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Title: A historical look at subsidizing railroads
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www.csmonitor.com
URL Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/G ... -look-at-subsidizing-railroads
Published: May 17, 2015
Author: Matthew E. Kahn
Post Date: 2015-05-17 11:28:09 by CZ82
Keywords: None
Views: 1719
Comments: 12
A historical look at subsidizing railroads Obama administration will invest a large sum of cash into high speed rails. Historically, how have railroad investments impacted the US economy? By Matthew E. Kahn, April 26, 2011 Jeff Roberson / AP / File Did you short shares of airlines when you read about the Obama Administration's investment in high speed rail? I didn't and it seems clear that Richard White didn't either. In this NY Times OP-ED, he makes a number of interesting points and mentions the work of one of my heroes; Robert Fogel from the University of Chicago. To quote the article; “ "Yet here we are again. The Obama administration proposed a substantial subsidy, $53 billion over six years, to induce investors to take on risk that they are otherwise unwilling to assume. Such subsidies create what the economist Robert Fogel has called “hothouse capitalism”: government assumes much of the risk, while private contractors and financiers take the profit." In the first sentence of his piece, Richard White tells you that he is a liberal who lives in California but he goes on to say that he is happy that the deep subsidies for HSR will be cut off due to federal budget cuts. White argues that the intellectual case for using public $ to subsidize such an infrastructure project is weak; To quote his historical case study: "Proponents of the transcontinental railroads promised all kinds of benefits they did not deliver. They claimed that the railroads were needed to save the Union, but the Union was already saved before the first line was completed. The best Western farmlands would have been settled without the railroads; their impact on other lands was often environmentally disastrous. For three decades California commodities could move more cheaply, and virtually as quickly, by sea. The subsidies the railroads received enriched contractors and financiers, but nearly all the railroads went into receivership, some multiple times; the government rescued others." Environmental accountants can be brought in to quantify how much greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution will not occur if the train substitutes for driving and plane use. This should be quantified. Such externality reductions (if large enough) would provide a justification for government subsidies. Professor White understands the importance of having budget priorities. During a time of scarcity, we can't "have it all". He writes; “ "Without bond guarantees, private investors, which so far seem more prone to due diligence than the California High-Speed Rail Authority, have yet to put up money. The most astonishing thing is that even as financial problems force California to dismantle its social safety net, eviscerate its educational system, and watch its roads crumble, it has agreed on a plan for high-speed rail that demands substantial local subsidies and certainly will involve further concessions by the state to attract private investment." So, my intuition here is that HSR advocates viewed their projects as "too big to fail" and that they assumed they could rely on the federal government for more cash injections if private financing dried up. But, the Republicans sound pretty credible these days concerning their eagerness to cut off the sugar. What did Professor Fogel write about the railroads? Here is a quick overview and some references. He studied whether railroad investments had a major impact on the development of the U.S economy and he challenged the conventional wisdom that they did. Poster Comment: There are some links in the text you might want to visit.
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#1. To: CZ82 (#0)
(Edited)
Sounds like the description of the War of Northern Aggression,and damn near every other war we have been involved in,doesn't it? WW-2 is the obvious exception since war was declared on us,and the Korean War and the VN war are possible exceptions since we had singed international treaties promising to come to the aid of the north or the south of either country if their neighbors invaded them. Not saying "connected" contractors and manufacturers didn't scam billions out of them too,though. War is and always has been good for business if you are on the winning side,and especially if you supply both sides.
