This should bring out the opponents because if it should pass even close to request AMTRAK SHOULD BE IN A MUCH BETTER POSITION ? note that it actually is a 10 year plan but funds only for 5 years/
President Pushes Bold Plan for Passenger Rail
The Obama Administration released its budget request for Fiscal Year 2014 today, and the President has once again put forth a bold plan for transforming and expanding train service in the United States, with $40 billion in passenger rail investment over the next five years.
The Administration’s budget allocates $6.6 billion to the Federal Rail Administration for fiscal 2014, with increasing amounts each subsequent year through 2019, then decreasing amounts to 2023. The request will be a boost for Amtrak, coming a day before the House Committee on Transportation holds a hearing on the railroad’s FY 2014 budget. The hearing, Amtrak’s Fiscal Year 2014 Budget: The Starting Point for Reauthorization [which will be streamed live], will address Amtrak’s funding needs, as well as the coming rail reauthorization (the current law will expire at the end of this September). Amtrak announced yesterday it had set a new ridership record during the first half of this fiscal year, and will be looking to translate its steady increase in popularity into an increase its funding for badly needed equipment purchases and infrastructure upgrades.
Passage of a reauthorization bill this year is uncertain, but the appropriations commit
No doubt President Obama can get his bill introduced in the House. It will then be referred to a committee where the Chair is a Republican. How does he prevent his bill from getting bottled up in committee?
People think this is funny. People think that the government in a system where people of widely differing opinions from one’s own are heard, that such is somehow corrupt or captured by narrow special interests.
Given that Amtrak requires (some) public money to operate, it no longer operates strictly in the marketplace but it then operates in the public square. Not everyone shares our views of the inherent goodness of trains, or even of the inherent necessity (Amtrak carrying 1 out of every 1000 U.S. passenger miles). Not everyone who disagrees with us or is not persuaded by our arguments in favor of trains is venal, evil, or corrupt are maybe even necessarily wrong.
Amtrak needs to compete with all manner of budget priorities – old-age pensions, health care, and yes, even national defense. Sure there may be waste in government, even in national defense, especially in national defense, but go present arguments about the frivilous nature of spending money so our men and women at arms are best equiped to some of our remaining WW-II veterans. We probably overspend on defense but there was a time when we underspent on defense and our people paid with their lives.
I am not in any way saying that Amtrak is not a good way to spend what President Obama is proposing, but there are many competing priorities for government support. It speaks to a lack of seriousness to somehow suggest that money spent on Amtrak is virtuous whereas every other demand on government money represents waste.
Why yes, my parents were naturalized citizen refugee immigrants to this country leaving relatives back behind the Iron Curtain, and indeed yes, from
Ummm. Thank you for your Civics lesson, Paul. But as a person who was born and educated in the U. S. I am not sure that all of my teachers would agree with you.
OK. But Frank Willner’s article seems to me to be, well, wrongheaded.
No doubt Congress will scale back President Obama’s proposals. But Amtrak is a lot better off with a President who is optimistic, perhaps even overly optimistic, about trains and with a President who wants to kill Amtrak. An that gets overlooked.
Also the talk about Gucci and tourists may be amusing to some readers. It has nothing to do with the issues.