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[quote user="schlimm"] Subsidy = 1. a direct pecuniary aid furnished by a government to a private industrial undertaking, a charity organization, or the like.  2. agrant of money, especially governmental, to aid private undertakings. A subsidy  is usually given to promote commercial enterprise: "a subsidy to manufacturers during a war. "   I fail to see who is being subsidized in the case of Acela.  On operating expenses, it pays its own way.  Rather better than the billions in subsidies paid to the oil companies every year through tax credits. <div class="dndata"></div>  So, I guess for sam1, words are what sam says they mean. [/quote] In many cases a subsidy is substance over form and does not necessarily confirm to a dictionary definition..  The Acela receives a direct subsidy from the federal government to help cover the cost of the infrastructure that it runs on, the cost of the equipment that it uses, and the capitalized interest embedded in both.  And many of the passengers, in effect, are having their premium ride subsidized by their clients, customers, taxpayers, etc. The oil companies receive no direct subsidies other than tax decuctions that generally are available to all businesses.  They are able to take certain credits that are available to all extractive industries, e.g. coal, gas, etc.  They also get a credit for the risks associated with drilling in high risk areas, e.g. Gulf of Mexico, Alaska Slope, etc.  But subsidies paid to oil companies have nothing to do with whether subsidies should be paid to passenger rail, especially for premium services, and whether using premium services via an expense account is a form of indirect subsidy. Many if not most people don't think of the tax deductions associated with home ownership (mortgage interest, property taxes, exclusion from taxation of most of the capital gain on sale, etc.) as a subsidy.  But economists and accountants have known for years that they are subsidies, even though they don't a traditional dictionary definition of a subsidy.
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