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
Look back farther, to the very CREATION of railroads in America: the Pennsylvania Central and the other early major railroads, like other infrastructure projects such as the Erie Canal, were originally built by the state governments and later privatized. The transcontinental railroads were all paid for, and then some, by the federal government through massive land grants. The American railroad system was built with government money and resources, without which they never would have happen. Now, as with defense contractors today, these government assets were often handed over to private companies and private profiteers (chosen by the government - crony capitalism has always been at the very heart of American-style capitalism), but it is nevertheless true that all of earliest state central railways, and all of the transcontinental routes, and all of the canals, highways, ports and airports - were all built either directly by the government and later privatized, or were build "privately" using government assets and government grants that guaranteed a profit and removed all real risk. The government of the states and of the United States CREATED the American railway system. That we have a massive railroad network AT ALL is because of MASSIVE, continuous government subsidies since the 1830s. The same is true of the ports, and the airports, and the roads, and canals. Private enterprise, using private, at-risk capital, did not build any substantial portion of the American transport network. The roads were all built by government money and subsidies. The railroads were similarly built. The bridges, the airports, the canals, the seaports - ALL OF IT. In a similar way, the defense infrastructure of the United States, while the profits may very well be structured to pass into private hands, is also entirely built at the expense and under the direction of the United States government. To state otherwise, to try to pretend that the railroads were "built by" private capital and "messed up by" the government, is completely false. The federal and state government built the railroads directly by selling bonds and constructing the earliest ones, which were later privatized, or by massive land and cash grants that ensured profitability for decades, handed over to the best connected (Republican) tycoons - socialize the risks and costs, privatize the profits. That's the American way. And always has been. The railroad industry was CREATED BY GOVERNMENT, FROM THE BEGINNING. Parts of it were later privatized. Other parts were created privately but funded by government. Today, sewer companies may be private, but they raise money through government bonding power. The unregulated free market did not build any of the infrastructure of the United States. All of it, all the way back to the Revolution, was primarily built, funded by, maintained by, or had the risk capital and land put in by, the state and federal governments. Railroads exist in this world because governments built them. No major railway was ever built anywhere in the world primarily by private actors. All of them everywhere were funded by government. The US is no different. BECAUSE the government provided the money, land, eminent domain, cheap lending, regulatory power to clear off resisters - even bought a piece of Mexico for a railroad in the Gadsden Purchase, the railroads were built swiftly. BECAUSE it is difficult to really be profitable and maintain a road network, whether asphalt or steel, government ALWAYS has to subsidize railroads. Continental railroads cannot exist purely as private enterprise. The cost of maintenance exceeds the prices that can be charged for the goods and people that travel on them for most of the country, much like the Interstate Highway system or the postal service. And yet the small-level, overall economic activity of the areas served by roads and railroads, in the aggregate, makes them a very good investment EVEN THOUGH they cannot exist without permanent government subsidies. Roads, Railroads and Ports, and schools, and a universal postal service, and health care for the very old who do not work and cannot recover, can never be profitable. They are permanent loss leaders. They always require more expenditure than they can generate a profit, and the prices cannot be raised on the users sufficiently to keep them in operation. So, if you're going to have universal literacy, and long life expectancies, and a vibrant economy, the government must fulfill its natural role of providing permanent subsidies for the building and maintaining of an infrastructure that can never, ever, no matter what you do, itself operate at a profit. The profit from universal education comes from the fact that there's a highly educated population able to do more than farm and operate simple machines. The schools themselves NEVER produce a profit. They's a pure cost, forever, but the OVERALL AGGREGATE economic result of their existence is a lot more money than they cost. Same is true with roads, and railroads. And Medicare and Social Security. To have the biggest, most vibrant economy requires the government to constantly, permanently, spend large sums of money maintaining an expensive infrastructure whose individual pieces cannot themselves ever be profitable. If reduced to a for profit basis, the railroads would be smaller. The government would save a few billion a year. But the overall economy would decline by a trillion a year from all of the other lost activity. The decline in real estate values alone would cost more than the subsidy. And the tax on a trillion dollars is $300 billion, which dwarfs the amount of the government subsidy. As usual, the "hate the government" crowd who think everything should be done only by private industry, have their cant and their religious fanaticism, and as usual, it's economically bone stupid. Ever wonder WHY the countries that have the biggest budgets and most massive government subsidies and social insurance are ALSO the most developed countries? These things go hand in hand. Since Republicans are always spinning out they're "government is evil" nonsense, I suppose