Bush Budget to Scrap Subsidy for Amtrak

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Bush Budget to Scrap Subsidy for Amtrak

U.S. National - Reuters

By Caren Bohan and Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration will for the first time propose eliminating operating subsidies for passenger train operator Amtrak as part of a pu***o cut budget deficits, people close to the budget process said on Tuesday.

President Bush (news - web sites)'s fiscal 2006 budget, which he will send to Congress on Monday, will allocate no subsidy for Amtrak to run its trains. But it will offer $360 million for maintenance on the flagship Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston – which Amtrak owns – and for commuter services.

The proposal must be approved by Congress, and the administration faces a fight in getting approval for a budget that aims to nearly freeze the growth of domestic spending not tied to national defense.

An influential Democrat warned that if enacted, the Bush administration’s budget would set the nation’s only city-to-city passenger service “on a course to bankruptcy.”

Last year, the Bush administration proposed $900 million in subsidies, but Congress increased that to $1.2 billion after the railroad said the administration’s proposal would force it to shut down.

An Amtrak spokesman would not comment when asked about the possibility of the rail service losing the bulk of its federal allocation.

Senior administration officials declined to discuss the 2006 budget figures, but described the decision as part of Bush’s broader pu***o restrain government spending and eliminate what they see as wasteful programs.

“The approach in the budget is to make clear that we cannot support an approach that does not work and calls for increasing burdens on federal taxpayers. But we’d feel differently if reforms are accomplished,” an administration official said.

Another senior administration official added: "Amtrak should be treated like any othe

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Key quote in this article:

“Amtrak should be treated like any other form of transportation and funded like any other form of transportation. The other forms don’t get operating subsidies.”

Finally, someone has discerned the difference between highway funding, airport funding, and Amtrak funding: It’s the operating subisidies. It is also interesting that the Administration will continue to fund NEC infrastructure. This is consistent with basic federal transportation policy, it is apropos to fund transport infrastructure, not transport services.

The question now is if the federal guaranteed right of a passenger service to access the private Class I rail network will also be eliminated, or if it will be retained for transfer to state, regional, or private rail passenger service providers. If the latter is the case, Amtrak will evolve into a federal regulatory body, with the power of transfering access rights of proprietary rail lines to other entities, just as I have suggested over the years. If it is the former, a golden opportunity to reintroduce the concept of private rail passenger services will be gone forever (or until open access is instituted, whichever comes first).

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We can spend 200billion dollars to destroy and then rebuild a country half a world away, but no money for the train.

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…Of course we don’t yet know for sure if that will be the case…{not in the budget}, but it surprises me none at all if it comes to be true…! But I do still recognize we are spending our taxpayers money to rebuild the raiload in Iraq…Where is the justice…? Is something wrong here with this picture…

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I Think Bush need to be out of Office Now, and Each Gov. of each state up put up a big fight to bush and Congress Needs to put bush in his place Now. War is 200 plus billion now and we give aid to Russia and other country every year like 80 to 100 Billion. We can’t help are our own people out first, but we give aid away like its candy to other country . [V][V]

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…And the article indicates: NEVER MADE MONEY…Wow…what a surprise. Count up the losses over time for the airlines and see how well they’'ve done.

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It is a sad state of affairs when the feds can waste our money 80b here 200b there, A highway here and there,a airport here and there. I have some dire feelings about the current administration and the road we are heading in. [:(!][V][xx(][:(] I would like to see some of our so-called Senators and Reps give Mr Bush a good fight on this issue.

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Why destroy the only alternative to flying there is in this country(and I don’t include driving as an alternative to flying because americans do it every day). This seems like deja vu all over again from George bu***he elder’s only term in office. Let the USA go down the drain just to build up another country. Amtrak, imho, is very vital to our country. What private passenger trains in the USA made money in the long term after WW2? I hope our Representatives and Senators do fight Bush on this proposal.

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$360M in the budget! That’s just about the most ever included in a Republican Prez’s budget. Nixon and Reagan usually had ZERO in their budget.

So, no real news.

Even when the Reps controlled the WH and Cong. before, Amtrak always got their money. Suspect more of the same now. In the end, Amtrak will get their $1B or so. …and Amtrak will limp along for another year.

…as for FM, now I see that some kinds of subsidies are better than others? Operating subsidies are veboten, but hidden ones are OK, I suppose. If I have to spend $100/month on mortgage (capital) and $100/month on groceries (operations), and I only earn $100/month, I’d would be OK to subsidize my mortgage but not my groceries? What’s the difference? $100 is $100!

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oltmannd

I just took a survey of the dollars I have set aside for taxes. They are about 50-50 on the issue of capital vs. operations. I don’t know…

Jay

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I used to work Summers in Sunnyside yard back in the mid 70’s when I was in college, and Let me tell you, I never saw so much WASTE in my life. I was a car inspector. Our work rules limited us to two cars/train and two trains/ day. My day began at 8:00 AM when We (the inspection crew) punched in. We then proceded to the diner on Queens Blvd. for breakfast. After about an hour, The Crescent came in for service (if it wasn’t late out of Washington (it was always on time south of DC because Southern ran it there)). I inspected two cars, and if nothing was wrong, I was done until the Broadway came in about 1:00 PM. Once I went over two cars, I was done for the day unless there were problems that required repair or (God Forbid) shopping a car. So if nothing was wrong, I “Worked” a grand total of 45 minutes a day, but paid for 8 hours.

