What the? The USA is the richest country in the world, no where else in the world do the people live in such luxury, extravagance and wealth, I think you need to put things in perspective. The average person in the USA has a far higher standard of living than the people of china and Saudi Arabia, a slow train isn't going to change that.

The la-li-lu-le-lo?

Let me just say this, America deserves better roads, bridges, schools, and trains. We are becoming a third world country. Hillary clinton, bernie sanders, ted cruz, jeb bush, and many other think this is okay, but its not. Chicago trains are disgusting and expensive!

Are you serious? The guy that has proposed a 1 Trillion USD plan to rebuild US infrastructure? Dammit...

don't worry about it, it's much worse. Avoid the Pain.

SO are we taking private transport or public and are the American people prepared to pay for it , also you have all those different states and a large land mass , Saudi Arabia being a large part desert only needs to service the more populated spots and has a lot smaller population and oil money.
China here we are talking about about a nation that has built entire cities then tried to fill them not always successfully in the name of infrastructure /modernisation so throwing money around isn't an issue also Beijing can exert control over the entire outcome , even then I'm sure they have plenty of overcrowded poorly run trains.

I don't think all Japanese trains are high speed bullet ones just as I don't think you have people herding passengers with sticks at every station.

Favouring consumption taxes burden disproportionately the poor, have cascading effects on inflation (at the same time managing to keep the velocity of circulation of money low,making the economy slower), and favour informal economics and the black market, lowering tax income and disadvantaging State-sponsored welfare systems.

Overall a terrible idea next to income taxes. Case in point, probably the biggest experiment on consumption taxes of the planet, the Brazilian economy. Don't go down that slope, please.

Believe it!

My bad, thought you were referencing my grammar nazi-ism

Obama has already proposed a $10 per barrel tax on oil, which would roughly translate to an additional 25 cents or so at the pump because the surcharge would be put directly on the oil companies, who of course will be all too happy to pass the cost onto you and I the consumer.

And what would Obama use the money raised from this new tax for?  Shoring up our infrastructure and building new roads, bridges and tunnels?  Nope... more subsidies to alternative /  "green" energy companies, high speed rail that only a fraction of the population will ever use, and pushing "driverless" car technology, because apparently MORE cars on the roads that drive like old ladies coming home from church on Sundays are the answers to our traffic congestion problems.  Not a cent of it would go towards our crumbling highway infrastructure.

Luckily it has about as much chance as passing as Obama does serving a 3rd term as president... which is zero.

Our infrastructure has been crumbling for decades. Yet nobody in the government seems to think it's a big issue. Like you pointed out, many countries have far better infrastructure than the US (who's supposedly supposed to be the greatest nation on Earth).