I should explain it, because they don't get it. It's because when dollars move through several hands, each transaction adds to the economy. A dollar spent 50 times is 50 dollars. So, take a piece of prairie. There's nothing there. It's inaccessible. And you can buy it really cheap. There are a few counties in America so remote that there is not even any property tax on the land. Nobody lives where the land is $100 an acre, because nobody can get there. There are no roads, no railroads. You'd need a helicopter or a horse. Now, what happens if you put in a road. Well, nobody private will put in the road, because roads cost a few millions per mile. And they cost some tens of thousands per mile to maintain, every year, with road crews and all of that. The entirety of the land through which the road is built is only worth a few hundred thousand dollars before the road is built. And once the road is built, the land value might double, or less, but thousands of acres are STILL worth less than the mile of road, and you had to build a hundred miles of road to get in there. Only over time - decades, and decades, do people move in, or businesses, along that road, in that land, one by one, two by two. There's no water or electric or gas line put in - not until there are enough people to warrant it. Some places might build suddenly - if oil or gas or gold is discovered, or a big company puts a facility there. Most areas will languish. And that road eats up all of the value of most of that land for decades. There's no return on it. Private industries do not invest for the next century. They cannot afford to. But governments are forever, and they DO. The roads and railroads push through, and EVENTUALLY the land is profitable, and built, and worth billions, and the economic activity there dwarfs the cost of the road. But the place would never be developed but for that loss-leading road, that cost millions and millions to build and maintain, without any profit, for decades or maybe a century. Government builds for forever. Businesses do not, and cannot. Government is immortal. Businesses usually don't outlive their founders. If you look at the Dow Jones Index when I was born, of the 30 companies on it then, 18 no longer exist. Bankrupt. Gone. More than half of the very largest companies in the world, the very pinnacles of industry, the titans, did not live as long as an average human lifespan. Government is immortal. And THAT is why government, not private industry, has to build the infrastructure: because government does not die out and stop maintaining it. Because government can build for the development 50 years hence, and by creating the connections, open up the land. Private industry does not have the scope. Also, government can TAX and ENFORCE. Private industry cannot. Universal literacy is probably the ultimate source of 90% of the US economy. If you removed it, and went to natural literacy rates of countries that do not have universal education, the US economy would shrink in a generation from $15 billion to probably 2 or 3 billion. But the public schools NEVER, THEMSELVES turn any profit. They are a pure, high, permanent cost. A cost that is not recouped by anybody. And yet, a cost that CAUSES the whole economy to exist. Yeast causes the bread to rise. Universal literacy causes the economy to rise. Universal literacy is a creation of government alone. It is not profitable to individuals and can never, ever be MADE profitable. Costs too much, and the consumers of the service don't have any money. Same thing with life-end health coverage: costs too much and nobody can pay. So the government pays. And BECAUSE the government pays, permanently, a trillion dollars a year for these things, the economy is fourteen times that size. Republican minds are limited and blinkered. They see only what they understand - which is small business and car dealerships and ma and pa, and maybe an innovative enterprise or two. To build a vast economy requires greater vision, to build permanent, costly infrastructure that ITSELF will always be an expense, but that through the actions it generations in third, forth, fifth, and twenty-seventh parties removed to the expense, results in an aggregate greater overall supply curve. It's not hard to see when one looks at the performance of various countries in the world. But Republicans, in their narrow economics, never see it. Which is why, whenever they actually get power, they strike at the infrastructure and regulation, cause a boom, and then generate a Depression. Because they're dumb as posts on economic matters. The greatest economic President - the one who generated the greatest wealth for America and the world, was FDR, BECAUSE he created Social Security, the TVA, the WPA, Unemployment benefits, and massive government investment in infrastructure, which ultimately transformed America into the modern state that it has become. Eisenhower was a New Deal Republican. HE got it, and continued to practice, with the Interstate Highway System. LBJ's particular contribution was desegregation, opening up a fifth of the population to greater economic opportunity. It's expensive, and will stay expensive. And the alternative - private enterprise ONLY - that's Africa. It's a total failure. Even Detroit and Baltimore, with their terrible problems, generate more net gains for the US economy than the entire economies of many African nations. Because even in Detroit and environs, everybody can read, and there is business, and transport and industry. Things are built, salaries are paid, things are bought, money is generated, and taxed. Infrastructure, physical and social, is the necessary province of government. Without it, we're Africa. It's stupid to call what is necessary by a pejorative word: "socialism". "Socialism" conjures up bad things, and makes people want to strike at it, which is like cutting out the bowels with a knife because bowels generate crap and gas, and crap and gas are ugly and smelly, so let's rid of what makes them! Makes sense! Until you die. Social insurance and infrastructure are not socialism. They are bowels. Messy, stinky, and ultimately very good and necessary things.
