Goodhue County, center of the citizen resistance against North American High Speed Rail Group's proposed private high speed rail line from near the Twin Cities to Rochester almost, voted solidly for Donald Trump in last Tuesday's election.
Bluestem is left to guess that opponents of new passenger rail lines--and the use of eminent domain to secure some of the property upon which those rails would be laid--had other issues that led them to vote for Donald Trump for president.
Because if there's one thing Donald Trump likes, it's high speed rail. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in Will Donald Trump support high-speed rail in California?:
Last March, Trump compared the United States rail system to that of a third world country. He lauded China for quickly building a nationwide high-speed rail system. "[The Chinese] have trains that go 300 miles per hour," said Trump. "We have trains that go chug-chug-chug."
During his election night victory speech, Trump emphasized that one of his top priorities will be funding a massive infrastructure program that could include high-speed rail projects across the nation.
Oh. And how to pay for that? At Marketplace, Andy Uhler reports in Trump infrastructure plan is private money and tax credits:
Infrastructure has been a hot topic over the last few weeks, and it’s one thing both political parties agree on. America’s bridges, roads, airports and schools need improvement and President-elect Donald Trump has promised a lot of investment. The markets have noticed. Copper and iron ore are up — a lot. But commodities are volatile, so it's unclear how long this spike will last.
Trump’s plan calls for tax relief for private businesses that invest in infrastructure projects. In doing so, the plan said, the national debt would not increase. Heidi Crebo-Rediker, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and CEO of International Capital Strategies, said private investment can be good, but this plan only includes private investment.
"If you look at this as a taxpayer, do you pay your taxes to fund infrastructure investment that can then rely on cheap government borrowing to invest in those projects?" she asked,"or do you go down the path where you have equity investors that will invest and then borrow what would be more expensive funds?"
And whose privately built projects would require user fees — for example, tolls on new bridges and roads. . . .
Why does that suggest to Bluestem that President-elect Trump will think a privately-funded (with tax breaks for wealthy investors) high-speed rail line is "huge"?
As for Mr. Trump's thoughts on the use of eminent domain by private investors for private gain, we recommend reading Ilya Somin's 2015 article in the Washington Post, Donald Trump’s history of eminent domain abuse. Somin writers in part:
. . . On this issue, unlike most others, Trump has been consistent over time. When the Supreme Court narrowly upheld “economic development” takings that transfer property to private parties in the 2005 Kelo case, the ruling was widely denounced on both left and right. But Trump defended it stating that “I happen to agree with it 100%. if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and … government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and … create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.” The feral cats who currently occupy the condemned land probably agree. Trump did not merely claim that the decision was legally correct; he argued that it was “good” to give government the power to forcibly displace homeowners and small businesses and transfer their property to influential developers on the theory that doing so might promote “economic development.”
Both the Kelo case and Trump’s efforts to benefit from eminent domain exemplify a longstanding pattern under which that power is used to take land away from the political weak and transfer it to influential private interests. In the long run, as cities like Detroit have learned, such assaults on property rights undermine development far more than they promote it. . . .
Ah! But losing a part of one's property so that rich investors can profit is just a small sacrifice Goodhue County landowners can contribute as we make America great again.
See our related posts for more information:
Zombie Zip Rail question in CD2 GOP forum could re-animate eminent domain debate
Citizens' eminent domain concerns dominate regional news coverage of Zip Rail meeting
All House & Senate candidates in District 21 oppose North American High Speed Rail project
Does a private, short-line high-speed rail line between Rochester and MSP make good sense?
Image: Goodhue County is fly-over country for the as-yet imaginary elevated high speed rail line. This map from the NAHSRG website illustrates where the rails might run over the county.
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