You don't necessarily need to spend the $8bn on railways. You need much less to make an investment on a concessionary basis by private consortia profitable - so on each bit of line you just need to define the requirements for the line and open bids to contractors on the subsidy they need to make it work.

You can leverage quite a bit more of private investment that way. And, if necessary, help provide loans to such consortia by making them eligible to Fed purchase or providing guarantees.

The important thing is to keep control of the overall design, and use the private sector as a contractor for defined tasks.


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes