Precisely!The bottom line for the US is as long as it insists on maintaining its spending habits on maintaining a huge armed forces and insist on indirectly subsidizing unsustainable lifestyles, there is no saving it from its own demise, even if all of the expenditures on infrastructure are zeroed out. It is just a question of when people will stop grandstanding and start dealing with the real issues. Amtrak is really not one of the real issues. It is a feel good thing to talk about by those who are scared to deal with the real issues, which usually has more to do with their own habits and proclivities and changing them.
I can't find the story anymore, unfortunately I forgot to bookmark it. But in any event some enterprising reporter from California IIRC, interviewed last fall right after the election, one of the newly elected conservatives in Congress. Don't recall if he was a Tea Party candidate or just a mainstream Republican. He asked how they were going to control spending and start reducing the deficit. He got the typical response that they would cut all the unneeded and unnecessary spending.
So the reporter asked him, "Are you going to make cuts to the military?" "No" was the response. The reporter asked, "Are you going to make cuts to Medicaid?" Again the response was, "NO". The reporter asked him similar questions about another 2 or 3 big ticket items. Each time the response was "No". The reporter then said, "Well what I just listed represents like 80% of the budget. Even if you cut every other remaining program/department to zero, those items that I just listed will outspend the income and the deficit will continue to increase, so how are you going to be able to decrease the deficit?" The Congressman had no answer!