Voice of Support for Amtrak in Senate

[ColdRain&Snow]

It was nice to see a counterbalance this morning to Mica's latest call for a 25% reduction to Amtrak's operating subsidy over the next two years. Draft of the Senators' letter can be found here.

Let's keep calling and writing our elected officials and ask them to speak up in support of Amtrak.

 

[amtkstn]

This letter was made out by senators in states with good Amtrak support. We need the other states to get on the train and put thier support in to make Amtrak shine.

 

[jis]

Where the heck is Boxer and Feinstein?!!

 

[Bob Dylan]

Where the heck is Boxer and Feinstein?!!

Maybe they are like John McCain, their staff didn't tell them that their State was served by Amtrak! :help: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Ryan]

I sent both of my Senators a note of thanks...

 

[Anderson]

*sighs*

And they're all in one party. Not to mention, where is Mark Warner on there?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

If your senators are on this list be sure to thank them for their show of support for Amtrak. If your senators are not on this list you might want to ask them what their position is and let them know you support continued funding.

Jim Webb (D-VA)

Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)

John Rockefeller (D-WV)

Richard Blumental (D-CT)

Ben Cardin (D-MD)

Tom Carper (D-DE)

Chris Coons (D-DE)

Dick Durbin (D-IL)

Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY)

John Kerry (D-MA)

Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

Carl Levin (D-MI)

Joe Lieberman (I-CT)

Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)

Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Tom Udall (D-NM)

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Applied fix to Carl Levin as noticed by Trog.

 

[Edgefan]

Very disapointed to see that neither of my (Iowa) Senators signed. I can assure you, they WILL hear from both my wife and myself! (Charles Grassley and Tom Harkin, if anyone is interested) :angry2:

 

[LA Resident]

If the President and Congressional leaders are serious about cutting $3 trillion or more from the Federal deficit over the next 10 years, then these Senators are whistling past the graveyard, I'm afraid. There is no way for that amount of deficit reduction to be planned without Amtrak taking cuts, perhaps significant cuts. The constituencies for Medicare, Social Security, agriculture, defense, education and so forth are far stronger and better-positioned in Washington, yet all are probably in for reductions. That leaves little hope for Amtrak to escape unscathed.

I just hope that the long-term result is not a truncated set of Amtrak routes, similar to the map posted by Ryan in the separate topic of Sunset Service NO-FLA.

 

[AlanB]

If the President and Congressional leaders are serious about cutting $3 trillion or more from the Federal deficit over the next 10 years, then these Senators are whistling past the graveyard, I'm afraid. There is no way for that amount of deficit reduction to be planned without Amtrak taking cuts, perhaps significant cuts. The constituencies for Medicare, Social Security, agriculture, defense, education and so forth are far stronger and better-positioned in Washington, yet all are probably in for reductions. That leaves little hope for Amtrak to escape unscathed.

I just hope that the long-term result is not a truncated set of Amtrak routes, similar to the map posted by Ryan in the separate topic of Sunset Service NO-FLA.

While you may well be right that Amtrak will suffer some cuts, the simple reality is that cutting Amtrak's funding is but a very, very tiny drop in the bucket. Cutting Amtrak to zero for 10 years would only provide $16 Billion towards the deficit. We aren't going to reduce the deficit by $3 Trillion by saving $16B.

Not that I'm advocating for it, but returning the Federal fuel tax back to its original purpose would accomplish far more. That would bring $400B to $500B to the table to help reduce the deficit. Of course that would also devastate state budgets as they try to compensate for the lack of Federal dollars.

 

[Trogdor]

Carl Levin is Michigan, not Illinois.

 

[ColdRain&Snow]

While you may well be right that Amtrak will suffer some cuts

If the poo hits the fan and Amtrak takes a significant hit to its operating budget, would it be possible to institute a surcharge on every ticket to help make up the difference? I for one would not mind paying for it if it meant relieving a bit of the ridiculous financial pressure that Congress seems to impose upon Amtrak every year in its appropriations.

