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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015.Boehner says Amtrak crash, funding cuts not linked
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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015.
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paulinusa
It's a reasonable question. Stupid answer expected.
MarkG
With an actual human in control, speeding double the speed limit with no malfunction presently discovered and brakes applied seconds prior to derailment. And 8 deaths with many injured a Democrat wants to make it political! His bad and it was a very inappropriate question!
Spending big bucks everywhere is just not sustainable. We have limits. Printing presses don't pay Amtrak, U.S. Taxpayer dollars do.
nath
If the accident is an effect of political manipulations, then not 'making it political' would be irresponsible.
The problem here is that as the reason for the accident is still unknown, we can't know if it's the result of political manipulations or not yet. In other words, the questioner has jumped the gun on the question.
TumbleDry
Kind of echoes the long tirade on the crumbling infrasctructure by John Oliver on HBO's Last Week Tonight.
USNinJapan2
So Republican spending cuts are to blame for the driver doing double the speed limit and further accelerating into a tight curve? Really? How desperate are these Democrats?
Seawolf
It's not as clear-cut as it may seem. Remember that crash in Osaka, from speeding into a curve as well? So the question to ask would be, why was that driver going that fast in the first place? Plus, there are technologies that will slow down a speeding train ahead of a curve etc. But if money is tight, of course spending money on security will take a backseat.
Triumvere
Amtrak is severely underfunded, and has a huge maintenance backlog caused by budget shortfalls. Even if this particular incident is not directly caused by lack of funding, its only a matter of time. You can't take a rail company and ask it to run like a for-profit business while simultaneously mandating that it keep unprofitable routes open, the way Congress has done to Amtrak. That simply doesn't work.
MarkG
“In other words, for every passenger who traveled [on] one of Amtrak’s long-distance routes last year, Amtrak lost $122.29,” he said.
Broun also noted that Amtrak’s food and beverage service lost $73 million in fiscal year 2013, and $387 million over the last five years. He said a big reason for that is that the average salary for the 1,200 Amtrak employees in the food and beverage service is $106,000.
I'd say cut subsidies, when you have a cash cow you tend to abuse it as we see here. Let them reduce service and salaries. At an average of $106,000 a year for food service is misuse of taxpayer money. At McDonald's where the work is harder the average is probably 1/3 to 1/4 the salary from Amtrak.
mukashiyokatta
Sorry, Boner, head of the Do-Nothings. Everyone sees right through the likes of you. Go back to your tanning salon.
MarkG
Wasn't it Harry Reid who was doing nothing? Don't let the media guide your decisions. They want you to believe what you claim.
jeff198527
Our infrastructure here in the U.S. is ancient. Our sole high-speed rail line (Northeast Corridor) can only travel around 86 mph because of how aged the track is.