Posted on 08/09/2010 2:53:27 PM PDT by Willie Green
Hurray for bloated government subsidized, tax supported, money losing, unneeded, unwanted trains.
what for ...we dont have any jobs...for people to go to..no economy....this is just about slush funds for politicians to soak us down some more. let states pay for this if they want it...
22 years and do trains? The government is really slow and undependable. How do they expect to keep a train schedule?
nice to know the country will be going directly to Hell at no less than 110MPH
“Planned extensions include San Diego...”
The people living in North San Diego County will not even allow the double tracking on the existing rail line near Encinitas. They will go ape at the thought of a bullet train (with new larger right of way) through Del Mar and La Jolla.
If we’re wasting money on welfare....we might as well spend pennies to upgrade our trains.
I’ll certainly argue against federal subsidies for this but at least it is something useful for my tax dollar. Once we get rid of all the other programs that as taxpayers I pay orders of magnitude more and get no (or negative) return from then I’ll worry about the few pennies going to produce infrastructure that is at least related to article I section 8 expenses.
AMTRAK hasn’t ever shown a tendency to make a profit beyond what you’d consider ‘marginal’....so now we think a high-speed train will turn a profit? Something just doesn’t click here.
high speed rail from Dallas to Texarkana. Yeah, thats just what we need...
Passenger rail in the midwest illustrates why central planning does not work. Any competent central planner would plan exactly the same transportation system that the invisible hand would. That is because it is rational and clearly the best from a logical perspective.
But the central planners are not competent technocrats. They are politicians and emotional idealists driven by nostalgia and irrational disregard for facts and logic.
Chicago–St.Louis $68.5 billion. $2.6 billion so far? Wrong, $2.6 billion is just the part for 1 year from 1 appropriation/pot. So far the total already spent is much more than that. It comes from many pots. HUD money has been used to be the local matching share to State Money that was the state’s matching share to federal money.
In 2004 the subsidized cost to the taxpayer of each trip from my Normal to Chicago was $214. $187 of it subsidy. That cost more than tripled on Bush’s watch and is now to grow exponentially rather the linear.
Amtrak is 20 min slower to chicago than car on interstate when Amtrak is on time, which is 50% of the time.
We live in a democracy. People vote with their money, and with their feet. Green Leftists, conservatives, the non-political, everyone at ISU (a block from Amtrak) prefer in this order:
- Your daddy’s car with no passenger (or maybe it is yours)
- Carpool with 1 or 2 other passengers
- Peoria Charter; many up at the Student center Thurs and Friday to take thousands of students to hundreds of destinations and return Sunday night.
- Other buses: Other Charter, Greyhound, Megabus, Cavallo, Cunejo, etc
- Pretend you have ISU business near your house, recruiting at your local HS, mentoring the disadvantaged with ISU getting the credit, etc. If on ISU business then probably you can use one of their many cars or vans.
- Airplane: a little more costly and usually to go farther than Chicago.
Fewer people vote for Amtrak than any of the alternatives.
So why do we fund passenger rail? Nostalgia. My grandson loves Thomas the tank train. Thomas is a coal burning steamie. Passenger rail fans have the same maturity as my grandson.
The funny thing is that if we eliminated Social Security and Medicare overnight as well as striking ObamaCare unconstitutional, we could actually cut our taxes immensely, pay off our national debt and still have plenty of money to enact Eisenhower style high speed rail system in the U.S.
You got that right about the LaJolla-ites not having any of this.
That little train station they have now is pretty sweet. Nothing is going to change there...to much $$$.
AMTRAK probably doesn’t make a profit, just as the post office doesn’t. I’d expect that certain high density corridors may well make a profit or at least could if managed properly, just as UPS and FDX make profits at mail delivery. (Though given the footprint of rail and rights of way some state or local government intervention is likely)
for sure...I think the American people should go on strike. if congress doesnt have to read or name the bills it passes then we shouldnt have to work to pay for the crap
Here in Florida we had a referendum rejecting this boondoogle from Miami to Orlando and over the I-4 corridor to Tampa. The people said NO and still the bastards push.
They figure it will cost nearly as much to ride the damn thing as it would to fly from Argentina to Miami.
Anyway the folks here rejected this subsidized pos and still they want to shove one up our wallets.
Govt should be reduced by about 65 percent.
If PRIVATE industry can make a cost-benefit analysis that supports building a transportation system, let them do it. Keep the freakin’ federal gubmint out of this. We don’t support ANY of their socialist crap programs, this one included. Americans have cars that we buy, maintain, insure, and supply fuel for, we DRIVE CARS, we don’t ride commie trains.
yeah!!!! cause we just aren’t going bankrupt fast enough!!!! HOOOORAAYYYYY
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