Liberals love public transportation and no one in government has been a better friend to Amtrak than Vice President Joe Biden, who just announced a multi-billion dollar federal loan to Amtrak.
Of course, calling it a loan assumes it will be paid back at some point. How is Amtrak going to pay back the loan when it has never even been profitable? Amtrak couldn’t even continue to exist without huge government subsidies.
Also, as you should note in the CNN report below, the lion’s share of the loan is going towards trains and maintenance in… You guessed it, Washington, DC.
From the report:
Biden announces $2.45 billion federal loan to Amtrak
Vice President Joe Biden announced Friday a $2.45 billion loan to Amtrak from the Department of Transportation, the largest loan in the department’s history.
Biden announced the new loan at his namesake Joseph R. Biden Jr., Train Station in Wilmington, Delaware.
The $2.45 billion will be used to purchase 28 new train sets for the high-speed Acela train between Washington through New York and into Boston. The money will also be used to rehabilitate railroad tracks and upgrade four stations, including Washington’s Union Station and Baltimore’s Penn Station.
“This loan is a key step to providing investments needed to help keep high speed trains moving throughout the region, and to help all commuters in the Northeast Corridor,” Biden said. “We need these kinds of investments to keep this region — and our whole country — moving, and to create new jobs.”
CNN reported in May that many aspects of US rail systems — particularly along the Northeast Corridor — are in need of repair and rehabilitation. The price of renewing and safeguarding the web of railways that covers the over 450-mile East Coast stretch stands at an estimated $20 billion.
Amtrak is funding the train sets and infrastructure improvements through the Federal Railroad Administration’s Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing program that will be repaid through growth in Northeast Corridor revenues, Amtrak has said.
Amtrak is already heavily subsidized by the federal government. The system’s 2015 adjusted operating loss was $306.5 million, the most recent year for which data is available, and the service requested $1.83 billion in federal funding for the 2017 fiscal year, Amtrak told CNN Friday.
Why must taxpayers prop up Amtrak year after year?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to find a way to make the service profitable, or at least to operate within the bounds of its budget?
(Image:Source)
