> . . . . . it causes my head to spin when money approved for one purpose (e.g., high
> speed rail") can be re-appropriated for a different purpose. . . . . .


It is a semantics problem.

Of course, the word "semantics" is a lot like Mark Twain's "statistics". He just as well could have said "There are lies, damnable lies; and then there is semantics!"

The fact is, that the 8-10 billion in "High Speed Rail" money was specifically touted as another economic stimulus package. But to accomplish any stimulus, it needed to be spent quickly, on "shovel ready" or near shovel ready projects. . . . Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

But the cruel hoax there, was that there ain't any shovel ready projects specific to so-called "high speed rail" in America (not even one); and damn few at all in public passenger rail, either! And they all knew it too!

So from the first dime on forward, all of this money has been spent on upgrading existing infrastructure. With the sole exceptions of the Florida HSR project (now defunct), and the California HSR project (all but defunct), none of that money went to anything truly high speed. Some did go towards Amtrak's 110mph Michigan line and to the NE Corridor. Much of the rest went towards speeding up existing conventional trains - thus "High Speed Rail".

So as per usual, political semantics (in this case - Obama's) did in fact say one thing while they actually did another. But what the hey - it fooled most of us passenger rail supporters; and also diffused some of the growing opposition, to more government spending in the guise of yet another "job" stimulus.

As for me, I'm not terribly annoyed that it got spent on beefing up existing train services; as this was the real intent from the get-go (judging from how the appropriation was actually written). Besides, we must significantly beef up existing passenger rail services anyway, before we will ever be able to succeed with truly high speed rail. No country on Earth has ever managed a high speed rail system without such infrastructure already in place - and we will not, either.

So with that bit of reality declared - we come back full circle. Money spent on an important active passenger rail station, is in fact advancing the cause of "High Speed Rail" over the long term. So it really is just semantics! Obviously though, Americans need a lot more clarity on what their politicians are really doing; and they are just going to have to re-discover a lot more patience as well.

Rome was not built in a thirty minute sitcom!

OPB