The Supreme Court would, and did, say otherwise: “Amtrak was created by a special statute, explicitly for the furtherance of federal governmental goals. As we have described, six of the corporation’s eight externally named directors (the ninth is named by a majority of the board itself) are appointed directly by the President of the United States - four of them (including the Secretary of Transportation) with the advice and consent of the Senate.”
SEC. 301. CREATION OF THE CORPORATION.
There is authorized to be created a National Railroad Passenger
Corporation. The Corporation shall be a for profit corporation, the
purpose of which shall be to provide intercity rail passenger
service, employing innovative operating and marketing concepts so as to fully
develop the potential of modern rail service in meeting the Nation’s
intercity passenger transportation requirements. The Corporation will
not be an agency or establishment of the United States Government.
It probably does have to be a ward of the state as it is everywhere else in the world. The question really is:
“Does the ward have to look like Amtrak?”
Which opens up two options - other than status quo: 1. Amtrak gets replaced with some other structure. 2. The structure of Amtrak changes.
The latter might be easiest. One poster around here suggested that Amtrak could actually become a contract administrator and that all services need to operate the trains would be subbed out to a variety of contractors. e.g. one to maintain the trains, one to operate them, one to provide food services, one to provide hotel services, one to maintain track, one to maintain signals & dispatch, etc.
One thing to remember is that the host RRs are only required to host Amtrak trains. Trains by any other entity would have to be handled by separated contracts by each host road - and the roads would be free to “just say no”. They do not have this right with Amtrak.
It would be fair to say the Amtrak is a nearly-wholly owned private subsidiary of the US Government.
There is middle ground. Amtrak stays. The “state routes” ante-up. The farebox + state subsidy recovery gets close to 100%. The “anti’s” lose their major talking point. The conversation continues to pivot toward corridor development - including the NEC (see the latest from the FRA). The LD network remains irrelevant, but becomes more and more “politically invisible”. Amtrak runs the wheels off the Superliners and P42s in the next several decades. LD routes get rationalized into a few links between the emerging corridors - with services and equipment to suit.
It looks to me like that is where Amtrak is now heading.
How does amtrak difer from Fannie Mae and Sallie Mac and the post office for that matter
For starters, Amtrak actually carries people to where they want to go. The Post Office will deliver many things. But not people.
To be fair though there aren’t really any private companies in this country. Through pension funds and CAFRs the government owns most publicly traded companies. About 70% of stock in publicly traded companies is government owned. Only self owned companies are really private. Even with self owned companies have to deal with government regulations. About 90% economic activity is government if you include regulations and cafrs on top of other government spending.
And where would you suggest that state pension funds and similar bodies invest their funds if not in the shares of publicly traded companies?
I recommend that employees are given what they were promised and the programs are discontinued with the rest either refunded to tax payers or spent of programs they want. The governments have far more assets in CAFRs and Pension funds then it will ever need. For more info on the subject watch one of the corporation nation films you don’t have to watch only a small piece of one of the corporation nation films to get an idea.
What are ‘corporation nation films’?
What if you cram them into one of those flat rate boxes?
If it fits, it ships?
Sorry folks but this is becoming quite political. Time to move on.