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Re: FRA Invites Bids to Replace Amtrak on Three Routes
Author: Margaret (SP fan)
Date: 08-04-2017 - 00:58
\Why, oh, why, must all public services be based
on a "business model" in order for people to support
them? What is wrong with using our taxes to "promote
the general welfare", which means, to me, to provide
needed human services? Why does every single human
service have to make a profit? And what is so doggoned
holy about organizations that manage to make a profit?
Why are those for-profit organizations held up as the
only acceptable model for meeting human needs?
Look - Amtrak's entire annual subsidy / appropriation
in FY 2014 (the latest I was able to easily find info on)
was around $1.45 billion, which the entire federal budget
for FY 2014 was $3,605 billion. That means Amtrak's entire
federal appropriation (subsidy) was only 4/100ths of one percent
of the entire federal budget -- which is not even a rounding error.
Math does not lie. (1.45 divided by 3,605 = 0.00040221914.)
And here is another fallacy in logic used by those who support
killing long-distance trains: almost no one else does it now,
so why should we? In other words, we here in the US are supposed
to be satisfied with whatever the people in other countries have,
no mater how skimpy or bad that is. (Well, then, let's also
copy Europe's "healthcare for all", and their giving all employees
5 weeks of vacation every year. 'Nuff said.)
And why do so many people who support passenger trains insist
the we here in the US should copy everything the Europeans do?
This demand ignores the glaring fact that the United States is
huge, compared to Europe. I think it is true that you could
fit all of western Europe into Texas with room left over! So --
what is done in Europe will not always or often work here.
For one thing, freight trains in Europe are quite short and
therefor light, and can therefore easily share the same tracks
as fairly fast passenger trains -- but they do not share the
high-speed tracks.
And providing for the common good -- in this case, long-distance
passenger trains -- will always need and deserve healthy subsidies,
just as do our highways and our military get, neither of which ever
can make a profit.
on a "business model" in order for people to support
them? What is wrong with using our taxes to "promote
the general welfare", which means, to me, to provide
needed human services? Why does every single human
service have to make a profit? And what is so doggoned
holy about organizations that manage to make a profit?
Why are those for-profit organizations held up as the
only acceptable model for meeting human needs?
Look - Amtrak's entire annual subsidy / appropriation
in FY 2014 (the latest I was able to easily find info on)
was around $1.45 billion, which the entire federal budget
for FY 2014 was $3,605 billion. That means Amtrak's entire
federal appropriation (subsidy) was only 4/100ths of one percent
of the entire federal budget -- which is not even a rounding error.
Math does not lie. (1.45 divided by 3,605 = 0.00040221914.)
And here is another fallacy in logic used by those who support
killing long-distance trains: almost no one else does it now,
so why should we? In other words, we here in the US are supposed
to be satisfied with whatever the people in other countries have,
no mater how skimpy or bad that is. (Well, then, let's also
copy Europe's "healthcare for all", and their giving all employees
5 weeks of vacation every year. 'Nuff said.)
And why do so many people who support passenger trains insist
the we here in the US should copy everything the Europeans do?
This demand ignores the glaring fact that the United States is
huge, compared to Europe. I think it is true that you could
fit all of western Europe into Texas with room left over! So --
what is done in Europe will not always or often work here.
For one thing, freight trains in Europe are quite short and
therefor light, and can therefore easily share the same tracks
as fairly fast passenger trains -- but they do not share the
high-speed tracks.
And providing for the common good -- in this case, long-distance
passenger trains -- will always need and deserve healthy subsidies,
just as do our highways and our military get, neither of which ever
can make a profit.
