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 ast
week Amtrak got the green light from the Secretary of Transportation
to mortgage New York City's Pennsylvania Station.
As Amtrak celebrates
thirty years with a $3-billion dollar debt, what better gift to
American taxpayers than to make it work? By selling it.
Acting as if
they were meeting the needs of their constituents, Republicans have
happily teamed up with Amtrak bureaucrats bent on keeping the ailing
federal boondoggle alive on life support.
Earlier this
year Amtrak unveiled a 20-year plan, marketing itself as an alternative
to overcrowded airports and jammed roads, promising to modernize
and expand, and to develop eleven new high-speed rail corridors.
Amtrak president
and chief executive George Warrington has complained that Amtrak's
problems stem from a lack of funding, and that the rail service
has been denied adequate funding since its creation in 1971. But
throughout its history, Amtrak has seen a steady flow in federal
subsidies, totaling over $23 billion. It has averaged $812 million
in annual losses over the past decade.
"It's
time to slay this albatross. The request to mortgage off Penn Station
should be the last straw for Congress, which has oversight over
Amtrak" says Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation. The move,
he says, is a sign of "financial desperation of an Amtrak swiftly
drifting toward financial insolvency. With losses mounting and worsening,
there's no way this loan can ever be paid back except through more
taxpayer subsidies."
America's railways
are too important for the federal government to manage. "Secretary
Mineta's recommendation to cut back the route system should be adopted,
and Amtrak's delusional plan to expand the route system should be
rejected," says Utt.
Amtrak loses
nearly two dollars for every dollar it earns; the more it sells
the more it loses. And so, any proposed expansion inevitably burdens
the taxpayer. Cut Amtrak loose, and you cut everybody's losses.
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