Whether that ought to be the case is an interesting debate, but political reality is that it won't happen. In all fairness, the airline industry that sets "the market price" for intercity travel receives huge subsidies from the federal government, including the air traffic control system, the security-weenies at the airports, and most of the FAA bureaucracy. According to the USDOT, between 1982 and 1989, only 57% of all federal funding for aviation came from the Airport and Airways Trust Fund, a revenue account supported by various aviation user fees and charges. The rest (43%) came from the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury. So the reality is, our intercity transportation system is subsidized up the wazoo. Again, we could debate whether that is good or bad, but yanking it to zero in one fell swoop is not a realistic proposal. It's a PR stunt. |
I think we can safely say that there is no way in Hell that the Amtrak budget will get out of Congress in the state where Bush put it.