Free Republic

...however there is no law that spells this out.

How does 26 USC 6012 sound?

Sec. 6012. - Persons required to make returns of income

(a) General rule

Returns with respect to income taxes under subtitle A shall be made by the following:

(1)

(A) Every individual having for the taxable year gross income which equals or exceeds the exemption amount, except that a return shall not be required of an individual -

(i) who is not married (determined by applying section 7703), is not a surviving spouse (as defined in section 2(a)), is not a head of a household (as defined in section 2(b)), and for the taxable year has gross income of less than the sum of the exemption amount plus the basic standard deduction applicable to such an individual,

(ii) who is a head of a household (as so defined) and for the taxable year has gross income of less than the sum of the exemption amount plus the basic standard deduction applicable to such an individual,

(iii) who is a surviving spouse (as so defined) and for the taxable year has gross income of less than the sum of the exemption amount plus the basic standard deduction applicable to such an individual, or

(iv) who is entitled to make a joint return and whose gross income, when combined with the gross income of his spouse, is, for the taxable year, less than the sum of twice the exemption amount plus the basic standard deduction applicable to a joint return, but only if such individual and his spouse, at the close of the taxable year, had the same household as their home.

Clause (iv) shall not apply if for the taxable year such spouse makes a separate return or any other taxpayer is entitled to an exemption for such spouse under section 151(c).

Click here for the rest of this law.

This is the ONLY thing that I'm going to say on this:

It would appear that the police acted properly (as they do 99.9% of the time) because they had reasonable cause (both the informant and the scent of ether).

According to the story, the man let the police into his house on his own accord, after the police offered to get a search warrant (even though the story says "threatened," it sounds more like they offered to get a search warrant). By letting them in, he has provided consent for a search, therefore the police were right.

Also, he lied to the police by telling them that it was faulty plumbing, when in fact it was a meth lab. I don't know of anyone who would use ether to fix plumbing...maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like common sense to do it.

And every time you ride a train it costs me $40. Every ticket on AMTRAK is subsidized by the government $40. If you want a thrill go to Disneyland. Trains are great and air travel is great but let them exist on their own profits. The northeast and west coast corridors are the only profitable lines. As long as you support a broken horse all you have is a broken horse.

On the West Coast corridors (specifically the California Corridors--Capitol Corridor; San Joaquins; and Pacific Surfliner (ex-San Diegans)), there has been a lot of investment by the state of California in getting the fleets for those lines in shape and paying for the repair of their cars.

The only reason that the corridors (specifically the Northeast and Midwest/Chicago Hub) show a "profit" is Amtrak's accounting. Studies by Andrew Selden (of the Minnesota Association of Rail Passengers and United Rail Passenger Alliance) have shown that despite spending (in 2002 dollars) over $40,000,000,000.00 in the Northeast Corridor, they are still over $12,000,000,000.00 in debt on those capital improvements. (Source: "Corridor and Long Distance Myths and Realities", Andrew C. Selden, 11 March 2002)

Good question. We don't.

Wrong.

From a Letter Regarding Amtrak FY2004 Budget, dated April 11, 2003, the National Conference of State Legislatures included the following in their letter:

Earlier this year, CNN and Gallup conducted an internet public opinion poll that illustrated overwhelming support for Amtrak. According to the poll, over 85 percent of participants support providing Amtrak with $2 billion annually to fund its operations. Based on this poll and other polls conducted in the summer of 2002, it is apparent that Americans value the services provided by Amtrak and understand the importance of maintaining a viable cross-country rail system.

Also, keep in mind that in between Washington and New York, Amtrak has about 50% of the combined air and rail traffic along that corridor. This is from a news release of July 16, 2003 from the National Association of Rail Passengers, and is available for reading online.

kellynla:

More of your hard earned tax dollars going down a rathole. Sell AMTRAK, pulllllezzzzzzzz!

Verax:

$22Billion Dollars in subsidies since Amtrak stared in 1972 and we're STARVING THEM TO DEATH!??

How 'bout getting your dirty paws out of my pocket and try turning a profit or shut the hell down.

What about all of the tax dollars that go to roads and the airline industry? Is that spending justified, or is it OK because they're "more popular" forms of transportation? It seems to me that many people have forgotten that the airline industry received $15,000,000,000.00 (68% of what Amtrak has received since its inception) in free Federal money as a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11. The most ironic part of this federal giveaway is that as a whole, the airline industry has never made a profit. Clearly, there are some airlines, like Southwest and JetBlue who, on their own, are making profits; and that is without having to maintain facilities like airports, runways, and the related support staffs required to keep them in good running order.

On the other hand, Amtrak has to maintain its own stations, and in the Northeast (and a part of southern Michigan), maintain its own track. The only good thing that Amtrak has is that a majority of its route-miles are on other railroads (who, by the way, Amtrak pays to have the right to run on their tracks), which pay for their own maintenance without any help from the Federal government.

It's amazing to see folks just say something like "Nobody rides the train, why should we bother spending money on it?" When a person says that, it makes me wonder if they ever have been on a train. If they have and the circumstances of their trip caused them to become a "never again" rider, that's primarily the fault of the on-board service personnel (unless it's a condition where there was a fault with the car, which is primarily the fault of deferred maintenance--caused by a lack of proper funding); on the other hand, if they haven't ridden a train, they should try it out once, the ride may be suprising.

Can we first have an explanation of all the Amtrak derailments since 9.11?

The two major derailments since 9/11 (Auto Train, in April, 2002, and Capitol Limited, in July, 2002) were caused by poor maintenance by the host railroad, CSX Transportation.

