I wonder how Maine can prepare itself for the future by using old technology like railroads and wind turbines instead of developing new and exciting technology like hydrogen or, even better, nuclear power that isn’t as dangerous.

The state government recently bought a railroad in northern Maine that wasn’t making a profit and is now in the process of rebuilding the Mountain Division Rail Line which used to run through South Windham to Fryeburg. At the same time our government is subsidizing wind turbines and after reading about the massive failure of the turbines in California, I feel that we are being railroaded right to the Poor House.

Altamont Pass, Tehachapi and San Gorgonio are located in California and are considered to be some of world’s best sites for wind turbines. Now there are around 14,000 abandoned turbines there alone. I have to laugh because one town near where I was stationed in Germany during the early 1970s had a windmill that looked like the Dutch windmills of old. The first time I saw it off in the distance I found it to be an impressive thing to look at so I drove to it. Once standing close by the windmill with its blades turning I made a remarkable discovery. The wind wasn’t blowing and yet the blades were turning. The owner of the mill explained it was running on an electric motor so he could make the blades turn when a tourist bus came through town and he did it for business, not a government-sponsored tax break.

The reason there are so many abandoned turbines in California and other places is the fact that developers received subsidies of 50 percent of their total investment. Another problem was the fact that the wind only blew about 20 percent of time. Maintenance problems caused the downfall of the turbines in the end. In other words these turbines couldn’t stand on their own, without massive government subsidies.

Yet here in Maine and other East Coast locations more and more wind turbines are being subsidized and built. Can’t we learn anything from history? Unfortunately, wind power and trains are not the only things subsidized by our federal government. I mentioned in a prior column that even ethanol receives government subsidies because it costs more than a gallon of gas to manufacture.

I believe it is time to ask ourselves about setting priorities instead of trying to subsidize each and every project or pipe dream that comes along. We know that our infrastructure like roads and bridges are collapsing all across our nation. If you take a look at federal spending in education you will see increases in some areas of over 400 percent and yet we as a nation have gone from first place to 31st place in math. One of the goals of the U.S. Department of Energy was to wean us off of foreign oil. President Johnson’s Great Society program had a goal of ridding our nation of poverty.

I laugh although I should cry thinking of when I was stationed in Washington, D.C., and the federal Paperwork Reduction Act was passed. It not only created another federal bureau, it also created tons of paperwork.

The problem I have with government subsidies, along with bonds and stimulus packages, is that nowadays all that money is borrowed money and someday our tax dollars have to pay for all that spending. It’s time to draw a line in the sand because we will drown as a nation in our own debt, which was one of the fears of some of our Founding Fathers.

Maybe we have become like the two drunks walking between the railroad tracks. One of them said, “This is the longest stairway I have ever been on.” To this, the other replied, “It’s not the stairs that bother me, it’s the low railings.”

Lane Hiltunen resides in Windham.