Should be the title of this paper.
http://www.narprail.org/cms/images/uploads/nationalnetwork.pdf
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
It seems this article wasn't written for you, Oltmannd.
Emily Dickenson said "I never saw a train I wouldn't take." I agree. But I guess you wouldn't find Emily's argument as persuasive as I do.
John WR It seems this article wasn't written for you, Oltmannd. Emily Dickenson said "I never saw a train I wouldn't take." I agree. But I guess you wouldn't find Emily's argument as persuasive as I do.
Nope. I have never seen a train I wouldn't take. I wish there were lots more trains to ride. But that doesn't mean I should expect others to pay for my fun.
Well, Oltmannd, I happen to live in the middle of the Northeast Corridor so I don't ride the Texas Eagle or the California Zephyr (not that I wouldn't like to). The trains I ride, New York to Providence or Newark, NJ to Washington, DC do pay their own way.
However, I'm willing to pay the additional taxes so my neighbors in the west can ride trains.
John WRHowever, I'm willing to pay the additional taxes so my neighbors in the west can ride trains.
Me, too. But, I want Amtrak to be a good steward of that money. They are not. And, it might wind up killing them.
Like you, Oltmannd, I want Amtrak to be a good steward of its money from all sources. Amtrak is not perfect and I'm sure there are areas where it could do a better job.
But have you ever heard of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008? Under that act the Federal Government paid out billions of dollars to bail out businesses where management made bad business decisions and the businesses were facing bankruptcy because of those bad decisions. Once the private businesses got all that Federal money too many of them used it to pay enormous managements salaries and bonuses. We heard about individual managers collecting million dollar salaries for decisions which, but for corporate welfare, would have led to the companies going out of business. If that is the standard of stewardship required I think Amtrak's performance is not a total failure.
John WR Like you, Oltmannd, I want Amtrak to be a good steward of its money from all sources. Amtrak is not perfect and I'm sure there are areas where it could do a better job. But have you ever heard of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008? Under that act the Federal Government paid out billions of dollars to bail out businesses where management made bad business decisions and the businesses were facing bankruptcy because of those bad decisions. Once the private businesses got all that Federal money too many of them used it to pay enormous managements salaries and bonuses. We heard about individual managers collecting million dollar salaries for decisions which, but for corporate welfare, would have led to the companies going out of business. If that is the standard of stewardship required I think Amtrak's performance is not a total failure.
Perhaps. The situation isn't all that analogous and it suffers from the fallacious "everyone's doing it" argument. One program is wasteful, so it's OK for all of them to be wasteful?
Amtrak's biggest problem, the root of it all, is that their management focus is trying to justify their subsidy each year. There are few thoughts of trying to do things better, fast or cheaper. Improvements, when they occur, are usually the result of outside pressure.
It's not really Amtrak's fault - they were set up this way. No rational manager would take on the risk of change with no prospect of reward. 40 year of Amtrak haven't gotten us much. Look at the 1971 route map vs today. Pretty much the same. Look at the schedules - same thing. Then, look at the population trends in the country over the 40 years. Has Amtrak service adapted to these changes? No. Has ridership climbed as fast as the population over 40 years? No. Has Amtrak been at the forefront of what service improvements outside the NEC that have been made? No.
But, it's not their fault. If we want better results, we have to change the game - or at least try to make Amtrak more accountable for what they do with their money and equipment.
There have been some signs of improvement in the past several years, but they have been small and minor.
Rep. Mica is certainly using hyperbole when he calls Amtrak a "Soviet style railroad" and his hearings are certainly great circus. But, along the way, he showing what an easy target Amtrak is for budget hawks. Amtrak's response? "It's only $1.46 per taxpayer". Yeesh. That's no argument at all. If that's such a good deal, how about every taxpayer give me just one penny!
Actually, I don't think Mica "hates trains" or even "hates Amtrak". I think he just wants us to have good trains at the best possible price.
I don't know how Amtrak came up with its number, $1.46 per taxpayer, but it seems low.
In FY09 Amtrak had an operating loss of $1,3 billion. In 2009, of the more than 140 million people who filed a federal income tax return, only 81.9 million paid federal income taxes. The average subsidy for taxpayers, as opposed to tax filers, in FY09 was $15.44.
Advocates arguing that Amtrak's subsidy is chump change are correct, as are the advocates for crop insurance, essential air services program, tax free funding for TVA, etc. On and on they go. Each little bucket of chump change adds deficit and debt. The other question, as some have noted, is whether the money Amtrak loses, mostly on the long distance trains, could be better deployed, i.e. passenger rail for DFW to Houston and San Antonio.
Amtrak's FY09 operating loss consists of the cash loss on operations as well as the depreciation and the interest amortization. Amtrak shows federal operating subsidies and capital subsidies in separate buckets. Thus, the operating subsidy appears to be much smaller. However, proper accounting is to amortize the capitalized expenditures over the expected life of the asset, which is what I have done, and flow it through the income statement to determine the annual operating loss.
Averages can be deceptive. In FY09 approximately 12 per cent of filers had Ajustable Gross Income of more than $100,000, but they paid 75% of the federal income taxes. If we assume that they proportionally covered Amtrak's losses in FY09, the taxpayer cost for Amtrak would be $54.88 for the top 12 per cent of taxpayers.
Caution is the word when taking numbers from news reports. More often than not they are either spun to distort or presented superficially.
My analysis is based on personel income taxes. The federal government gets revenues from corporations, businesses, partnerships, leases, excise taxes, user fees, payroll taxes, etc. One could argue that some of these monies flow to Amtrak since many of them go into the U.S. Treasury. Or one could argue that the subsidy for Amtrak is understated because it does not take into account the fact that Amtrak pays no taxes, which is an indirect subsidy.
oltmanndActually, I don't think Mica "hates trains" or even "hates Amtrak". I think he just wants us to have good trains at the best possible price.
When I listen to John Mica's words, Oltmannd, it certainly sounds like he would happily do away with Amtrak and believe he is doing the country a great service. I cannot find a single positive thing he has said about Amtrak. Do you know of anything?
He has been a Representative from Florida's 7th Congressional District for 20 years and wins the general election quite easily. Usually he doesn't face challengers in the primary but this year he did, a Teaparty candidate. He did will with a good majority but he may be running a little scared and sees attacking Amtrak as a way to win conservatives in his own district. Or he may have a strong principled objection to Amtrak. Or there could be another reason.
Actually if I lived in much of the country I would envy Florida's Amtrak service. While most places are lucky if they get 1 train a day Florida gets 2, the Silver Star and the Silver Meteor and the Florida portion of the schedule is during the day light hours. Also, Florida is a terminal for the Autotrain.
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