 

[jis]

While you may well be right that Amtrak will suffer some cuts

If the poo hits the fan and Amtrak takes a significant hit to its operating budget, would it be possible to institute a surcharge on every ticket to help make up the difference? I for one would not mind paying for it if it meant relieving a bit of the ridiculous financial pressure that Congress seems to impose upon Amtrak every year in its appropriations.

A 10% surcharge on Amtrak tickets will gather something like $200 million per year, which is less than a third of the shortfall in overall budget ignoring depreciation for the moment. OTOH, if the net government subsidy were cut by a third,again ignoring depreciation and debt service, I suppose this could cover the difference on the cash side.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

While you may well be right that Amtrak will suffer some cuts, the simple reality is that cutting Amtrak's funding is but a very, very tiny drop in the bucket. Cutting Amtrak to zero for 10 years would only provide $16 Billion towards the deficit. We aren't going to reduce the deficit by $3 Trillion by saving $16B.

In his or her defense I know lots of people who think you can't resolve a $50,000 debt by cutting back on a $5 latte. So they don't. And their debt never gets paid off. However, I'll agree that it's not nearly enough on it's own to have any real impact. The really big expenditures are based on funding the world's largest war machine and a couple of government services that cater to retired citizens. Without severely curtailing one or more of those major programs and/or substantially raising taxes on the wealthy there is virtually no way to balance our federal budget.

 

[Ryan]

Nah, all we have to do is cut taxes far enough and the magical money fairy will make everything OK.

 

[Trogdor]

While you may well be right that Amtrak will suffer some cuts

If the poo hits the fan and Amtrak takes a significant hit to its operating budget, would it be possible to institute a surcharge on every ticket to help make up the difference? I for one would not mind paying for it if it meant relieving a bit of the ridiculous financial pressure that Congress seems to impose upon Amtrak every year in its appropriations.

There's no point in adding a "surcharge" to Amtrak tickets that goes right back to Amtrak. It's called a fare increase.

 

[ColdRain&Snow]

While you may well be right that Amtrak will suffer some cuts

If the poo hits the fan and Amtrak takes a significant hit to its operating budget, would it be possible to institute a surcharge on every ticket to help make up the difference? I for one would not mind paying for it if it meant relieving a bit of the ridiculous financial pressure that Congress seems to impose upon Amtrak every year in its appropriations.

There's no point in adding a "surcharge" to Amtrak tickets that goes right back to Amtrak. It's called a fare increase.

All fine and good Trogdor, but among other things, a surcharge that was descriptively named would at least bring visibility to the plight of Amtrak's funding issue to every passenger that bought a ticket. Raising fares would not necessarily raise passenger awareness that Amtrak needs more political support from its passengers and the elected officials that represent us.

 

[LA Resident]

If the President and Congressional leaders are serious about cutting $3 trillion or more from the Federal deficit over the next 10 years, then these Senators are whistling past the graveyard, I'm afraid. There is no way for that amount of deficit reduction to be planned without Amtrak taking cuts, perhaps significant cuts. The constituencies for Medicare, Social Security, agriculture, defense, education and so forth are far stronger and better-positioned in Washington, yet all are probably in for reductions. That leaves little hope for Amtrak to escape unscathed.

I just hope that the long-term result is not a truncated set of Amtrak routes, similar to the map posted by Ryan in the separate topic of Sunset Service NO-FLA.

While you may well be right that Amtrak will suffer some cuts, the simple reality is that cutting Amtrak's funding is but a very, very tiny drop in the bucket. Cutting Amtrak to zero for 10 years would only provide $16 Billion towards the deficit. We aren't going to reduce the deficit by $3 Trillion by saving $16B.

Not that I'm advocating for it, but returning the Federal fuel tax back to its original purpose would accomplish far more. That would bring $400B to $500B to the table to help reduce the deficit. Of course that would also devastate state budgets as they try to compensate for the lack of Federal dollars.

