U.S. High-Speed Rail Plans Stuck at the Station

America’s railroad infrastructure is broken, and we need a massive investment in high-speed rail to fix it.

Rail travel is one area in which Europe is miles ahead of the United States. Passengers can buy a 15-day Eurail pass, which allows them to travel almost anywhere on the continent at any time, for as low as €345, or around $500. That ticket would also give riders access to France’s TGV, a high-speed rail train that travels at average speeds of just under 300 miles per hour. The average person in the United Kingdom travels over 750 kilometers per year by rail; in Germany, that figure rises to close to 1000 km/year, and in Switzerland it is a stunning 2,422 km/year! Meanwhile, in the United States, the average rail passenger travels only 80 kilometers per year.

An Acela Express train, the only existing high-speed rail line in the U.S.

Tim Pawlenty: The Right Candidate at the Wrong Time

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty officially dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday after a disappointing third-place finish at the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa. For the last few months, Pawlenty had been dogged by one piece of bad campaign news after another: he lost considerable ground in polls, both in Iowa and nationally, his fundraising numbers for the second quarter of the year were far below where they needed to be and he chose not to attack former governor Mitt Romney to his face on national television, contributing to the already widespread perception that he was too weak for the race. Still though, for all his political faults, and they were many, there is nothing in Pawlenty’s political biography that disqualified him from being president. Instead, he was a good candidate who was the victim of bad circumstances.

The fact that this gopher was Pawlenty’s #1 fan should have set off some warning bells.

The State of the Presidential Race – August 14, 2011

Well, the first major test of the 2012 GOP primaries is over, and the field today certainly looks different than it did on Friday. With a major candidate out of the race and another one getting in, it's becoming clear that the GOP nominee will be one of three people and yesterday's Ames Straw Poll may have altered the race for all of them. Most of all, though, we learned that this primary contest isn't going to be over quickly; with three strong candidates in the race, don't expect to know who the nominee is going to be until May or June of next year. Get excited.

Really, this is just a gratuitous amount of confetti.

Debate Roundup: August 11th GOP Primary Debate

The second major debate of the GOP primary season just ended and brought a little more clarity to the standings of the Republican presidential candidates. While we will know more about how the race will look going forward after this weekend's Ames Straw Poll in Iowa, the debate provided us with a glimpse at which candidates have a chance to win and which are dead in the water. While a “State of the Race” post will probably be forthcoming early next week, for now I'll just stick to my own post-debate format and rank the winners and losers from the standpoint of what the debate means for their campaigns.

Mitt Romney, lording over everyone else. Just the way he likes it.

Democrats Need to Bite the Bullet

Well, it looks like we may have avoided economic Armageddon. Earlier today, House and Senate GOP leaders negotiated a deal with President Obama to raise the debt ceiling through 2012 and cut approximately $3 trillion of spending from the federal budget. Predictably, House Democrats are furious that the deal includes no new revenues and many are threatening to vote against it: one of the more colorful descriptions of the deal came from Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, who called it "a sugar-coated Satan sandwich." Some Democratic analysts have predicted that this anger over what they see as capitulation from President Obama will lead to only 50-80 Democratic votes for the plan, which would leave House Speaker John Boehner in the unenviable position of pushing it through his own caucus (something he's had a bit of trouble with of late). Still, as much as it hurts, the deal could still be a win for Democrats, and more importantly it is a desperately-needed win for the country.

Emanuel Cleaver finds your lack of revenues disturbing.