That's an odd way to look at it: > materials and labor worth approximately X dollars are eliminated from the face of the earth They aren't eliminated from the

That's an odd way to look at it: > materials and labor worth approximately X dollars are eliminated from the face of the earth They aren't eliminated from the face of the earth. The materials exist, just in a new and more useful state state (as tracks, trains, etc.). The labor I suppose doesn't exist, but it never existed as it's not a physical object. > When you give a tax break of X dollars nothing is removed from the face of the earth, the X dollars are now in the pockets of people who may save or spend them Well sort of--those X dollars are presumably spent on something, either immediately or (if saved) some years in the future. When they're spent, the functionality is similar to government spending, in that resources are taken from the earth and transformed into some other good. I'll grant that there's reasonable debate about whether a HSR is a better way to spend $100B than a tax cut, but I don't think "eliminating" things is a valid argument for/against either side.