None of my above means that any PARTICULAR government project is, therefore, good. High Speed Rail built on top of the San Andreas Fault seems like a particularly foolish thing.
So you've finally fallen in love with the Whigs and the Republican railroad barons. LOL It had to happen sooner or later.
I rather liked the interview of the railroad historian at Stanford on his book from a few years back. It seems that CSMonitor isn't the most rail-friendly source. : ) Stanford professor Richard White, author of 'Railroaded,' voices his staunch opposition to California's high-speed train Randy Dotinga After all, it's a dusty 6.5-hour trek by car and a hassle of security lines and cramped seats by plane. But Richard White, the author of last year's well-received "Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America," is no fan of the state's mammoth high-speed rail project, which is scheduled to break ground this year. He warned in the New York Times last month that "it will become a Vietnam of transportation: easy to begin and difficult and expensive to stop." White's opposition to the bullet train is unusual since he comes from the political left rather than the right. [Editor's note: In this sentence White was originally – and incorrectly – referred to as "Wilson."] (Many of the project's political opponents are Republicans.) I called him and asked why he sees the nation's railroad history as a cautionary tale instead of an inspiration. We also talked about the railroad baron he considers to be an airhead – the one whose name graces Stanford University, where White works. Q: You write that the transcontinental railroads weren't needed but got built anyway on the public dime. What happened? A: The basic thing is that no one would invest in them to begin with. You’re building a railroad into the middle of nowhere – railroads starting nowhere and ending nowhere. There's no traffic on these things, so that's why they have to be subsidized. You need all this public money and then borrowed money to get these things up and running. They went bankrupt once, twice, three times, but the men running them got tremendously rich. Railroads become these containers for speculation, collecting subsidies and selling bonds, and financial manipulation. They’re much like the companies we're familiar with now that have gone into bankruptcy but have made people rich. Q: What was the legacy of the railroad boom? A: We're still dealing with the consequences of what the railroads set in motion. They’re a disaster politically and environmentally. They begin modern American corruption, when corporations infiltrate the political system and make politics an instrument of corporate policy. My argument in the book is that this is not a happy story. Q: What do you say to skeptics who will say you're just another left-leaning academic bashing capitalism? A: This is a book that proceeds mostly by quoting the people who did it. They make a far better case for what happened then I did. It's full of quotes, oftentimes very funny, about how they invent this kind of corporate capitalism. If you don't believe me, the book is full of footnotes. For me footnotes are what give me protection. It's like smell to a skunk. What’s interesting is that I'm attacked sometimes as being a leftist, which I am, and I am often attacked as being too conservative by people who want subsidies for these large infrastructure projects. Q: You're not flattering about the brainpower of Leland Stanford, the railroad baron whose name graces your own university. What did you find out about him? A: Stanford was not the sharpest tool in the shed. A lot of this stuff has to be explained to him. His wife Jane realized exactly what was in his papers and she destroyed them all, but the story is in the papers of other people. Q: What have your overlords at Stanford thought of all this? A: I don’t think they really suspected that he was much more than how he's portrayed in the book. Stanford University has been very nice to me, but I will never speak at Founders Day. Q: How have your findings affected your perspective on the California bullet train project, which is estimated to cost almost $100 billion? The writing of the book led me to question it in the ways I wouldn’t have before. This looks like pretty much like transcontinental railroads: people demanding a huge public subsidy for a railroad that will be extraordinarily expensive. The public seems to be taking all the risk, and the gain will go to the contractors and people who build it. What they’re trying to do is make hard questions go away through all this gauzy public relations about how this is the future. Q: How should the public look at projects like this? A: You should be very leery of giving public money to large corporations on the promise that everything will be fine. The legislation has to be carefully written, and you should never have it that all the risk is public and all the gain is private. Often the private sector pretty much protects itself and is confident that the public will come in and bail them out if things goes wrong. These public-private kinds of endeavors very often will lead to an exploitation of the public.
