The Amtrak accident in Philadelphia came hours before the House Appropriations Committee was due to meet to debate a transportation bill. Amtrak is a for-profit entity, but its board is appointed by the president, and it is entirely funded by the government, receiving roughly $1.4 billion a year in subsidies. It operates in the red, losing $227 million a year.
Congress has been considering tightening the purse-strings. The Senate has been slow to approve $7.8 billion in Amtrak funding that has been passed by the House. Much of the money would go to prop up sagging rails and refurbish rolling stock.
But John Boehner said discussing Amtrak funding in the wake of the crash was “stupid”. Boehner noted that the crash was caused by the train going too fast, not bad infrastructure. Republicans prefer to attack the national train system because only Democrats ride trains, not good truck driving folks. We should invest in modern high-speed trains to zip Americans around the country. We could also invest in a better safety infrastructure so that train wrecks don’t happen if they are the fault of the engineer or conductor. Instead, the rail industry and its Republican friends are pushing for the reduction of train crews on freight trains, which could cause more crashes.
Sadly, the Goldilocks Moment (when it’s “just right”) to discuss practical responses to a tragedy can be discerned only by Mr. Boehner. Yesterday was too early, and politicized the tragedy by pointing out how Republican policies and governance set the stage for eight people to be killed. At some point, John Boehner will tell us it’s now “too late” to get any legislation in the hopper.
Amtrak has received $45 billion in subsidies from the 1970’s to the present. That’s about one year’s taxpayer support for big oil. Democrats should absolutely push for greater Amtrak funding in the wake of the crash.
Don’t expect Boehner or any Republican to take any real heat for opposing this, but it makes their moral position on these issues completely clear.
Time to wake up America! Infrastructure upgrading is not anti-American. For your morning wake up call, here is the Veery Thrush, also called the Wilson’s Thrush:
For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.
Monday’s Hot Links:
The Antarctic’s Larsen “B” and “C” ice shelf’s are going away by 2020. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that the “B” shelf is now “approaching demise.” NASA adds that the ice shelf “is likely to disintegrate completely before the end of the decade.” But, global warming is a hoax…
A 10-year-old oil leak where an offshore platform toppled during a hurricane could continue spilling crude into the Gulf of Mexico for a century or more if left unchecked. No, it isn’t the BP leak. Taylor Energy Company owned the platform and has played down the extent and environmental impact of the leak. The Coast Guard provided a leak estimate that is about 20 times greater than one provided by the company. Quelle surprise! An American company tries to minimize its responsibilities.
A New Zealand company called Touchpoint Group is building a robot that will be angry all the time. The idea is to let angry customers speak to a machine instead of human call center agents. The robot will collect the data to better serve you with bullshit responses.
Inequality Watch: Scientists find alarming deterioration in DNA of the urban poor. Well, if you lived a life of constant worry over money and how you would pay your bills, raise your kids with enough food, clothing and self-respect, your DNA might deteriorate too!!!
Raul Castro says that Pope Francis may get him to return to religion. Mr. Castro said: “I will resume praying and turn to the Church again if the Pope continues in this vein.” This Pope may really be the Rightologist!
Here is an extra wake-up for you this spring morning. Unclear how this pose happened, but it is relaxing:
Funny about this issue. It is infrastructure that we lack – state of the art speed controls, and state of the art road bed (so no more wooden ties). And we need the best railcars for oil transport (and no –can’t always rely on a pipeline cause the oil field comes way before a pipeline can be built.
And of course you react to a tragedy, that’s how we learn.
The wrongologist’s comments on congressional complicity regarding the Amtrak tragedy through a years long failure to fund needed safety equipment waiting to be installed dovetails with another piece in todays paper. It labels the GOP as the party of the old with no vision for America’s future much the way the aged don’t have much of a future orientation for themselves.
The article suggests that this may be because the GOP itself doesn’t have a future. Their preposterous narrative rallying around life in the 1950’s along with their narrowing appeal doesn’t suggest good times ahead. Certainly they don’t seem too worried about roads, bridges, rail and airports, funding education, medical research, out of control and illegal intelligence practices or anything else that the people are increasingly concerned about. As the GOP clown car fills with hopeful candidates on their way to 2016, they might want to open one of those rose colored windows to see where they really are.