It is long past time to put high-speed rail tracks down the median of I-95 and have real high-speed rail along the entire Northeast Corridor — and beyond. - Hate Mail

THIS ONE'S too easy. I didn't make up that some people are calling Biden's economic policy "Catholic social doctrine in action," in fact, just this morning this was posted.

President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill follows in the footsteps of his American Rescue Plan. It is an example of Catholic social doctrine in action. Taken together, they represent not only a repudiation of Reaganomics, but the introduction of a new kind of social policy we could and should call Fratelli Tutti economics!

Infrastructure projects are, almost by definition, oriented towards the common good — a major theme in Fratelli Tutti. The $115 billion for roads, bridges and highways will not only put tens of thousands of people to work, but will result in a long overdue improvement in our crumbling transportation system, a system we all use. Even if you do not own a car, you need good roads and bridges for the trucks that bring the produce to your grocery store.

An estimated $85 billion is dedicated to public transport and another $80 billion to freight and passenger rail. Anyone who has traveled abroad knows that our mass transit systems are pathetic when compared to those found in other industrialized nations. As often as not, the situation we face is the result of decisions made in the 19th century. Consider the case of high-speed rail. Amtrak trains could run much faster than they do now. It is the tracks, not the trains, that need updating.

The tracks are owned by the rail companies, not by the state, because in the 19th century, before the advent of the federal income tax, the rail companies had the money. It is long past time to put high-speed rail tracks down the median of I-95 and have real high-speed rail along the entire Northeast Corridor — and beyond. Amtrak is envisioning high-speed connections between Nashville and Atlanta, Phoenix and Southern California, and Louisville and Nashville.

It is one of the too little known curiosities of current life that even the most reactionary of recent Popes have been to the left of Bernie Sanders on economic policy, as can be read in their encyclicals. That JPII and his chosen successor, Benedict XVI put Republican-fascists in virtually every office they appointed doesn't alter that even they haven't dared, in most cases, to contradict the radicalism of Catholic social doctrine even as they worked hand-in-red-velvet glove to thwart it.

Joe Biden's economics are probably not conceived of by him or the other Catholics in his administration who are calling for it as "Catholic social doctrine" because a. they are also good economics, b. egalitarian economics, c. small-d democratic as well as Democratic economics. If Joe Biden gets it done and it has the effect that it should, it would transform the United States in ways that Democrats haven't dreamed of doing since 1968. Expect the Republican-fascists in the media and on the courts and, especially, the Catholic-fascist dominated Supreme Court to fight it with everything they've got. 

 

And while we're at it, in the ecumenical spirit of the late Hans Kung, it's also good Christian, good Jewish and good Islamic, etc. social policy.