[GovernmentShrinker]

I don’t see where the federal government has any business funding local transportation systems. But Amtrak, quite simply, is necessary for national security reasons. We cannot be wholly dependent on flight for medium to long distance travel, and personal vehicles have serious limitations in emergency situations.

If you don’t see how this is a national security issue, I refer you to the events of 9/11. I was in NYC on 9/11, and the Amtrak service through NYC was one of the major hubs for handling the massive number of people stranded hundreds or thousands of miles from their homes when air travel ground to a sudden and complete halt and dropped them off at whatever airport was closest when the universal order to land went out. I bumped into US citizens who’d been stranded in Canada on their way home from business or personal trips to Europe, using Amtrak as part of their makeshift route home to distant parts of the country. Even after air travel began to resume, it was several days before airlines could get their planes back to the right locations from which to offer reasonably normal service, and the NYC Amtrak station remained extremely overloaded for at least two weeks after 9/11. Without Amtrak to fan these stranded hordes out across the country, to places where they could pick up rental cars, regional bus and rail service, be picked up by friends and relatives, etc., the chaos and economic damage would have been much greater.

[hiredhand]

So we need Amtrak to stay the dying horse that it is all in the name of the war on terror eh? Well then why was it ever permitted to last as long as it did before 9/11?

Amtrak is representative of a larger problem in our government. 9/11 woke a lot of people up. Unfortunately, a lot are already going back to sleep. But 9/11 reminded people that we're still a bad lot. But so are the self serving bureaucrats who do things like keep Amtrak alive...at our expense!

9/11 has given no end of agencies no end of excuses to spend money on no end of "things" that are now ABSOLUTELY necessary! These are things like keeping Amtrak alive. They didn't have a good enough excuse before 9/11, but you're telling us that they do now?

The "goobermint" should let Amtrak DIE and redirect the money to TSA and hire some "real" security people and start searching those who match a known "profile" instead of searching little old white ladies and cowaring at Imams threatening to sue.