A lot of the gain in real estate values accruing to private persons or entities is due to expenditures from the public purse in the first place. This is crony socialism, a good example are some of the federal programs that irrigate lands in the desert that have a value of near zero, but became valuable once the taxpayers plowed in large sums, in some case doing stupid things like the Central Arizona Project to pump water uphill to irrigate cotton with taxpayer subsidized water. I recall some months ago there was a lot of posts here about a cattle rancher in Nevada who was in arrears for his grazing fees on BLM lands. We've had large farms, some amounting to tens of thousands of acres is size, receiving tax subsidized water at a few dollars per acre foot that in reality costs the taxpayer scores of dollars per acre foot to deliver when factoring in cross subsidization from things like hydroelectric power. The original statute was 160 acres per farm, and was widely violated, and several decades ago was raised to 960 acres, and continues to be violated. These are the large Central Valley agribusinesses that are so eager for illegal alien labor. These are large outfits, they have a huge amount of wealth in the form of real estate which would be of very little value, perhaps one percent of current value, if they did not receive the largess of crony socialism. The American taxpayer created the value to those vast privately held estates, the taxpayer should have reaped the appreciation in value from their investment, not private interests. First the milked the taxpayer for water supplied below cost, and now they milk the taxpayer in social programs for their illegal labor. They never followed the acreage limits, and then they did not bother with labor laws. Greed can never be satiated. The guy in Nevada was small potatoes, that was a case of the government straining a gnat from the soup and then swallowing a camel when it come to latifundia of the San Joaquin Valley worked by illegal aliens. When Paris built her great avenues and boulevards they ended up costing the Parisian taxpayers nothing. When they were built not just the real estate required for the improvements was purchased, the real estate flanking them was also purchased, and the appreciation in real estate value from the public's investment paid the cost of the improvements. A lot of American politics are driven by the objective of using the public investments to create appreciation in real estate values for certain individuals or groups, so speculators may extract wealth from the real productive economy as a parasite does.
The transcontinental railroads were all paid for, and then some, by the federal government through massive land grants. The American railroad system was built with government money and resources, without which they never would have happen. The Federal govt does this for the airline industry, too since the beginning.
This guy gets it right: the American railroad system was built by the government, but then privatized. The railroad system WAS the crony capitalism of the 19th Century, the method by which the Republican establishment of the post-Civil War period used the political control the war gave them to milk the national coffers for their cronies. It's how it was done, and how it's STILL done. My own answer, what I prefer, is like a cross to a vampire. I think that if the government massively subsidizes it and builds it and the public bears the risk, that it should not be privatized. The government built the railroads with public money and land at public risk. Instead of privatizing all of that profit, the government should have owned and operated what it built, sold the land that was opened up directly and taken all of that profit into government coffers. Likewise, I oppose private oil development on public land. Rather, the federal government should drill for the oil, pump it, sell it, and put all of the profit into the Treasury, to keep down taxes. The same is true for gold mines, silver mines, coal mines...ALL valuable resource extraction. There is no reason at all to allow the lion's share of the profit to escape into private hands. The government should exploit the resources directly, with the profits going into the treasury. There should be no shareholder profits or dividends whatsoever. The American people, who actually own all of these resources, should get 100% of the profits, in the form of direct payments into the Treasury. This can then express itself in lower overall taxation. Now, THAT really IS socialism, but it doesn't come about by "nationalization" of that which WAS private. The land and the resources ALREADY belong to the government, which is to say the people, and ALWAYS HAVE. The government acquired that land by purchase and war. Crony capitalist control of the government has caused all of this public property to be handed over to private interests, at fire sale prices, privatizing the profit. I oppose this. The hiring of workers and paying them a standard wage is not expensive. What is really expensive are the executive salaries and the shareholder dividends. There is no reason for either of those. Government corporations, without profit distribution to shareholders or executives, with civil service executives on civil service salaries (which are millions a year cheaper than private executive services) should be operating the mines, mills, (and railroads)(and utilities) on public lands, with all of the profit from all of the sales of resources and services going into the Treasury. It should have always been that way.
