Federal Funding 7/23/2010
Senate committee ups Amtrak appropriation, cuts high-speed rail funding
Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a transportation bill that would provide Amtrak $1.96 billion, $666 million short of what the national passenger railroad requested. However, the amount would be $196.5 million more than the House’s proposed appropriation and about $363 million more than what the Obama Administration requested.
It’s unclear how these figures would affect Amtrak’s financial plan, which contains key elements of a fleet renewal and reinvestment strategy, said National Association of Railroad Passengers officials in a prepared statement. Fleet renewal would enable Amtrak to accommodate rising public demand for trains and revitalize the U.S. passenger railcar production industry, they said.
However, the Senate also voted to provide only $1 billion for the high-speed rail program, $400 million less than what the House Appropriations Committee approved and less than half of the $2.5 billion the program received last year.
Comments
Larry Kaufman wrote re: Senate committee ups Amtrak appropriation, cuts high-speed rail funding
on 7/25/2010 11:36:49 AM
Speaking of playing partisan politics, I would suggest that's exactly what you have done, rolfecms, with your references to the huge spending of the past two years and the impending further huge spending. Your readers perhaps remember that George W. Bush inheriterd a budget surplus and declining national debt, then quickly cut government revenue by a tax measure that was skewed to benefit higher income taxpayers and got us into two wars, wiping out the budget surplus and increasing the national debt. I'm not excusing the Obama administration, but do expect discourse here and elsewhere to be based on accuracy more than ideology.
As for fiscal restraint, I'm personally of two minds. On one hand, it is rather obvious even to me that current spending levels cannot long be maintained, although doomsday will not occur within the next few years but over a longer period of time. On the other hand, I believe Americans can have anything for which they are willing to pay. If they choose high speed passenger rail and are willing to scrap other programs, that is their right. Considering the needs for health care (grandma's meds), education, housing, the cost of two wars, and the inability to decide on how the surface transportation program reauthorization is to be funded, I'm inclined to the belief that transportation spending will be stiffed once we no longer can rationalize it as "economic stimulus" spending. Of courese, citizens have another option: raise taxes to cover spending and reduce debt. I'm not advocating, just pointing out that there is more than just the one ideological approach to funding government.
rolfecms wrote re: Senate committee ups Amtrak appropriation, cuts high-speed rail funding
on 7/23/2010 10:39:43 PM
Larry, thanks for the civics lesson, but the point is the US simply cannot afford the price tag of all the federal spending that has occured in the last two years, let alone the additional spending still being contemplated by the current adminstration and congress. Amtrak and high speed rail is but one small part of a huge spending binge that must be brought under control - ie, the party's over and we need to start living within our means. People can choose to believe and argue that this is nonsense and that life will continue just as it has since 2008, but then they should not be surprised when the day of reckoning comes - and that time will commence with the November elections. You can choose to play partisan politics with all this but that won't change the facts on the ground about what must and will happen.
Larry Kaufman wrote re: Senate committee ups Amtrak appropriation, cuts high-speed rail funding
on 7/23/2010 3:01:17 PM
A couple of points by rolfecms need to be clarified. Cngress has the votes (435) to pass anything or to defeat anything. It will have the same number of votes in November that it does today, and it will have the same number of votes in January that it does today. Perhaps rolfecms is thinking of or means Democrat votes? If so, he needs to understand that as there is no Democrat national transportatin policy and no Republicannational transportation policy, transportation just may be one of the least partisan issues with which Congress deals. There certainly is a divide between the liberals, who think spending for transportation is a good idea and the conservatives - even libertarians - who think it is a bad idea to spend any money for anything that doesn't pay its way. Rather than try to defend transportation spending, I'd have an easier time demanding that the conservatives point to most other government programs that they have supported and explain why they are legitimate although they also do not pay their way. If you haven't figured out by now, I'm having some fun with the hypocrisy that some bring to the discussions. What we really have is an unstated attitude that "I wouldn't use public transportation so I don't think you should even have the choice." A bit selfish, don't you think?
jimhardy's comment also deserves further comment. If only our wars came as cheaply as $2 billion, to say nothing of the cost in human lives. It's more like $2 billion a week. A few weeks and, heck, you're talking real money, as the late Sen. Everett Dirksen used to say. As for Kyl-Lincoln, sorry, but news of that one hasn't made it out here to the Mountain West yet. Assuming the $35 billion annual cost is accurate, I question 1) whether that amount could buy all that jimhardy says; and 2) whether there really is a direct tradeoff between estate tax resumption (I see no reform, but the probability that it will be back as of Jan. 1) and paying for rail passenger improvements. Congress doesn't work that way. Sorry, but rail passenger programs will have to justify themselves to a minimum of 218 members of the House and to 51 Senators. None will be impressed by whatever amount is produced by an estate tax. This country wouldn't have its multi-trillion dollar national debt if Congress ever had tied spending to savings. No fun being a big spender in Congress if you have to match income with outgo, is there?
jimhardy wrote re: Senate committee ups Amtrak appropriation, cuts high-speed rail funding
on 7/23/2010 1:55:27 PM
Nothing "realistic" about it. Just painfully small mindedness by our pols.
$2 billion is the cost of our wars through this weekend. Whatever you think of them, we seem to afford them.
The Kyl-Lincoln estate tax "reform" will cost at least $15 billion per year. That enough to pay for the entirety of the Cal system, a major, major upgrade to Acela and two other midwestern or Southern systems during the six year transportation funding cycle.
rolfecms wrote re: Senate committee ups Amtrak appropriation, cuts high-speed rail funding
on 7/23/2010 1:30:03 PM
It looks like political reality is intruding into the government's way-too ambitious spending plans. Whatever the merits of Amtrak's spending requests are, the fact of the matter is the country is in such deep debt after all the reckless spending that has already occurred to date in every facet of American life. This outcome is only the start, because come November Congress won't have the votes they do now - so if they can't pass it now it just won't happen. People need to prepare for that.
