When someone says, “Let’s go out for sushi,” I don’t think about whether I can afford a sushi dinner that night or how to fit it into my diet plan. I just get so excited about the possibility of having sushi that I figure I’ll just put it on the credit card and sacrifice next week’s budget to cover it.

This is how many people with political influence have been treating the potential rail projects in North Carolina. Our own Governor Perdue is so excited about it, she’s accepting a $461 million federal grant for rail improvements here in N.C. In the most recent email announcement from her office, she was touting that the rail grant would create 4000 jobs in the state.

The fact is, though, those jobs are costing U.S. taxpayers over $115,000 each. That’s just scratching the surface for what this could cost our state as we know such projects typically go magnitudes over their budget. In addition, most of those new jobs are likely temporary positions for the duration of the improvements.

Who will these rail projects benefit? Well, it will help cover much-needed improvements to the rails, including updates to bridges and crossings. However, these existing rails are owned by private companies. So, you might call it a rail bailout of sorts.

Why the federal investment? Amtrak, the only company providing passenger rail services in North Carolina, is owned and operated by the federal government. They operate on privately-owned rail with the agreement that the owners’ trains (all freight) have higher priority. By investing in the improvements to the rail, the federal government is hoping Amtrak will be able to run at higher speeds and, thus, can run more trains. The commercial rail companies then benefit by not having to pay their rail improvements.

What bothers me most about this is Perdue’s tunnel vision when it comes to rail in North Carolina. These projects will supposedly make it easier for passengers to get back and forth from Raleigh to Charlotte. That’s great if you only want to be in Raleigh or Charlotte. It’s not clear, though, how this will impact the rest of the state. Perdue sees the jobs and the rail that she wants, but she doesn’t care about the costs to the millions of people who will not use the rail: their private property seized, more of their income taxed.

I’m currently reading Atlas Shrugged all the way through for the first time. I put it off after reading the novels Ayn Rand had written before that, intimidated by the size of this, her most famous publication. But, the first movie is coming out soon, and I’d like to get through the book first.

So, when I read about the rail hype going on today, I can’t help but think that people like Perdue are so blinded to the costs that they need a Galt-scale reality check. Hopefully, we will have something like that in the near future thanks to innovators like Patri Friedman and his colleagues at the Seasteading Institute.

In summary, the governor seems content to accept this federal grant as the first step of yet another project draining resources from the rest of our state to benefit the people of Raleigh and Charlotte. The next time I take an Amtrak to Charlotte, I’ll be sure to put a big thank-you sign in the window.