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Maria Saporta’s July 4th article titled “Rail should be 3rd leg of nation’s transit plan” was socialistic and ignorant of economic reality. Her rationale fails in the first two paragraphs and continues its descent by jumping to the conclusion that government subsidies are appropriate, effective, and the path to “a civilized First World nation.”
To recommend passenger rail subsidies because we lag other countries is akin to a child’s “….all my friends are doing it…” argument.
In paragraph five, Ms. Saporta suggests increasing rail passenger subsidies is appropriate because we have massive highway subsidizes. This is the “two, three, four wrongs make it right” rationale. What would stop other do-gooders from demanding taxpayer subsidies for bikes, walking shoes, rickshaws, jet packs, high gas mileage cars, space flight, etc? Oops, scratch those last two—we already have massive government subsidies for them.
Just maybe, just perhaps government highway and airline subsidies from the mid 20th century forward had something to do with private passenger rail service going away in the first place.
According to Ms. Saporta and the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO), Amtrak served about 25 million passengers in fiscal year 2004. What Ms. Saporta fails to tell you, is two-thirds of those passengers were served on a 650-mile corridor between Washington DC and Boston, MA. What else did Ms. Saporta fail to tell us?
GAO says, for every dollar Amtrak earns in food and beverage revenue, it spends two dollars. Amtrak lost a total of $245 million on food and beverage between 2002 and 2004.
The KPMG financial audit on Amtrak’s web site says passenger related revenue declined 4.6% between 2002 and 2003.
A 2001 CATO Policy Analysis report says U.S. taxpayers spent about $800 million dollars per year subsidizing Amtrak since its creation in 1970.
A 1997 study by the Reason Public Policy Institute (RPPI) shows steady passenger decline since 1972 based on percentage of total intercity passenger trips. Amtrak went from 0.8% to 0.4%. Amtrak started low and went microscopic!
RPPI found that three-fourths of Amtrak passengers have incomes above the national average.
Instead of soliciting more government theft on the Fourth of July, I recommend Ms. Saporta consider the words and content of The U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution. These documents were, and still are, a limitation on government. They no longer apply; but once upon a time, their authors thought them sufficient to protect us from thieves in Washington.
Ms. Saporta is not alone. Most of our fellow citizens do not see the immorality of using government force to extract private property from their neighbors. The recent Supreme Court eminent domain ruling may have opened a few eyes, but not many. Using government coercion to continue throwing other people’s money down the Amtrak rat hole is immoral. Ms. Saporta can waste her own money but she needs to keep her paws off mine. Those that want to ride in rickshaws should pay for rickshaws.
Please consider carefully every article you read about politicians, governments, and those who support them. When you do, you will find nothing more than theft disguised as logic, charity, and goodness. Ms. Saporta’s logic is weak, her charity is for a select few, and her motives are suspect.
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