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Hassles of Air Travel Push Passengers to Amtrak

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[quote user="John WR"] A few more statistics.  TSA News reports airport security screenings cost $8 billion per year and about $6 billion is paid by taxpayers.  (Each screening costs and average of $11.88 and $8.88 is taxpayer subsidy).  This comes out to about $44 per taxpaying family.   Of course more people fly than ride the train.  But this is only one part of the picture.   Here is the link:http://tsanewsblog.com/1625/news/is-tsa-just-another-airline-subsidy/ [/quote] According to the OMB, the total TSA spend in FY 11 was 5.384 million. This includes the cost of the airport screening program, of which the public is most familiar, together with cargo screening, i.e. Federal Express, UPS, DHL, etc., general airport security, the air marshal program, and ground transportation facilities, including scrutiny of Amtrak's facilities. The figures shown in the blogs that you reference are proposed budget numbers, appropriations, etc.  They are different from authorizations and the amounts that are spent in a given year.  In FY 11, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, approximately 633 million passengers boarded flights in the U.S.  At $2.50 per head, the TSA would have collected approximately $1.582 million. It also collects other fees.   Assuming the entire taxpayer funded portion of aviation security is allocable to commercial airline operations, which is not true, the amount would have been approximately .007 cents per passenger mile. This compares to Amtrak’s federal subsidy of 19.11 cents per passenger mile.   Irrespective of who gets what subsidies, people are not going to stop flying and they are not going to stop driving. So the question is where does passenger rail make sense, what should it look like, and how should it be funded?
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