WAPO OP ED: G. Will: Amtrak is a waste of money: Biden funds it anyway

[lindysalsagal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/30/right-time-its-all-aboard-more-amtrak-billions/

Opinion: Right on time, it’s all-aboard for more Amtrak billions by George F. Will Columnist June 30, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. EDT

Of history’s three most famous love affairs — Abelard and Heloise, Romeo and Juliet, Joe Biden and Amtrak — only the third teaches a civics lesson. If President Biden has his way, taxpayers will give Amtrak yet another $80 billion; it received more than $100 billion in subsidies in its first 50 years. Nevertheless, it is remarkably efficient. Not as a railroad, but as an illustration of how many permutations of waste the government can generate when it goes into business.

blah-blah-blah-
In the early 1970s, Amtrak’s share of U.S. passenger travel was approximately 0.16 percent. In 2019, it was 0.10 percent. Yet it stands to receive 26 percent of the transportation dollars in Biden’s infrastructure bill.

Amtrak’s plan for new connections to some cities makes more political than transportation sense. O’Toole: “It currently has no trains at all into Wyoming; adding a line to Cheyenne will potentially get it two more votes in the Senate.” Los Angeles to Las Vegas? Trips by four bus companies, leaving about every half hour, cost as little as $20. Fares also begin at $20 for the eight airlines offering, together, about two flights an hour.

Amtrak is, however, a gift that keeps on giving by demonstrating government’s propensity for perpetuating its mistakes. The year after Amtrak was born, Arlo Guthrie recorded a song about the Illinois Central’s “City of New Orleans” passenger train: “This train’s got the disappearing railroad blues.” Actually, this train still loses money three times a week running (a scheduled) 19 hours each way between New Orleans and Chicago. Amtrak will never disappear, but this year’s tranche of billions will, and so will subsequent subsidies by the billions.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. SOOOOOOOOOO tired of these one-note 'conservatives.' WTF are they 'conserving?'

[spooky3]

2. Their own power and privilege, they hope. Nt

[lagomorph777]

8. George Will is a waste of Oxygen. Looking forward to conserving that oxygen...

...when he passes.

[eShirl]

3. how come every other 1st world country can have good public transportation and we cannot?

[XanaDUer2]

17. cuz were 'Murica

we have freedom from public benefits

[gratuitous]

4. Government spending isn't supposed to be wasted on poor people

Government spending is supposed to be done for the benefit of the wealthy. Ever notice how the roads to the airports are always in good repair? And while airlines may make money or lose money, the government is always there to back them up. Rail travel? Eugh! You can run into some very poor people on the train, and there is no flight crew to shoo them back to steerage and leave the first class passengers alone.

[XanaDUer2]

15. THIS!

Fuck George will

[PortTack]

5. Amtrak was making a profit b4 the pandemic, and it will again

[mahatmakanejeeves]

16. That's a bit of a stretch.

Rail News >> Home Amtrak 11/24/2020

Rail News: Amtrak
Amtrak posts $801 million operating loss in FY2020

Just prior to the pandemic hitting the United States in March, Amtrak was on track to break even financially for the first time in its history and achieve record ridership in fiscal-year 2020.

Instead, facing unprecedented challenges related to the pandemic, Amtrak posted a fiscal-year 2020 operating loss of $801 million on total operating revenue of $2.3 billion, down 32 percent compared with FY2019 revenue. The national intercity passenger railroad provided 16.8 million customer trips in FY2020, a year-over-year decrease of 15.2 million trips compared with last year.

{snip}

Amtrak officials are hoping Congress will soon pass pandemic relief and economic stimulus legislation, but negotiations on Capitol Hill have stalled. The railroad is seeking up to $4.9 billion in federal funding to help the railroad get through the unprecedented crisis. Typically, Amtrak receives from Congress about $2 billion annually toward its operations.

{snip}

[brooklynite]

24. The Northeast Corridor makes a profit (exclusive of capital costs); the intercity routes do not.

[OLDMDDEM]

6. George Will

While Mr. Will has been an anti-Trumper, he is very outdated. I'm not one to use age against anyone (I am 73 years old), but he is old for this time. My wife and I have used Amtrak to take our grandkids to see New York City when they were younger. Half the fun was riding the train. Fund Amtrak and keep it going.

Time to retire Mr. Will.

[PatSeg]

20. Oh yes, long past time

For a short time, I enjoyed his criticisms of Trump, but he is back to his same old tired routine and the world has moved ahead without him and his opinions.

[OLDMDDEM]

23. Well said nt.

[hatrack]

7. Coming soon - retire the debt by defunding PBS, NPR and National Endowment for the Humanities!!!

Get some new material, George.

[frazzled]

12. Not that much to defund

It was big news recently, for example, that the 2022 budget raised the funding for the National Endowment for the Arts to a whopping $201 million. That’s chicken feed for any agency, especially when the arts are a huge economic generator in the US (not to mention an unheralded but significant US export and foreign policy tool).:

Iin 2019, economic activity in the sector had been expanding:

Production of arts and cultural goods and services in the U.S. added 4.3 percent directly to the nation’s GDP, for a total approaching a trillion dollars ($919.7 billion).
This amount remains greater than the value added by such industries as construction, transportation and warehousing, mining, and agriculture.