I don’t know if any of this has changed (I left in 1978 when I finished College), but I can bet that there is still a lot of waste going on.

Look, I know that not ALL of AMTRAK runs like that, but maybe if it could work a little more efficiently, AND provide SOME G O O D Customer Service, It may even come close to breaking even on it’s DIRECT operating costs.

I AM a supporter of AMTRAK, but it CAN’T just spend money like a drunken sailor either. (I am also MAD at how the Congress and the President are wasting our money elsewhere, after all it is OUR MONEY that is being wasted)

Mark E.

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Why on earth would you leave a job like that? [:D]

It sounds like that isn’t really the case anymore, in fact it sounds to me like the shop staff and car inspectors are spread fairly thin.

I do always wonder how so much money can be spent abroad, and yet the US is forced to cut back services for it’s own citizens, the ones footing the bill none-the-less.

Oh well, it’s not my Country, not my problem. [%-)]

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Don,

The analogy is a bit off. What the feds do is to support highways, waterways, and airports. e.g. infrastructure through user fees and state/local discretionary spending, with additional moneys often coming from economic development grants and the like. What this does is to allow access by multiple service providers, mostly private, so that users of these pathways have options for transport. What the feds DONT do is to directly fund transporter services, which is why Amtrak has been such an anomoly of federal spending protocols. No AmAir, no AmShip, no AmBus, etc, but plenty of JFK’s and I-5’s.

Infrastructure historically does not do well under private ownership, thus the need for public funding, whereas service providers can and do do well as private entities competing with each other and via this competition improve the level of their services. In this vein, the U.S. rail network is kind of a freak of nature, and because of this private ROW ownership we have had rail retrenchment going on for nearly a century. Conversely, there has been no retrenchment of any highways, waterways, or airports that I know of. I expect if other transportation ROW’s were privately owned we also would have seen closures in those areas of infrastructure.

What the Bush Administration is doing (I hope) is to take the feds out of the business of hauling people and instead engage in the practice of infrastructure upkeep whereby other service providers can utilize said infrastructure for the purpose of hauling the things Amtrak used to haul.

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OOPS I should have typed that I left in 1978 when I finnished College (FAT FINGER)
It didn’t take THAT long to do 4 years of school 8^)

Mark E

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I know I am really going to catch alot of S—T here but here goes. Mark E,'s comments make me want to say just one thing in response…“God bless the unions for the situation he describes here”. The unions had a real place back when they were formed and a little bit of value still comes from them today, but really, how much blood can they wring out of a stone before they put more companies out of business (which they have already done many times before)?. The company I work for employs over 800 people in WI factories while never having been unionized. The unions try and convince the workers every year that they need union protection and never, ever succeed. Why, because our associates are treated very well, paid well and are happy in their jobs…SO they don’t need a union!

Having said that and while bracing for the obvious onslaught of c–p from others on the forum, I will also add that it seems like a real disconnect to me (and hopefully to others here) that we Mr. Bush is advocating cutting Amtrak subsidies while spending over one billion dollars for a fleet of new Presidential helicopters (what, we need to ride in old train cars and in old planes while the older helicopters are not good enough for you, King Bush).

OK, now you can sock me sqarely on the jaw. Fire away!

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It’s funny, down here the Silver Service trains are full.

Amtrak has been threatened before. I’m skeptical as to this happening. It’s the game of “If a states want Amtrak, they need to pay for it!”

Thos of you here that support Amtrak, contact your congressional rep. I intend to. Sitting quiet accomplishes zero. A large group leaves input, it does make a difference.

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Let me be the first to agree with you. I have seen many good company’s relationships with their employees go right in to the dumpster when a union was brought in. Granted, in some isolated cases a union is still needed, but most of the time all the union does is create a “us vs them” atmosphere.

BTW, FYI: the war in Iraq is costing us $720,000 per MINUTE. To see how much it is costing your community, check out this site: http://costofwar.com/

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FM-

You need to dig a bit deeper and ask why these things are so. All of your statements are a result of value-based choices, not laws of physics. They are not reasons why things couldn’t or should’t be different.

Medicare is an example. Infrastructureless. Fully funded by gov’t. Not paid for by user fees.

The government COULD have subsidized health care infrasturcture for seniors and let service providers use those facilities at a cut rate and funded this with a value-added tax on medical supplies.

I don’t really care how gov’t taxes me or what they call the tax. What I care about is how much they take, if the use aligns with my values and how efficiently they use it. Everything else is an artificial restraint.

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I wonder if the Reform Council’s proposal to unbundle Amtrak didn’t get at some of these issues indirectly (or directly, but unspoken!)

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…You bet…The Reform Council’s proposals are lurking at every turn this adminstration does looking at Amtrak. As proposed, it was turned down by people that know what has to happen to make it work but our adminstration is…damned, full speed ahead, get rid of this transportation mode…except when they want to clammer on one to ride to a campaign stop.