Eh, this spending puts money into people's pockets just as much as tax cuts would, economically. The government isn't taking a hundred billion dollars and setti

Eh, this spending puts money into people's pockets just as much as tax cuts would, economically. The government isn't taking a hundred billion dollars and setting it on fire: it uses that money to purchase labor and manufactured goods, the price of which itself comes heavily from labor costs. The question is whether a high speed train that doesn't offer any appreciable advantages over flying is more economically useful than the combination of investment and consumer spending that equivalent tax cuts would generate. Another factor is that, as a Californian, I'd rather the federal government take my money and give it to people relatively near to me in my economic network than take my money and give it to oil barons in Texas. Californians don't have a choice between high speed rail money subsidized by federal dollars or healthcare/tax cuts/education/actually intelligent infrastructure choices subsidized by the same federal dollars: it's this or nothing.