Of course a cut in Amtrak's budget would be a drop in the bucket. A cut in any government program other than defense and entitlements doesn't by itself add up to much. But as another posting pointed out, in essence, a lot of $5 cuts begin to accumulate real money, just as one $5,000 cut would. And the political reality is that every program will have to take some hit if the talk of $4 billion in reductions to the deficit is real. And playing Devil's advocate, many politicians would argue that the impact of Amtrak on US society is but a drop in the bucket compared to a myriad of other government-funded programs.

I would like to see Amtrak have some contingency plans--perhaps it does--of where it would trim or cancel and still maintain a national system. Otherwise, the NE, California and a few other spots will end up with the only viable services.

 

[sportbiker]

There's an interactive graphic from the NY Times that shows the sizes of different parts of the budget, and it also lets you separate out the discretionary spending. Locate the amount spent on all of railroading (I didn't see Amtrak broken out separately). It's miniscule. This is not an argument to save my ox. I want you to look at the bigger picture. Look at how small (relatively speaking) the non-defense discretionary spending is. Look at how large a percentage defense + veterans benefits is, and I'd lay odds the defense box doesn't include the off-budget supplementals that pay for our overseas adventures. Hacking at safety net programs like WIC and infrastructure services like the FAA and Amtrak is not going to balance the budget: they simply do not consume enough dollars to begin with. The big-ticket items have to be cut, and I would say we need to strategically increase some taxes.

 

[LA Resident]

There's an interactive graphic from the NY Times that shows the sizes of different parts of the budget, and it also lets you separate out the discretionary spending. Locate the amount spent on all of railroading (I didn't see Amtrak broken out separately). It's miniscule. This is not an argument to save my ox. I want you to look at the bigger picture. Look at how small (relatively speaking) the non-defense discretionary spending is. Look at how large a percentage defense + veterans benefits is, and I'd lay odds the defense box doesn't include the off-budget supplementals that pay for our overseas adventures. Hacking at safety net programs like WIC and infrastructure services like the FAA and Amtrak is not going to balance the budget: they simply do not consume enough dollars to begin with. The big-ticket items have to be cut, and I would say we need to strategically increase some taxes.

You are right. But we are talking here about political reality. The reality is that every sacred cow, justified or not, big or small, from agriculture subsidies to airport subsidies to Amtrak subsidies to Head Start subsidies to NOAA subsidies to NASA subsidies and so on and so forth, will be forced to take some type of cut at the same time that the truly big-ticket items with large constituencies can be hacked i.e. social security, Medicare, defense. In other words, the cuts to programs with small, even infinitesimal dollar amounts compared to the overall deficit, will be required so that lawmakers have political cover to offend those truly major interest groups for social security, Medicare and defense. Otherwise, just imagine Medicare recipients all over the country pointing to programs like trichinosus research or heavily-subsidized long-distance train travel, and saying, how come that's not being cut? I'm not saying this is right; again, it's political reality.

Just take a look at what has happened to state and local budgets throughout the country, including those in our own state of California. Cuts to libraries, park maintenance, fire stations--all a small portion of these state and local budgets compared to pension payments, health payments and police protection and prisons--have been significant in order that politicians can then say: hey, there's nothing left to cut BUT money from the big programs.

One further observation: Here in Southern California we have the most successful rail corridor outside of the NEC. Yet I continue to meet well-informed people on a weekly basis who have no clue there is a very viable alternative to fighting the daily traffic jams in going between LA and San Diego. So the protection of Amtrak is probably not very high on the agenda of a majority of politicians, 20 some Democratic senators notwithstanding.

 

[henryj]

All 'D's and all eastern states except for three. Looks like Amtrak will be just the east coast and Chicago after 2012. All LD trains will go except for Florida and Chi to east coast. The only hope will be some private operator steps in to take over something like the EB and the CZ and maybe the SWC, but it will be seasonal and very expensive. More like the Rocky Mountaineer and not real passenger service. I think Texas and the southwest will be without any passenger trains at all. Even the east coast trains will have to be state supported. The NEC will go private with the Feds retaining the ROW. Out West, California and Wash/Oregon will be state supported entirely. CS will go private or just go away. Local day trains out of Chicago will survive but be state supported.

Ride em while you can.