I'll echo the sentiments of CedarDave in that a passenger is much safer in a train than in an airplane due to the fact that in most derailments there are no fatalities and only minor injuries. Only in rare circumstances (like the Sunset Limited incident in Louisiana in 1993--caused by a barge striking the bridge that the train passed over; and the City of New Orleans incident in Bourbonnais, IL, in 1999--caused when a trucker decided to ignore the warning lights which were functioning at that grade crossing) are there a "significant amount" of fatalites, and even in those cases, a vast majority of the passengers survive.

Southwest?

Yes, I am fairly certain that, currently, Southwest and JetBlue are making profits, but if I'm not mistaken, (I don't have the quote memorized) Mr. Buffett was speaking of the whole airline industry over the whole life of the industry. It is nice to see that someone is actually making money in the airline industry, but it certainly is the exception rather than the rule.

Going by AMTRACK is the best way to travel in my humble opinion. You get to see the country and take a more leisurely trip. Sadly, many of AMTRACK's passenger cars are very old and badly need to be redecorated.

It's not the decoration that is the real issue with their rolling stock; it's the maintenance. A recent proposal going around the company was to take certain trains (#1/2 Sunset Limited and #21/22 Texas Eagle, for example) and have them run with only one engine. The main reason for this adjustment is that (as far as I can understand it) the contract with General Electric places the cost of maintaining the engines on Amtrak. Also, the reliability of the Genesis P42 (a/k/a AMD-103) is quite lackluster, especially in the last few months, causing delays to the trains, especially if the only unit breaks down, stranding everyone until the host railroad can get them a "tow."

Also, many of the passenger cars themselves are becoming very unreliable. For example, passengers on Train #2 (departing LA Friday night) were forced to wait in Houston on Sunday for their dinners to arrive from a local KFC, due to a bad dining car, which had to be left behind in Tuscon because the wheels were bad; also, having ordered (and paid for) 200 dinners at 1130 that morning, only 182 had been produced by 4:15 PM.

The following from the All_Aboard Yahoo! Group sums up the conditions at Amtrak:

Every single day it is happening somewhere. The diner off the westbound SW Chief was set out at Albuquerque on Thurday, broken spring. The baggage and dorm car on the next day's SW Chief were switched to the rear end and the dorm vacated. Burned up HEP [Head-End Power] wiring.

Three trips of the SW Chief in the past week had an engine failure.

Friday's eastbound California Zephyr, same thing, engine failure while climbing Donner Pass. Saturday's California Zephyr was delayed leaving Emeryville because two burned out, arced-over HEP receptacles on the Sleeping Cars had to be replaced.

The fleet is falling apart.

Let's see, they are riding rails laid down decades ago at taxpayer expense, and the rails appear to be in fine condition.

If I am not mistaken, until the formation of the Consolidated Rail Corporation, no railroad (with the possible exception of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific and the first transcontinental route across the country) has received federal subsidies. There was, of course, the Railroad Post Office (RPO), which did (I believe) receive money from the United States Postal Service for moving the mail in the most efficient way. Also, those rails that were laid down by the railroads require maintenance, none of which (as far as I can tell) is paid for by the government.

Amtrack is receiving taxpayer funding which amounts to free money; and the rates they charge to travel are many times higher than the cost of either traveling by car, or by airplane.

The airlines and roads are also receiving taxpayer money, but I don't see anyone (especially those in the administration) complaining about that, so why shouldn't passenger rail? I will agree, however, that (at times) the fares are higher. However, a search for a one-way ticket from Milwaukee to Minneapolis/St. Paul yielded a $90.00 ticket from Amtrak and prices ranging from $250.00-$385.00 on Northwest Airlines. Clearly, one could find a lower airline rate for this city pair, but I'd challenge anyone to find a lower rate.

Time for the US Gov't to allow free market to work. If they can't control expenses and profit; they go under.

I agree with this sentiment, however, it should be equal for all forms of transportation. Maybe if the airlines had to pay for the personnel that make an airport work, more people possibly could understand the situation that Amtrak is in.

"The Bush administration proposed today to pay for intercity passenger rail service on the same basis that it pays for mass transit, with Washington paying part of the capital cost,..."

So, when is the administration (or any administration, for that matter) going to say the same thing to the airlines? Considering the fact that as a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11, the Government gave $15,000,000,000.00 (not even 1/2 of what Amtrak has received in over 30 years) to the airlines without any expectation of re-payment, why should passenger rail be forced to make a profit.

If I am not mistaken, Warren Buffett made the observation that over the 100 years of flight, no airline has ever made a profit, despite being the gracious recipients of governmental funding, and not having to pay for the facilities they use (airports, runways, etc., which are all paid for by the government).

It's also quite telling that (as far as I can tell) Cato has never come out in favor of ending airline subsidies--maybe someone can correct me on this.

Bump and a ping to most of the chat regulars!

bump

He suffered from a pulmonary Aneurysm, according to Tim Russert

[05:56:39] < agitator > centcom briefing coming up

I hate it when it thinks someone is an HTML tag :)

[07:25:16] * Disconnected
Session Close: Sat Apr 05 07:25:33 2003

[05:56:39] centcom briefing coming up I think that I was disconnected right after this comment, so I don't know what's up at all [07:25:16] * Disconnected <--- of course, It took me putting some test lines into mIRC before it recognized I was disconnected Session Close: Sat Apr 05 07:25:33 2003

Can any of you all get into the server? I haven't been able to since about 0600 CST.

There's a java chat (IRC) client at:

http://chat.agitator.dynip.com/

There are also instructions on how to use a regular IRC client

pinging the chat regulars!

for later reading

Bemp!