Trains to Nowhere: A Government Spending Problem
1st September 2013
John Stossel blows the whistle.
Advocates also point out something that seems obvious to them: Infrastructure is a job that must be done by government. Who else would launch big projects like the New York City subway system? Subways are what Big Government supporters call a “public good.”
Yeah, but….
Most of New York’s subways were actually built by private companies. Few New Yorkers even know that. Private companies dug the first tunnels and ran the trains for about 40 years. But when they wanted to raise the fare to a dime, the politicians said they had to “protect” the public. Government took over the system, saying only “public ownership” could guarantee affordable fares.
But government doesn’t do anything well. Under government management, profit disappeared and the fare rose well beyond the inflation-adjusted equivalent of what the private companies had wanted to charge.
And, between the city government, the unions, and the Mafia, a private company couldn’t afford to build something like a subway today.
Now, politicians want you to buy them new trains. Who wouldn’t like a shiny new train? The Obama administration gave your money to California politicians who want to build a 200-m.p.h. train to take people from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Somehow, in the tradition of political boondoggles everywhere, the train that politicians actually approved doesn’t yet come close to either city. It starts, and ends, “in the boondocks,” says Reason magazine’s Adrian Moore.
Well, it’s not as if they were spending their own money.