High Speed Rail and Billion Dollar Whimsy

Oh man.  This has got to be the funniest Obama quote yet. Our brilliant President recently announced that we will be spending billions of dollars on a high speed rail system in the U.S. Being the hyper educated intellectual he is, I am sure we can see reams of data on the economic, geographic and political feasibility of such a boondoggle project! 

"I am always jealous about European trains," Obama said April 3 in Strasbourg, France. "And I said to myself, 'why can't we have high-speed rail?' And so, we're investing in that as well."

I am seriously. Apparently we are now replacing decision making with the whimsical comments of  college kids spending dad's money on Eurail passes and hash, while 'finding themselves' after graduation. 

This reason is topped only by an insightful Onion columnist of years past that blithely suggested we mimic another venerable European social invention.

Back in adult reality–I think the Cato analyst cited in the ABC article captured it best.

"You might as well have the government invest in nuclear-powered bicycles," Mitchell added. "That's probably the only thing I could imagine that would be more of a waste of money than inter-city rail."