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[quote user="henry6"] [quote user="CMStPnP"] [quote user="Bucyrus"] The meaningful, honest, objective, and useful comparison is how much use the average taxpayer gets out of highway per tax dollar, compared to how much use the average taxpayer gets out of passenger rail per tax dollar.  [/quote] [/quote] What is the prevailing question?  Benefit to society, i.e.: ability to transport goods to and from factories and markets, be part of the assembly line, allow for manufactruing and business growth and supply the population, and to help transport people to and from where they must travel including work and home?  Or is it if Tommy Taxpayer doesn't use I80 across Nevada or anyother highway except the one in his town, or the locks on the Mississippi or the Dulles International Airport or electricity from the Tennesee Valley Authority, he should not pay the tax?  I understand Libertarianism and what it means.  But we have progressed so much further by cooperation, pooling resources and work, doing for the good of society, to abandon all that has been done and need be done because one person is too greedy and self important to participate in society.  Thus if a rail siding supported by some government funding in  California means I can have affordable fresh lettuce on my table in Upstate NY in February I feel the funding is worth it.  And the thinking isn't as convoluted as thinking that what happens or is done elsewhere doesn't affect me; no man is an island is more true than ever.  If there are those who either don't want to pay their fare share, live up to the responsibity of being a citizen of the United States, then they should find another place on Earth to live...buy an abandoned south sea island someplace and try to start a tax free, resposibity free society and see how long you'll last.  [/quote] Henry,   You are missing my point.  You may understand libertarianism, but my point has nothing to do with libertarianism.  I am not saying that if a taxpayer does not use a particular service, he or she should not have to pay for it.  My point has nothing to do with the idea of one man thinking he is an island and should not have to contribute to the socialized portions of society. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> My point is that we, as a society, have to decide which are the most essential works to pay for collectively because we only have a limited amount of money as a group.  So when we consider which works to produce as a collective effort with public funds, we have to determine how much they are worth on average to the members of society who will pay for them.  It is the classic benefit per cost analysis. <o:p></o:p> I do not believe that a national system of HSR would provide a widespread benefit to society as a whole that would evenly correspond with the widespread cost to society as a whole.  Instead, I think that national HSR would merely provide enjoyment and convenience to a very small portion of society at the expense of most of society.  I think that there are better things to spend our money on such as paying down the debt.    My view on this has nothing to do with my personal willingness or reluctance to pay taxes for the things we need as a nation.  My concern is that we, as a nation, spend our money wisely.
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