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| What Amtrak Spends Its Money On |
| 2015-05-15 |
| [NationalReview] Before the bodies had been pulled out of the wreckage, Democrats were preaching the poor-mouth about Amtrak funding, often dishonestly. (Seriously, how is it that a Washington Post writer and his Washington Post editors don’t understand how federal spending works?) Smoking ruins of train cars in Philadelphia, and the usual ghouls start up with the usual thing: “Oh, if those mean Republicans had only let us spend money on the trains, this wouldn’t have happened!” As has already been pointed out, everything from the stimulus bill to regular appropriations has spent billions of dollars on Amtrak, and Amtrak still failed to install the speed-control system that was supposed to be completed this year — a system that the NTSB and others believe would have prevented this accident. Read it all about the non shocking business as usual at a GSE (government subsidized entity) |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #8 Amtrak doesn't own the track it rides on Amtrak owns the Northeast Corridor, where the accident happened. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2015-05-15 14:44 |
| #7 Besides which, the Positive Train Control (PTC) everyone babbles about is a GPS-based computer controlled system to prevent union locomotive drivers from falling asleep or texting whilst running past red signals. After PTC, we'll get Federally-mandated self-driving cars, so drunks can continue to drive drunk and teens can continue to text and drive. PTC got a big push over the top with the crash in 2008, caused by a loco driver texting right through a red signal into a head-on collision with a freight train. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2015-05-15 13:39 |
| #6 Amtrak doesn't own the track it rides on. Freight RR's own the track. It is a lose lose proposition. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2015-05-15 09:31 |
| #5 The Democratic law-makers and our fearless leader are all calling for more money to be thrown at this--but then again they always call for more money to be thrown at everything--even when lack of money is not the problem. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2015-05-15 08:51 |
| #4 A good chunk of it is spent on 'studies' and more 'studies' and 'studies about what to study'. Where they hire some high priced consultant to tell them the rails go along the ground parallel to each other for $200K. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2015-05-15 08:32 |
| #3 Infrastructure spending I saw around here following the 'shovel-ready stimulus' was most noted in stripping somewhat-worn asphalt off some highways and re=paving them (old pavement seemed like it had several years of life left in it, and other roads were/are lots worse), replacing or supplementing slow-to-arrive state money on a couple of ongoing major projects (including Katrina repairs) and possibly helping pay for streetcar line expansion (also already underway & undoubtedly funded out of some other pocket.) One has to wonder what the monies previously budgeted for these projects got diverted to once the magic stimulus money came. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2015-05-15 07:56 |
| #2 The money was spent on salaries, not infrastructure or components or equipment. This is what happens at government agencies. Those employed by them always, always attempt to make sure that any additional money that comes their way goes towards their pay rather than accomplishing their mission. If everyone working at Amtrak had forgone a raise for the past two years they could have easily afforded the equipment and the contractors to install and test and maintain it. But it's easier to get between a steak and a starved wolf than between a public employee and their magic check. In the final analysis we see once again that the purpose of the "stimulus" was not to jump start the private economy but to bribe the publicly employed to stay on as loyal Democrat voters and campaigners for as long as possible. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2015-05-15 05:23 |
| #1 There is an unwritten covenant in this and other countries that we maintain our present public infrastructure and build new infrastructure for ourselves and our descendants. Unfortunately, during the last 40 years or so, we have not lived up to the terms of that covenant, have spent much of our national wealth on frivolous projects and tons of entitlements, and pitifully little on basic infrastructure. Now we are trying to play catch-up, except now we are broke, in more ways than just money. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2015-05-15 01:24 |