The opposite. I don't think the railroads should have ever have been privatized. The government built them, on government land with government money. The government should never have privatized them. They should have remained government property, with all profit going into the Treasury, to keep taxes low. Likewise oil, gas, coal, gold, silver, copper, diamond and all other resource exploration and exploitation on government land. The government should pay civil service prospectors civil service wages to go out and find it, and then exploit it with civil servants, and put that huge profit right into the Treasury. Arctic Preserve Oil? Sure. Establish the Federal Petroleum Co. and go get it. All profits to the people.
Honest Abe championed railroad legislation to open vistas for the young and aspiring, and to build national markets. In §2 of the Railroad Act of July 1, 1862 Act (12 Stat. 489, 491) [scribd link], the railroad corporation was established and, In §3 of the Act (12 Stat. 489, 492), we find, But see the Act of 1864 (13 Stat. 356, 358) [scribd link] (amending the above Act of July 1, 1862), §4 which provides, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts President Abe championed railroad legislation to open new vistas for the Railroad companies. CW 7:16 (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 7) In pursuance of the fourteenth Section of the act of congress, entitled “An act to aid in the construction of a Railroad and Telegraph Line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes” Approved July 1, 1862, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby fix so much of the Western boundary of the State of Iowa as lies between the North and South boundaries of the United States Township, within which the City of Omaha is situated, as the point from which the line of railroad and telegraph in that section mentioned, shall be constructed. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. CW 7:228 In pursuance of the provisions of Section 14, of the Act of Congress entitled “An Act to aid in the construction of a Rail Road and Telegraph Line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for Postal,—Military, and other purposes,” Approved July 1st. 1862, authorizing and directing the President of the United States, to fix the point on the Western boundary of the State of Iowa, from which the Union Pacific Rail Road Company is by said section authorized and required to construct a single line of Rail Road, and Telegraph, upon the most direct and practicable route, subject to the approval of the President of the United States, so as to form a connection with the lines of said Company, at some point on the one hundre[d]th meridian of longitude in said section named: I, Abraham Lincoln President of the United States do, upon the application of the said Company, designate and establish such first above named point, on the Western boundary of the State of Iowa, east of, and opposite to the East line of Section 10, in Township 15, North, of Range 13, East of the sixth principle meridian, in the Territory of Nebraska Done at the City of Washington this, seventh, day of March, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty four ABRAHAM LINCOLN CW 7:233-34 To the Senate of the United States: In compliance with a resolution of the Senate, of the 1st. instant, respecting the points of commencement of the Union Pacific Railroad, on the 100th. degree of West Longitude, and of the branch road, from the Western boundary of Iowa, to the said 100th. degree of Longitude, I transmit the accompanying report from the Secretary of the Interior, containing the information called for. I deem it proper to add that, on the 17th day of November last, an executive order was made upon this subject, and delivered to the Vice President of the Union Pacific Rail Road Company, which fixed the point, on the western boundary of the State of Iowa from which the Company should construct their Branch-Road to the 100th. degree of West Longitude, and declared it to be within the limits of the township, in Iowa, opposite the town of Omaha in Nebraska. Since then the Company has represented to me, that, upon actual surveys made, it has determined upon the precise point of departure of their said Branch-R road from the Missouri river, and located the same as described in the accompanying report of the Secretary of the Interior, which point is within the limits designated in the order of November last; and inasmuch as that order is not of record in any of the Executive Departments, and the Company having desired a more definite one, I have made the order, of which a copy is herewith, and caused the same to be filed in the Department of the Interior. ABRAHAM LINCOLN President Abe championed railroad legislation to open new vistas for the Union Pacific. What is that mysterious unnamed town “opposite the town of Omaha in Nebraska?” