Governor Brown defends trains on CBS This Morning

California’s Governor Jerry Brown (D) appeared on CBS This Morning last Sunday to discuss the debate over the state’s deficit.  CBS anchor Charlie Rose asked the Governor about the state’s high-speed train project—an intercity rail corridor that will stretch from San Francisco to Los Angeles, with trains operating at speeds of 220 mph—and Brown spoke about how the project will bolster the state’s entrepreneurial activities (the rail segment starts at the 6:35 mark):

The California High Speed Rail Blog’s Robert Cruikshank had a good supplemental piece that broke down how California’s investment in trains will benefit the state in ways austerity can’t:

As in 2008, there are those who believe that because of the state’s budget situation, high speed rail should be postponed or abandoned because that money should somehow be used for some other purpose. And I say “somehow” because under Prop 1A, bond money approved by voters for one purpose cannot be used for any other.

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Building high speed rail now means jobs will be created in California. Good jobs at good wages. It means an infusion of $3.5 billion in federal money into the state’s economy, which turns into wages and taxes and purchases at local businesses. In the short term that’s a boost to the state’s economy that vanishes if HSR isn’t funded now. 

I would piggyback on Governor Brown's comments and add: it undercuts the whole goal of creating highly educated Americans if they graduate into a country connected by a third-rate infrastructure, in a society that is unwilling to invest in its own future economic competitiveness.