Amtrak budget debated; Bush threatens veto

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WASHINGTON -- With gasoline prices high and airports congested this summer, record numbers of Americans are traveling on Amtrak passenger trains. Still, even with a 5.4 percent jump in ridership so far this year, Amtrak is not taking in enough money to continue operating and also pay for critically needed upgrades of rail cars, bridges, tunnels, and other infrastructure.

"Our equipment is aging," Amtrak President and CEO Alex Kummant told Congress last week. Referring to dining cars built in the early 1950s, he noted, "We do a good job of maintaining them . . . but there comes an end point."

To help keep the US passenger railroad rolling, especially in states outside the Northeast, two Democratic-controlled congressional committees last week approved spending measures that would boost the subsidized rail system's budget far higher than President Bush would like.

On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $1.4 billion budget for Amtrak in fiscal 2008, up from this year's $1.3 billion. On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $1.37 billion budget.

Both spending bills are expected to win approval in their respective chambers.

Then a compromise funding figure would be negotiated for the final bill, which likely would pass in late September. But Bush wants Congress to spend only $800 million on Amtrak, and has promised to veto any spending bills that exceed his budget requests.
http://www.utu.org/worksite/detail_news.cfm?ArticleID=36637
 
Given that Bush has vetoed only two bills in 6 and a half years, I'm not particularly concerned. Besides, Congress has always allocated more money for Amtrak than Bush has wanted, and Bush has never done anything. This seems like it will end as an empty threat.
 
Given that Bush has vetoed only two bills in 6 and a half years, I'm not particularly concerned. Besides, Congress has always allocated more money for Amtrak than Bush has wanted, and Bush has never done anything. This seems like it will end as an empty threat.
Agreed; just more rhetoric to fill up tomorrow's newspaper. There are far more important things to think about like getting our boys out of harm's way in Iraq.
 
Bush wants states to get involved with 80/20 funding. This scare tactic had limited success which is why

he continue try. He won't veto the bill.
 
Where does he think the federal funds come from? I guess somebody needs to call him aside and explain that the federal AND state funds all come from us, the citizens, and that (surprise!!) we all live in the states, soooooo all the money he has came from the states in the first place.
 
I agree with everyone here,

The President has much bigger fish to fry than to worry about Amtrak! Which of course is of great advantage to those of us who travel by train!
 
I don't agree with Bush tactic, but I agree with the idea. 80/20 funding would be verrrrrry good for Amtrak.
 
Most states dont want to pay for any system because . The politicians all get donations from cab companies, rental car agencies and airliners. Who benefit from their use. I live in South Florida were public corruption is at a all time high. But they are going to dump another billion dollars into MIA. FDOT has been working on the turnpike in Palm Beach county for over 15 years. Ft. lauderdale airport is getting ready to expand. FDOT is getting ready to build a highway over 595 to downtown FT. lauderdale for people coming from Weston fl. So there is money for a rail system it just wont put enough money in the right peoples pocket. And Jeb Bush has spent his whole 8 years in office fighting a rail system in florida. and he says we dont have the money but people are crying about high property taxes which goes to state and local goverment.
 
I don't agree with Bush tactic, but I agree with the idea. 80/20 funding would be verrrrrry good for Amtrak.
Tell me where the States can get money when there broke????
Texas had a $6 billion surplus. Besides LD trains and regional trains are not that expensive. An Example, a train running between Houston and Dallas would cost about $8 operating cost...Texas would pay only 20%.
 
Thank goodness for a democratic congress. Bush has no problems giving takes breaks to drive a Hummer, but tries to cut Amtrak funding. I hope this country can last another year until we kick this fool out of office.
 
I don't see any reason to doubt Bush when he says he'll veto the Amtrak bill. He prides himself on his "plain talk" and would see it as losing face if he signed the bill, saying, "Just kidding about that veto threat."

Given that he's vetoed stem cell bills despite strong bipartisan support, vetoing an Amtrak bill would be nothing. It *might* be different if Amtrak funding is one section of a massive bill that he otherwise supports, but if the Amtrak portion be stand-alone I'm quite sure he'd veto it. It'll be interesting to count the final congressional votes to see if there'd be enough for an override.

And let's not even get into the Lautenberg-Lott bill...
 
What is is really stupid about is that trains really do need a massive investment.

About 600 billion in my opinion for a nationwide high speed system.

But back to the real world. Bush gets upset about 1.4 billion for Amtrak but spends 1.2 billion on his "hydrogen initiative".

Hydrogen powered is a load of crap and a fantasy fuel that will never power our cars in our lifetime, if ever.

The couple hydrogen cars that we see from automakers are most built and engineered using taxpayer dollars. Thats 1.2 billion dollars that we could be doing something better with that will actually help our greenhouse gas emissions ... amtrak.
 
80/20 funding is good because it puts railroad capital spending on an even keel with highway and air infrastructure spending. Generally the transportation bills have the fed govt put up 80% if the state will put up 20% for air and roads, and this has never been the case for railroads (a relic of the days when the RR business didn't need any help finding capital: robber barons and so forth!).

So if Illinois has $20 million to spend, it can do $20 million worth of work re-laying track to get the Black Hawk line up again. Or it can do $100 million worth of work widening roads and building interchanges and so forth. So even though it's all "our" money, there just is no federal money available for railroads (and no reason for states to step in), so that work is the last to get done.

80/20 is the way to go. It would be verrrrry good indeed for Amtrak, there's a lot of states waiting on this to get serious about some passenger rail projects. But it is also the best way to run things from a public policy perspective. If the federal money is available to anyone who can match 20%, it gets spent where there really is a need. Otherwise if there's a pot of money for RR infrastructure available with no stipulation, it will just be spent however the powers that be choose! So then you have maybe 90% of Amtrak's capital budget go to shaving 7 minutes off the Acela trip. Hmmm, not so different from how it is now!
 
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