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_Bluffs,_Iowa And what is special about Council Bluffs, Iowa? Mr. Lincoln had been an attorney for the Rock Island Railroad. Mr. Lincoln gave a speech at Council Bluffs, Iowa on August 13, 1859 (CW 3:396-97). Mr. Lincoln was there to look at land. Indeed, he invested in land in Council Bluffs and obtained the deed on November 11, 1859. A fuller accounting of Lincoln’s visit to Council Bluffs, his purchase of land, and later selection of Council Bluffs as the starting point for the Transcontinental Railroad is given in What I Saw of Lincoln, [scribd link] by Major-General Grenville M. Dodge, in Appleton’s Magazine, Volume XIII, January-June (1909), February, pp. 134-140. The owner of the land next to Lincoln’s was Clement L. Vallandigham, the Ohio anti-war Democratic congressman Lincoln expelled behind Confederate lines during the Civil War.
We can make similar flowery summaries of any prez, even the most corrupt and loathsome. I would say he was fundamentally a Clay Whig throughout his life.
Yup. Never changed much besides his label.
Robert Fogel has called “hothouse capitalism”: government assumes much of the risk, while private contractors and financiers take the profit."
#2. To: CZ82 (#0)
#3. To: CZ82 (#0)
#4. To: Vicomte13 (#2)
#5. To: CZ82 (#0)
Railroad historian says California is on wrong track
February 13, 2012
Considering that he spent 12 years studying the history of American railroads, you might assume Stanford University professor Richard White would be delighted to take a bullet train from nearby San Francisco to Los Angeles in the time it takes to watch a Harry Potter movie.
#6. To: Vicomte13 (#2)
The decline in real estate values alone would cost more than the subsidy
#7. To: Vicomte13 (#2)
Look back farther, to the very CREATION of railroads in America: the Pennsylvania Central and the other early major railroads, like other infrastructure projects such as the Erie Canal, were originally built by the state governments and later privatized.
#8. To: TooConservative (#5)
#9. To: TooConservative (#4)
So you've finally fallen in love with the Whigs and the Republican railroad barons. LOL
#10. To: TooConservative (#5)
[Quoted] Q: You write that the transcontinental railroads weren't needed but got built anyway on the public dime. What happened?
authority is hereby given to said company to take from the public lands adjacent to the line of said road, earth, stone, timber, and other materials for the construction thereof; said right of way is granted to said railroad to the extent of two hundred feet in width on each side of said railroad, where it may pass over the public lands…
"That there be, and is hereby, granted to the said company, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of said railroad and telegraph line, and to secure the safe and speedy transportation of the mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores thereon, every alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, to the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of said railroad, on the line thereof, and within the limits of ten miles on each side of said road, not sold, reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and to which a preemption or homestead claim may not have attached, at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed…"
That section three of said act be hereby amended by striking out the word "five," where the same occurs in said section and by inserting in lieu thereof the word "ten;" and by striking out the word "ten," where the same occurs in said section, and inserting in lieu thereof the word "twenty."
From 1850 to 1871, the railroads received more than 175 million acres (71 million ha) of public land – an area more than one tenth of the whole United States and larger in area than Texas.
Executive Mansion, Washington, November 17. 1863.
March 7, 1864
Executive Mansion
March 9th. 1864. Council Bluffs is more than a decade older than Omaha. The latter, founded in 1854 by Council Bluffs businessmen and speculators following the Kansas-Nebraska Act, has grown to be the significantly larger city.
#11. To: nolu chan (#10)
Honest Abe championed railroad legislation to open vistas for the young and aspiring, and to build national markets.
#12. To: TooConservative (#11)
I would say he was fundamentally a Clay Whig throughout his life.
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