Da Beers!

Da Beers!

Monday, June 1, 2015

MISGUIDED POLITICAL RETRIBUTION?

A House committee cut about a fifth of Amtrak’s funding on a party line vote the day after the fatal Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia. Presumably this was meant to punish Amtrak for the horrific accident that killed 8 and injured more than 200 with some in critical condition.

The problem with this pretzel logic is that Congress voted in 2008 to implement Positive Train Control (PTC), a computerized system that would have slowed this runaway train.  Sadly, however, Congress has never actually funded PTC. Does that mean all this blood is actually on the hands of Congress?

All the other civilized/industrialized nations (China now included) understand the value of a modern rail system, and they’ve put their money where their mouths are.  Meanwhile, the US continues to underwrite air travel with billions of dollars in subsidies … but won’t spend a few million on rail safety technology that would save lives.

Follow ups:

Has a train engineer ever used a passenger train to commit suicide a la the co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525?

Has Congress ever stopped the billions in tax dollars that subsidize air travel in this country (more than $155 billion as of 1999 according to a secret Congressional report)?


Federal Direct Spending on Aviation, 1918 to 1998
federal aviation subsidies