Arts and cultural industries had 5.2 million workers on payroll with total compensation of $447 billion. This figure does not include self-employed arts workers.
Other findings from the ACPSA:

Over a three-year period (2017-2019), the value added to GDP from arts and cultural production has grown at a three percent clip—slightly higher than the growth rate for the U.S. economy as a whole.

Leading growth industries include: web publishing and web streaming services (+11.8 percent), fine arts education (+9.8 percent), and landscape architectural services (+ 7.8 percent
The arts continue to generate a widening trade surplus. From 2006 to 2019, this surplus has grown 10‐fold, to more than $33 billion.

https://www.arts.gov/about/news/2021/new-report-released-economic-impact-arts-and-cultural-sector

[hatrack]

19. Oh, it's the same old same old with these tired old clowns . . .

Amtrak's a fetish object, like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

If they can just defund these fetish objects (or open them to drilling), they can (A) break the librulz and (B) restore monetary soundness in one fell swoop.

That, at least, is the evergreen delusion.

[PatSeg]

21. Isn't it fun to be outraged over

this sort of issue again though? It almost makes me feel nostalgic. Still it is time for George Will to retire. He hasn't grown or changed in decades, aside from his brief clarity during the Trump administration.

[onecaliberal]

9. Right wing hack said what?

[hlthe2b]

10. FU, George Will and your self-entitlement. You may hop a Lear jet, but most of us...

[ProfessorGAC]

11. Stick To Baseball, George

His whole philosophy has been proven wrong and it's morphed into something even he hates.
He should admit he's wrong, retire, and go to the ballgame everyday.

[Bayard]

13. More people would use Amtrak if it was available in their area

[JHB]

14. Is he calling us commies again? He's done that before about Amtrak supporters

To sum up, our freakish love for trains is because we're a pack of socialists.

He was so emphatic about it that what it really showed off was his freakish hatred of trains.

[underpants]

18. How many aircraft carriers do we have?

Asking for a friend.

[Zorro]

22. George Will is a dishonorable character

He stole Jimmy Carter's debate prep book and gave it to the Reagan campaign. Don't know why anyone would pay attention to his opinions.

More about that pretentious bowtied blowhard here:

https://fair.org/home/the-hypocrisy-of-george-will/

[Kid Berwyn]

25. THIS 👆

Was working for Reagan and didn’t mention it to his employer, ABC, or their viewers.

[MichMan]

26. Is he correct about the 26% ?

[flotsam]

27. NH here, wanted to visit my brother near Orlando in 2003

I'm a little crippled up but I thought it would be cool to travel by train and shoot photos of the trip...At the time Jet Blue round trip was slightly over $200. To take Amtrak I would need to go to a park n ride one town over-then 30 miles by shuttle bus to Portsmouth NH where I would finally catch a train. 40 miles later I would arrive in Boston. There I would have to change not just trains, but actual stations. Then about a 200 mile jaunt to NYC where-you guessed-change trains. Straight shot to DC/Virginia and-sing it with me-change trains. Straight shot down to Florida where SURPRISE-I get a shuttlebus to my final destination.

Depending on how you count it Amtrak was about 7 legs and 22 hours of travel AFTER I reached Portsmouth. Total Amtrak price was $450 plus one way.

Here's the thing-I was highly motivated to go by train and even the cost would not have deterred me-the Killer was being even slightly handicapped back then the shitty East Coast infrastructure for the railroad was simply inadequate even compared to I-95 completed 60 years ago-My brother has made the same trip by car in the same amount of time.

So what Mr. Wills doesn't get is that this $80 billion dollars is not to subsidize passenger operations-it is to build a new complete infrastructure in such a way as to attract millions of new riders. The actual plane trip will always be faster (If you ignore the "arrive 2 hours prior to boarding) but if you could cut the car trip time in half and end the multiple changes to travel a straight line and you could be truly competitive. The thing is "of course EUROPE can do it" cannot explain why Canada can too. Their country is every bit as wide and even at a snowier latitude and winter and summer they run multiple cross country routes that make our rails look like dogshit.

Every mile ridden on a train is one less driven in a car-which at least 95% of which are internal combustion. Railroads, light rail, streetcars and trolleys all need to come back along with electric buses and shuttles. George Will sees this as a waste-I see it as a start. Complain about $80 billion George-Where was your voice when the asshole orange God of the Republicans tossed away $1800 billion on tax cuts for the wealthy? Then shut the fuck up!

[lindysalsagal]

28. What NH said.

[flotsam]

29. TYVM Ma'am N/T

[Deminpenn]

30. There's nothing better than train travel

I wish there was better and faster passenger service between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Harrisburg, State College and points east. I'd be doing a lot of day trips.