AOC Green New Deal

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OnAJourney

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I’m all for protecting the environment and doing infrastructure projects, but this “green new deal” from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is just insane to me. How on earth are we going to build cross country high speed rail in 10 years? Not to mention it wouldn’t be cost effective for the cost of every mile of high speed track.

And then there’s the provision about giving welfare to people who don’t want to work. Not people who are unable to work, people who can but refuse to.

 
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AOCis the gift that just keeps on giving to the GOP
 
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It’s in an FAQ document she sent to NPR last week. Click that link
 
Either way this proposal is insane. There is no way any of this could be accomplished in 10 years. Couldn’t be done in 20 years either. This is something that would take 40 years due to costs and scale
 
Build the wall! and put the the high speed rail on top of it!

Just a joke : )
 
OnAJourney said:
Either way this proposal is insane. There is no way any of this could be accomplished in 10 years.
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My impression is that the proposal is aspirational. Much like aiming for 100% efficiency in something it’s a goal that would never be accomplished but even a partial success would be an improvement.

With economies and government being complex systems though I can’t speak on the potential for partially accomplishing these goals.
 
But why propose building a national high speed rail system? That would be completely crazy. For starters high speed rail only works in places like the Northeast Corridor. It wouldn’t make economic sense to do high speed rail from New York to LA. The law of diminishing returns would make the venture unprofitable. And I’m assuming AOC would like for Amtrak to be the one providing the service.
 
OnAJourney said:
But why propose building a national high speed rail system?
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I don’t know the reason for this specific proposal. The first thing that comes to mind is China building a nation wide high speed rail system that they made with the goal of further unifying their nation by facilitating movement between different sections more easily.
OnAJourney said:
It wouldn’t make economic sense to do high speed rail from New York to LA.
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It wouldn’t. 2/3 of the population of the continental USA lives within 100 miles of the USA border, especially to those that are close to water. My thoughts were that if someone were to build a railway to cover most of the people what would make sense is rails running north-south on the eastern and western side of the USA and then a rail connecting the east and west side.

I found a proposed map on the USA High Speed Rail Association (I don’t know how old this is, but the 2015 on it makes me think it’s a bit dated and not updated). I see a lot of states left out of it, but I think this still covers a majority of the population.

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OnAJourney said:
The law of diminishing returns would make the venture unprofitable.
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China had made a high speed rail on their land. It isn’t profitable, but their goal was more for unification of the people and opening up the various regions to more people. I don’t know what the primary goals of a rail system across the USA would be; I’ll have to read the Green Proposal in more details when I get a moment to see if it is spelled out.
 
I don’t think Americans would be sold on high speed rail because it connects the country. The Interstate does that already, and you don’t have to pay for a ticket to use it. Whereas with high speed rail run by amtrak, almost certainly you’d have to.
 
AOC isn’t exactly a fan of private business. So Amtrak would almost certainly be the one providing service.
 
OnAJourney said:
The Interstate does that already, and you don’t have to pay for a ticket to use it.
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It cost money to get around. How one pays may differ. There’s no cost to get on the Interstate (except for when there are tolls, especially in Florida) but there is the expense of fuel and car maintenance. There are no free rides 😦

In addition to the financial cost time spent behind the wheel can also be draining. I hate taking the train but I started doing it because drivingwas wearing me out and when I’m on the train I’m mentally freed up to do something else (read a book, play a video game, so on…)
OnAJourney said:
I don’t think Americans would be sold on high speed rail because it connects the country.
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No, there would have to be some more personal incentive to go along with it. The area where I live (Metro Atlanta) is becoming more open to it because traffic density has been growing faster than the transportation options. Many of the people that work in Atlanta don’t live in Atlanta. And I’ve found that a drive just under 30 miles can take 90-120 minutes on the Interstate

I’ll be reading the proposal tonight to see if the justification or goals for the rail system are mentioned.
 
The proposal from what I can see is just loads of unnecessary spending that would bankrupt the country. It’s basically a list of things that progressives want but won’t get. The only thing I’d support is the creation of a single payer program, that is something that could actually be done.
 
So nobody bothers to notice the elimination of air travel?

Even worse…paying for it by creating new banks, and getting credit lines from them?
 
Even if AOC got her way for a national high speed rail system, the average consumer would still fly. Why? Diminishing returns. It’s just more cost effective to fly cross country than it is to take a high speed train. And you can probably still get to your destination faster by plane
 
That makes literally no sense. Why would she insist on completely banning air travel and then make exceptions for it? Wouldn’t Hawaii and even Alaska have issues with rail travel?

Again, nobody is bothered by creating banks and creating lines of credit out of thin air?
 
AOC doesn’t make sense and this plan is absurd. To answer frankly, because she’s a socialist. And she’s a freshman Congressional Rep. She has absolutely no idea how much things costs.
 
This plan is not well thought out with regards to the section on high speed rail. Beyond a certain point the cost effectiveness of a high speed network doesn’t stack up with the cost effectiveness of flight.
 
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