Reason Alert E-News

Reason Alert: Bailouts and High-Speed Rail’s True Costs

  • Bailouts Will Cost Taxpayers One Trillion Dollars
  • California’s High-Speed Rail Plan Will Cost Billions More Than Advertised
  • Serve a Cause Greater Than Yourself on the Taxpayer’s Dime
  • Continuing to Debate Feminism and Gov. Sarah Palin
  • New at Reason.org and Reason.com

Bailouts Will Cost Taxpayers One Trillion Dollars
Reason magazine’s David Weigel writes, “The bailout of the banking industry–which seems to be calming traders–could cost you $1,000,000,000,000. Yes, that’s the right number of zeros…if this was a serious country, wouldn’t this prompt Obama and McCain to stop talking about how they’re going to spend more of our money? All we hear from this is some babbling about firing Chris Cox and blaming the other guy for having the wrong advisors. Oh, and insisting they were right all along.”
» Will Automakers Get the Next Bailout?
» Freddie and Fannie Were Never Privatized

California’s High-Speed Rail Plan Will Cost Billions More Than Advertised
California’s proposed high-speed rail system will cost tens of billions more than advertised and ridership numbers will be much lower than predicted, according to a new Reason Foundation due diligence report on the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plans. The study also details why high-speed rail won’t deliver on promised travel times or meet emission reduction goals.
» Reason Foundation’s Adrian Moore’s Op-Ed in the Orange County Register: Rail Plan Off Track
» Moore at FlashReport: Train Will Add to State’s Budget Woes
» Listen to Moore Discuss the Rail Plan on KQED Radio in San Francisco

Serve a Cause Greater Than Yourself on the Taxpayer’s Dime
Reason.com Editor Nick Gillespie writes, “…last Thursday’s ‘Service Nation Presidential Candidates Forum,’ at which ‘Obama, McCain Set Aside Politics, Call on Americans for Public Service,’ left me alternately vomitous and sleepless. It’s never a good sign when politicians ‘set aside politics.’ When elected officials go bipartisan, it’s a sure sign that all voters are about to get rubber-hosed, and especially so when it’s done so in the name of ‘public service.’ Public or national service is virtually always a euphemism for you and me to play a bit role in somebody else’s grand drama. The only thing that varies is the invasiveness of the casting call.”
» Shikha Dalmia Op-Ed in the WSJ: Comparing Obama and McCain on Public Service

Continuing to Debate Feminism and Gov. Sarah Palin
In a column for The Wall Street Journal, Reason magazine’s Cathy Young writes, “I disagree with Sarah Palin on a number of issues, including abortion rights. But when the feminist establishment treats not only pro-life feminism but small-government, individualist feminism as heresy, it writes off multitudes of women. Of course, being a feminist role model is not part of the vice president’s job description, and there are legitimate questions about Mrs. Palin’s qualifications. And yet, like millions of American women — and men — I find her can-do feminism infinitely more liberated than the what-can-the-government-do-for-me brand espoused by the sisterhood.”
» Video: Young Discusses Her WSJ column on Fox News Channel
» Audio: Reason magazine’s Katherine Mangu-Ward Discusses Gov. Palin and Women on NPR’s Talk of the Nation