high-speed rail. President Obama even made clear in his first State of the Union, between being interrupted by Republicans in attendance, his intent to make high-speed rail a platform for the rest of his presidency.

The projects will be costly, the overhead will be difficult to handle, and Congress will need to be cajoled for every nickel of funding; but America can make it work. In the end, after the dust has settled, it will have been worth it. A national rail project would create tens of thousands of temporary construction and supply chain jobs, and tens of thousands of permanent support and upkeep jobs. More importantly it will draw billions of dollars of public and private investment into something with tangible benefits that produces a public good, as opposed to continuing investing in risk-laden financial markets.

High-speed rail doesn’t cure all ills, but it is a huge step in the right direction. It is clean. It is innovative. It has long-term cost efficiency. It creates jobs, builds economies of scale, and provides a technological basis for our economic growth in the 21st century.

Unfortunately, according to New York Times, our open market system may doom the U.S. from realizing the full potential of what rail has to offer us.

During the past decade the U.S. completely ignored the green technology, alternative energy and electric rail progress of the rest of the world. We stuck to our dirty cars, our broken down roads, and our belief in the perfection of “American Exceptionalism.” While we were looking the other way everyone else figured out the quickest way to success; now the United States is playing catch up.

When California officially announces contracts for its projected high-speed rail systems Chinese companies will almost certainly be the ones providing much of the technology. After years of stealing jobs, research and patents from the U.S, after years of being allowed to do so by a disinterested administration, China is a world leader in rail technology. Seeing as they are also our largest trading partner, they are likely to be the source of our rail tech in the future – they will also likely be the source of our solar, wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear energy technology as well.

In California, the Chinese government is offering to lend the technology, the financing, and much of the physical labor. All they ask in return is control of the profits. Beijing is offering to finance a project that it will be paid to complete. It will cost them nothing in the end, but give them a living laboratory in which they can test and perfect their products.

China is not the only country hoping to capture a bid. Rail teams from Japan, Germany, South Korea, Italy, Spain, France, and elsewhere have contacted the California High Speed Rail Authority to show their interest.

The aforementioned American powerhouse partnerships will likely never occur. Some American laborers will probably get hired on to dig ditches and run rail lines, some will be hired to staff and operate the trains themselves, but the end profits will go overseas to the very conglomerates our companies are supposed to compete against.

If anything, high-speed rail is a perfect example of when America needs to put its foot down regarding domestic procurements. No American companies are given contracts to build trains in Italy, Japan, China, or anywhere else in the world, yet foreign companies will likely be the only honest bidders when American contracts go up for bidding.

We can use high-speed rail to rebuild our economy and give this country a real future. We can do it, if we are willing to do it. We need the political will to stand up to the global community, to the WTO, and tell them that these contracts will only go to American companies and American workers. We need the will to realize that “free” and “open” markets are a fool’s goal and a fool’s errand. We need the will to change course midstream.