What does it mean to say "the money isn't there." Where is the money?
Currently, in other departments, like DOD.
Btw the Green new deal calls for " a new
national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on
a scale not seen since World War II"
Other than politically why is this not possible? If the Nazis were engulfing the world rather than climate change, would we not be able to do this?
Why isn't it possible in 10 years? How many years is it possible in?
I don't know. But here are my concerns.
Power plants:
You'd have to replace every power plant in ten years. And not only that, you need to retrain the workers, too. I don't know if you have to make changes to the power lines but generally, I imagine that this is the most feasable part of the deal and that, if they really wanted to, they could have it done in ten years.
Cars:
Millions and millions of cars, trucks and busses have to be replaced. Not only that, they have to be built first. I do believe that the technology exists to build electrical cars, trucks and busses that can travel long distances and that it has simple been tucked away in some file cabinet because the fossil fuel industry has no interest in electrical cars that can compete with regular cars. But, unless car manufacturers plan to give them away for free, people have to buy them. And for that, they have to have the money to buy a new car. The way things are going economically right now, many people can't afford that. (And I say that assuming that electrical cars would be normally priced once they become mainstream).
Electrical cars also require loading stations. Basically everywhere. So, the loading stations have to be built and installed and they have to be checked/repaired regularly.
Public Transit:
The Green New Deal calls for an expansion of public transit. According to the internet, the silver line expansion took three to four years alone from the time it was green-lit to when construction began. (It's unclear if they started construction in late 2014 or early 2015). So, they are now in year 4 or 5 of construction and year 8 overall it's not even finished yet. And that's only an expansion.
But even if we speed up the bureaucracy, there is only a limited amount of workers who can do that kind of work. Both, the engineers and construction workers. I'm assuming many states don't even have that kind of construction workers or only a handful. There is a limited amount of machinery. So, even if you trained workers you also have to build new machinery. But there is probably also only a limited amount of factories that produce it and to build more, so you'd have to find someone who wants to invest in that and again, you have to train workers. It takes time and one would depend on finding enough people who'd want to do that kind of work.
There is the same issue with regards to tracks and subway cars. Only so many can be built in a year.
Plus, once it's all done, you need people who operate subways and busses. And they need to be paid.
Train:
Amtrak is in a horrible state and uses tracks that are owned by freight companies. Since that means freight companies have the right of way on those tracks, Amtrak rarely is on time. To make train travel attractive, the government has to replace the tracks they own, they have to lay thousands of miles of new tracks and they have to lay new tracks where freight companies own them so they don't have to yield to freight trains anymore.
In places, there's private property right next to the trains, so, if that's a place where tracks are owned by freight companies, they'll have to find alternative routes. If that's a place where they want a high speed train or it's single track and they need two tracks, they'll have to find an alternative route. That requires planning, probably means building new train stations and new roads leading there. That requires the cooperation from local governments.
All of it needs to be hooked up to a computer system that makes sure that there are no accidents.
As far as I know, the US currently does not produce high speed trains (which I believe they need if they want to make train travel attractive). So, they either need to make a deal overseas or they need to invest in their own. The latter requires them to train workers and do testing. The former means they're dependent on how many trains can be produced overseas.
More trains means they need more "train traffic controllers" and more train conductors and stewards and again, you need people who want the job, and you need to pay them.
Both trains and public transit also have to be built in a way that doesn't further harm the environment. That can drive up costs.
Plane travel:
Like I said, it's not going to become unnecessary, no matter how great the train system is. Flying across the country will probably be always quicker by plane than train and even if they managed to develop a train that could beat the plane, you will always need planes to travel internationally. Well, even nationally, because I just remembered Hawaii.
So, even if Congress agreed to a deal that makes it financially possible tomorrow, I think that the size of the country, the limited number of workers and work equipment and unforseen circumstances (like weather events or things like softer/harder/soggier/dryer soil than expected) don't make it possible in ten years.
But that doesn't mean that I don't want them to start. I want them to look at it and I want them to say "this is possible" (and I don't mean what Republicans think is possible but what truly is possible) and then I want them to start the day after.